#rhiwrites

Not in any lucid-dreaming way, nor from any sense of what the fuck was that? when you inevitably awaken, but there's a quality about your dreams lately that makes them feel real. More real than your actual life, half the time. You know you're not lucid under your own volition; that would imply you're able to influence anything that happens in these bouts of unconsciousness, that you're the one stitching together threads of a tapestry still in progress. Lucidity would imply control.

You know better than to even pretend you're in charge here.

Not when his presence permeates every pore, every cell of your incorporeality. Even on the nights you don't see him, you know he's there, just beyond the veil, watching you.

The routine of it has become familiar by now. Not a night has gone by since the first where you don't fall into this dreamworld almost immediately upon fading out of consciousness. The fear—metallic and oily and thick on the back of your tongue—doesn't even register anymore.

Maybe it should.

You're here again. 'Here' is a relative term, the logical part of your brain knows. Sometimes the dreamworld tastes like blood and sears just as hot—never enough to burn or scar, but enough to be uncomfortable. Sometimes the landscape teems with vicious life, glossy leaves, and a shattered city. Sometimes, your personal favorite, the dreams take you here, a place that feels paradoxically safe. Ancient ruins perch percariously on the cliffside, overlooking vast fields of rolling hills. The air smells of ash and rot, sweet but not enough to stop the instinct to gag with the first deep breath.

A breeze rustles through the sparse, hardy blooms that have forced their way through cracks in the banded cliffside. You don't have to look to know the flowers are five-petaled and softly furred; their deep fuschia throats give way to pastel putrescence at the edges. The scent of rot strengthens when you step back from the edge, accidentally crushing one of the flowers underfoot.

Behind you, a familiar facade. Caves pockmark the jagged rockface as it ascends towards the bruise-mottled sky. Fragments of broken pottery, multicolor glaze peeking out behind eons of gathered dust, litter the ground. Most of the recesses here are shallow, you know. A few trail deeper into the sandstone, only to dead-end just where the faint daylight fades into oblivion. You don't like those caves. Sometimes you're compelled to squeeze into them, to contort your body, suck in your chest and pray to whatever unholy being you're not afraid of that you won't get stuck again.

Dying in the dreamworld hasn't stopped you from waking. Not yet.

But you have the uncomfortable sensation there's only so many times you can play roulette before coming up lucky. Unlucky. Whatever.

Thankfully, tonight, the presence of your unseen voyeur isn't yet urging you in a specific direction. You take the opportunity to try to gather yourself. Though this is your favorite place in the dreamworld, 'favorite' too is a relative term.

Exploring the depths of the main cave is only slightly less terrifying than running from fiends in the concrete jungle or waiting for a thousand eyes to peer at you through the blanket of fog.

The cave, at least, is also the only place you've reliably encountered your watcher.

Rocks crunch under your boots as you trudge along the cliff's edge to the left past the main cave. Until or unless your head starts to feel like it'll burst, you have time. Time to strategize, to wonder, to simply think. It's a luxury you rarely have in your waking life.

Scanning the distant horizon, hazy with a dust storm, you take a slow breath and hold it. Grit scrapes the insides of your nostrils, but this, too, is familiar. You sink into a criss-cross seated position, back to the caves. Nothing stirs here except the wind and the flowers. This high up, the wind should be constant, but there are lulls, too regular to ignore. Like this entire dead world is breathing right along with you. Like the thick-bellied clouds pressing down from the sky aren't condensed water but a massive gullet, and you're just another morsel swallowed down and caught in the esophagus.

The physiology of a god, after all, can't be expected to match that of a human. As far as you know, an ancient deity's body is a world unto itself. Deserts and cities and blood clots, all.

It doesn't rain here. Not in any of the dreamscapes. The dust never settles. The heavens don't split and wash the sins of a god away, and you have to wonder, not for the first time, whether the aid you've willingly promised to him will be enough to remind this place what the kiss of water can do.

Pressure twinges deep in your sinuses. Exhaling slowly, you wait. Could be a sneeze. Could be him. Hard to tell this early. But when the pressure only intensifies, spreading, until it feels like thumbs pressing on the backs of your eyeballs and like your brain is being forced into a space too small for it, you know time's up.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," you mutter.

Pushing to your feet, you turn back to the cave. That yawning maw, a pair of stone jaws unhinged and perpetually starving, ready to devour you whole. You try not to look at it until you have to. Toeing a small chunk of rock over the cliffside, you listen to the way it clatters and echoes before the wind resumes and snatches the sound away.

The pressure in your head doesn't abate until you're within feet of the rectangle of void beckoning you into the bones of the earth. You raise your gaze. The doorway is flanked by crumbling columns, fluted by mortal precision and eroded by the patience of divinity. The pediment's severe angles bear similar signs of deterioration, though the central disc with that haunting, ever-present sigil appears pristine. The circular stone gleams like its artisan just finished polishing it. You let your eyes trace the sharp lines, the graceful center curve, the spokes of a sun's rising—or a crown of thorns. Beneath the pediment itself, an etching of a few words in a language you can't decipher, no matter how much research you attempt in your conscious moments. Still, skimming the runes sends a frisson of electricity up your spine, hairs standing on end. Thunder rumbles, sounding far too like laughter for comfort.

You step into the waiting portal.

Darkness cloys at the edges of the tunnel. In your periphery, you swear the shadows quiver, with anticipation or anxiety or both, but when you tilt your head down, they're no more mobile than the rocks casting them. The diseased daylight suffuses the carved pathway for a few dozen feet before it begins to fade. Setting your shoulders, you push deeper.

The moment the light abandons you, you feel it—you feel him. No, wait. There's more than one tonight. Though it makes no difference in what you see (or rather, don't see), you scrunch your eyes shut to concentrate. Yes, there's your usual voyeur, his presence second-nature, your survival instincts so dulled to him that even if he were to present as a danger, you're not sure you'd recognize it until his teeth were in you. But beyond him, beyond your awareness of him, anyway, are the others.

All three of the others, to be exact.

Heart slamming into your ribcage with a sudden ferocity, you swallow thickly, tasting stale air and ancient dirt and something else. The tang of your own fear. Your breath, steady but too fast, reverberates back to you off the stone walls.

You don't want to speak. Don't want to entice all of them closer, to let them hear the tremor in your voice, but that all-encompassing pressure in your skull shifts again, lower, until it feels nearly like a hand on your throat. Licking your lips, you give in to the demand.

"I'm here," you whisper.

Manic giggles echo from somewhere deeper along the tunnel, or maybe from inside the rocks themselves. Suddenly you're aware of the innumerable tons of solid earth sitting over your head, kept at bay by an architecture carved before memory. You swallow again.

"What—" Your voice cracks, and another peal of unhinged laughter sussurates up from the void. "What am I here for tonight?"

Whispers of voices, so many voices, hush along the rocks around you and nearly vibrate the air. You can never tell what they're saying; you're not even sure they're speaking the same language you are. One of the presences shifts closer, cold and just this side of foreign. You resist the urge to twitch your head left to track the movement.

The rules of the dreamworld are simple, really.

Rule one: don't run.

Rule two: don't scream.

Rule three: don't look for them.

Rule four: always invite them in.

You've never broken a single rule in all your time spent away from the waking world, and you don't intend to start tonight.

"You're almost ready," the nearest presence sighs out. His voice breaks against your skin like ice chips spat from an unforgiving sky: sharp and frigid, melting quickly to drench you in freezing water.

Part of rule four is to always respond. They don't like being unanswered, even, perhaps especially, when they haven't asked a single question.

Questions are your domain.

"Ready for what?"

Another presence, this one devoid of temperature but radiating a palpable force, crowds your other side. You clench your hands into fists to hide the trembles. This isn't the first time the others have approached you, but it has been a long time. Your body remembers them but your mind shrieks with the uncertainty of your position. Oblivion is so close you can feel it, and what it feels like is them.

The vessels.

The one radiating his own forcefield chuckles, the sound grating from this close. "'Ready for wot', she says. Don't tell me he didn't tell you, pet."

Brow furrowing, you try to wrack your brain, ignoring the way his voice batters your body like polar magnets, simultaneously drawing you in and repulsing you, a strange sensation that is sure to leave bruises everywhere it hits. You know whose domain this is, you know the reason you've been returning here night after night after night—at least, you think you know. You recall flashes of an answer given in this self-same void, that the shape of your dreams would feed an old god and keep Him from destroying the waking realm. Gnawing at your cheek, you exhale a little sharply.

"He told me," you say, sounding far more confident than you really ought to.

Your skin buzzes with energy as that presence looms closer. "Did he, now? Well, how about that. Whatcha say, II, you sure she's not ready just yet?"

If you could see, you're certain you'd find your breath condensing in the air when the first presence, II, moves closer. You hadn't known his name before. Or, if you had, you'd been made to forget. The dreams are slippery like that. You only remember yourself, the world, and him, but rarely the others. Rarely their names.

Rarely your own, too, it occurs to you in passing.

"Too soon," II says, voice so cold against your skin it burns, a paradox. "Besides, you agreed—"

"Ugh, don't remind me." The magnetic winds of the other's voice buffet you, nearly pushing you back a step. Only locking your knees keeps you rooted in place. "You know, I still don't think it really matters who does the taking, only that the taking is done, eh?"

A puff of frigid air brushes your cheek. You shiver. You're not sure if any of this warrants a response. You feel more like you're caught in the middle of a conversation happening over your head, about you, but not including you.

"III, how many times—"

"Enough."

A small noise escapes you at the introduction of a new voice. Deep and resonsant, in the dark it takes on the shape of a caress against your freezing, bruised body. Warmth like a spring sunshower diffuses through you, but in its wake it leaves behind the faint aftertaste of decay. Halitosis covered with honey and herbs. This presence remains at a distance.

With reluctance, II and III retreat. You heave a breath, lungs expanding to their full capacity for the first time in minutes.

"You both know better than to interfere with your brother's work," the new voice intones. "Go. Leave this one be. I don't need to remind you what will happen if you don't each find your own entertainment, do I?"

Your entire body feels like a compass pointing north, if north was that voice. This time, it isn't fear you have to steel yourself against, but desire. Turning toward a presence you can't even see would be a mistake, one you can't afford this deep into the dream. Always the undercurrent of awareness that you are dreaming runs through you, a second stream of consciousness beneath your currently-frantic thoughts. You don't want to know what happens when the rules get broken.

Thankfully, the bickering voices of II, III, and the one you don't know, or don't remember, fade quickly. You're alone again. Before you can process that bit of relief, the pressure in your skull returns. It's almost…gentle, this time, but you know if you hesitate, the softness won't last. So you take another blind step forward, hands half-outstretched to keep you from ramming face-first into any unseen corners.

The ground slopes almost imperceptibly. You only notice it because you've trodden this ground before, and because you find yourself leaning back just the slightest to counterbalance the angle. Yet, instead of the cold dampness you expect this deep in the earth, the air warms around you.

When that gentle warmth turns molten without warning, you know you've reached your destination. You've reached him.

"Apologies about that business earlier, dearest," comes a smooth, low voice from just ahead of you.

A smile touches your features. "Ivy. Finally. What was that all about?"

"Ask me again tomorrow," he says. "My brother was right, though. You're nearly ready."

Ignoring the previous request, you cross your arms. Ivy's presence, unbearably heated and as liable to bubble your skin as relax your aching muscles, has never carried the same terrifying weight as the others'. Maybe that's because you've known him longest, or maybe that's by design. Either way, you talk to him in a way you'd never dare with the other vessels.

"Ready for what?" you ask again, exasperation laced through your voice.

His chuckle is as warm as his being. "So impatient. If I tell you, you have to promise you'll come back again tomorrow."

You roll your eyes. You're sure he has no problem seeing in the pitch dark. "As if I have a choice."

"Don't you?"

"Do I?" You sigh, gesturing uselessly around you. "Every time I fall into bed, I end up here. Even on the nights I just want to rest, really rest. I open my eyes and I'm back here. So you tell me, Ivy."

He's silent long enough for you to grow uncomfortable. The scent of ash thickens in your nose as he shifts closer.

"Of course you have a choice," he murmurs. He's standing close enough that you swear you can feel every contour of his body just from the intensity of his heat alone. "The fact that you return nightly, even when you claim you wish not to, tells me that your true self, your deepest self, desires this above all else. You're quite strong in the dreamworld, in fact."

That's new to you. "Wait, what? Strong how?"

"You could cause us a lot of trouble, darling." His voice carries a smile. The image of a curved blade flashes through your mind, and you shiver despite the heat. "But that's not what you were asking about. You really want to know what my brothers were on about back there?"

Damn him, because now you can't dislodge the concept of you being any kind of trouble. You don't even get to choose where you go when you dream. You also don't often get to have full conversations like this. Something must truly be going on.

With a huff, you nod. "Yeah, yeah I want to know."

"Let me show you."

You expect that familiar pressure to return, but instead, something searing touches the center of your forehead. For a moment, the pain doesn't even register. Nerve endings cauterize at the source.

Then the agony detonates and you scream as your skull begins to smoke.

With a strangled gasp, you wake, hands clawing at your face. Your head is on fire. You swipe at your forehead, trying to find the melted skin, the charred bone, but there's nothing. The oscillating tower fan pushes cool air across your sweat-soaked body, and the sudden shiver that wracks your body is such a stark counterpoint to the lingering sensation of fire that you finally realize what's happening.

The memory of what you were shown slams into you a second later.

It's barely coherent, just a flurry of images and sensations and ideas that flick past faster than you can truly comprehend, a flipbook skipping every few pages. You get an overwhelming sense of pleasure, a burning hand pressed to your lower back, the gentle pull of exhaustion weighing down your limbs, a darkness so deep it registers as absence. And threading through it all, the feeling of being watched.

You should be afraid. Part of you is, you're sure, the part that's still remembering the excruciating feeling of your face beginning to sear, but the rest of you feels surprisingly light. Floating on bruise-tinged clouds.

Just like always, though, you can't find oblivion again this night. You lie awake, turning your vessel's words over and over in your mind. Of course you have a choice. You could be a lot of trouble for us, darling.

You hadn't stumbled into the dreamworld on accident. That first time had been intentional. You'd lain in bed that night broken and exhausted to the point of frenzied desperation, praying that when you woke, it would be in a different place. You remember very specifically that you'd wished for a different place—not a better one, not a good one, but a different one. Perhaps, you reflect, this is what drew you into that place. What drew the vessels in your direction.

When you had opened your eyes that night after squeezing them shut on stinging tears, you didn't question the blood-thick fog sloshing like soup around your ankles. You hadn't even questioned it when you spotted the first shambling shape in the distance, the edges blurred but the size of it unmistakable as it dragged itself across the ground with far too many limbs. The outline of a massive halberd had jutted out of its back.

What you had questioned, though, was the man in the mask standing just at the edge of your periphery.

He hadn't vanished when you turned to look at him—but he seemed to move with you, always haunting the very limits of your awareness. Even so, his mask was clear to you then. Black with gold, the contrast enough to draw your attention to the way it curved over his jaw and the smallest quirk of his lips behind gilded bars. You're still not sure how you could see any of that, but, replaying it now, the fire of his touch still faintly stinging your forehead, you know the memory to be true.

"Where am I?" you'd asked. In the strange fog, your voice seemed to echo and die at the same time. You heard a distortion of yourself repeat the words back a few moments later, and a shiver wracked your frame.

"Where do you wish to be?" the figure answered. His voice, melodic and the slightest bit raspy, seemed to be spoken right next to you, despite his distance.

Perhaps you should have hesitated. Perhaps you should have lied, or tried to leave, or to wake, but you'd done none of those things. Instead, you sighed. "I don't rightly care, so long as it isn't where I was."

Again you detected a twitch of lips as if in a smirk. "I can work with that."

"And…who are you?" you ventured when it was apparent no other information was forthcoming.

When he told you, you'd snorted. "Four? Like in the book?"

His voice had a bite to it when he responded, "No. As in 'I-V'."

"Ivy," you'd murmured.

"If you like." The tone of his voice shifted so quickly into dispassion that it left you reeling. But he hadn't said no. And you'd never called him anything else since then.

In the many, many dreams since that first, Ivy had warmed to you slowly. Over time, you became more comfortable with him, too. He wasn't in most of your dreams, in actuality, but the ones where he made an appearance, you always somehow managed to wake from them feeling a little too warm, a little too alive. Like being near him imbued you with some of the vibrating energy he radiated. Even when the dreams weren't dreams but nightmares, you'd never feared him. Never blamed him.

After all, you were the one who asked for different. You were the one who kept coming back, over and again, yearning for the place where your conscious and unconscious selves blended and blurred, aching to close your eyes on the real world and open them to the dreaming one.

Ivy has told you bits and pieces over your time in the dreamscapes. Who he is. Who his brothers are. The being they serve, the one they won't even name for fear of waking Him too early. The word you won't speak even in your waking moments. Ivy hadn't forbade you from saying it, but his aversion was strong enough that you felt compelled to bear that mantle, too. Through it all, you've gathered that you have something, some energy or power or essense, that could assuage an old god into slumbering for another few years.

Ivy had promised you wouldn't even notice a difference when the time came.

That answer hadn't comforted you. Not when you'd asked was if you'd survive the process.

Still, even the fear of dying in your dreams, real though it was, hadn't kept you from returning to the dreamworld night in, night out. You knew the landscapes there better than your own home. If you're honest with yourself, you prefer it in those disjointed, shifting worlds. At least there, you know what's out to hurt you and who will protect you.

You return the next night to the cliffside. This time, you have but the span of a breath to register the hazy horizon, drink in the familiar scent of sickening sweet rot, and find your balance in the buffeting wind, before the pressure spikes in your head sharp enough to make your eyes water. You rush, nearly twisting an ankle on a loose rock, toward the entrance. As is habit, your gaze flicks for a moment to the polished sigil. Then the darkness swallows you down.

The others remain at the very edge of your perception tonight. Cold and magnetism and that shiver of need so old it doesn't even feel like yourself, all three of them keep their distance. Just as well. For the first time in your memory, you're anxious about meeting with Ivy. Just being back in this lightless tunnel is enough to spark a dull feeling of pain in your forehead where he'd touched you last night.

Your entire body feels too hot, actually. At first, you wonder if it's the exertion. You're practically speed-walking into the bowels of the earth. But no, your heartrate doesn't even feel elevated. Then you assume it's Ivy, keeping pace just out of reach, but the air you push through remains relatively cool. Trying to even out your pace, you take stock of yourself. Is it the fear of being burned again?

Or is it the memory of what he showed you?

Something deep in your center lurches pleasantly at the thought. The heat swirling in your body condenses down to a point between your thighs, and all at once you understand what's happening.

To be a vessel implies a state of emptiness. To be a vessel implies the ability to be filled by something else.

Like the essence of someone running headlong into a potential horror just to escape the nightmare of the real world. An essence so wrought in the pleasure of slumber that it would entice a god back to sleep.

Warmth at your back grows steadily hotter. Slowing to a halt, you wait, back stiff and fingers tapping without rhythm against your legs. Only when the heat of him draws to your side, then to your front, do you let out a sharp breath.

"Am I ready?" you demand.

Ivy snorts, the sound echoing first in his mask and then in the greater darkness around you both. "It would seem so. I have to hear it from you, first, though."

You nearly respond with a snappy retort of I'm ready, damn you, but you don't think that's really what he means. Instead, you draw a breath tasting of old dirt and older rituals.

"I am ready to feed the Dreaming One," you say, chin jutted up in recklessness. "I am ready to receive the sacrament of pleasure at His altar."

The words come to your lips of their own volition, yet another reminder that nothing about this world is truly your own. Saying them aloud sends a tingle of what you can only describe as magic over your skin. The air in the tunnel, already still, seems to vacate the space entirely.

"Very well," Ivy murmurs into the deathless silence. "Come. There is a ritual to commence."

Time passes strangely here. You descend deeper than ever before as you follow Ivy by feel alone, never letting his scorching heat get too far ahead. This close to him, any sense you had before of his brothers burns away. He's all you have here. He leads you down a tunnel that, judging from the way your footsteps echo back to you, doesn't narrow or turn, simply leads farther into the world's skin. Each step you take marks some semblance of time passing, but you can't be sure if the clock is wound for an hour or a day or an eon.

You suppose time doesn't weigh the same in a place bound only by the limits of unconsciousness.

Ivy remains silent the entire trek. Taking his lead, you sink your teeth into the questions squirming across your tongue, desperate not to invite a repeat performance of last night's incident. Besides, most of your curiosity will be slaked whenever you arrive to the site of this ritual.

At long last, you sense that Ivy has come to a halt. Unlike your breath and steps and rustling clothing, which return to you in distortions, Ivy's movements are as imperceptible as the rest of him. You only know he's stopped when the heat of him flares against your face before you catch yourself. Sweat dews on your skin. But you can't step back. You can only wait for him to draw away again.

He draws a breath that reminds you of the heaving of bellows. "Do you trust me?"

Worry twists your gut. Blinking against the darkness, you open your mouth to respond, only to close it again. Is this a test? If you say you don't, will the ritual still happen? Or is the ritual dependent upon your complete and willing obeisance? Licking your lips, you shift your weight, all too aware of the silence stretching like popped vertebrae between you.

"I- I think so," you finally force out, aiming for casualness but landing somewhere in confusion.

He huffs a quiet laugh. "Probably the smartest answer you could give. Well done. I want you to keep something in mind for me, yeah?"

You nod, knowing he can see the movement.

"Know that I could have started this ritual at any time," he says. "Know that I made the others wait until you were ready, wait for your latency to age like wine before we broke the seal and drank of you.

"Know that this could have been a far worse experience, darling."

Only sheer willpower keeps you from flinching when his fingers, hot but not dangerous, not like before, brush your cheek in the dark. Heart thrumming so fast you quake with the force of it, you swear you forget how to breathe. Your lungs seize. You've miscalculated. Every moment spent in this place, running from horrific creatures or avoiding your own reflection—blindly following a vessel to his place of worship—has been a fucking mistake. The sudden clarity of Ivy's words threatens to crush you more surely than the rock sitting above you.

He offers these words as a kindness, an act of contrition, an equation solving its own proof and coming up devoid of any sin. You realize, fear a cold stone sinking into your very DNA, that he's asking for your fucking forgiveness.

And gods above, hells below, your soul be damned—you're going to give it to him.

"I know," you whisper. "I know, Ivy. It's okay. I'm ready."

His touch disappears from your face, leaving you bereft and breathless. Then, with a deep growl of stone grinding against stone, a door grates open. You squint in the low light, the flickering torches brighter than the cloud-clothed sunlight somewhere far, far above you.

You register two things at once: first, the masive stone altar that dominates the room beyond, carved and stained with a vascular intricacy; second, the fact that Ivy stands before you now, fully present, and through the gaping sockets of his mask, bright blue eyes regard you with something too sharp for mere curiosity.

Hunger.

His admission just a moment before that he could have chosen cruelty crumbles like ash, scattered and forgotten. You don't care about that now. Not here on the threshold of something bigger, something older and unknowable. Every shred of information Ivy's ever entrusted to you comes flooding in, every cognitive leap you've put your faith in clamors for attention. You hadn't lied to him; you are ready.

You're ready for Sleep.

In every sense of the word.

Ivy holds a hand out to you. Ripping your gaze away from the altar, you look down at the offering, then look, really, truly look, at him. Every exposed inch of skin glistens black with paint so thinly applied you wonder if his skin really isn't just that color. Even the creases of his palms, a lifeline that wavers in the unsteady torchlight and a heartline that practically collides with his fateline, are the same dark ink. His clothing is the same shade of black, yet the custom-tailored jacket glitters and sparkles with every shift of the firelight. A hood covers the back of his head.

And the mask. The one you've only seen in stolen snippets and peripheral passes. The fire dances over the gold, making it writhe and shift as if alive, and your eyes widen when it finally clicks what the design must be.

A gilded handprint.

Jerking your attention up to his eyes, you can only stare, mute, as horror and fascination and need twine within your veins, slowly corroding you from the inside. An alkaline bath dissolving your bones just the same as the wind has eroded the temple entrance.

Ivy's lips curve into a bladed grin, white teeth flashing. Those blue depths never waver from you. "Hello, darling."

"H-Hi," you breathe.

"Take my hand," he murmurs.

Somehow you'd forgotten he still holds it out, expectant yet patient. Raising your eyes to his once again, you let your own hand follow. His skin radiates heat just like you've come to expect, and you hesitate only a heartbeat more before slotting your palm against his, braced for the wash of agony.

It doesn't come.

He's warm, yes, almost uncomfortably so, but it doesn't hurt. Before you can ponder on that, Ivy gently tugs you into the room—the inner sanctum, a place that nearly tastes holy, a mix of ash and ozone and the tang of arousal. Behind you, the door grinds shut on its own. You can only focus on Ivy, though.

He leads you forward across smooth stone floors to the altar. Ascending the shallow steps to the dais on which it rests, Ivy motions with his chin for you to shift your attention to the imposing stone rectangle. You let your gaze trace the profile of his mask before acquiesing.

You've approached the altar at an angle, letting you see two sides at once. This close, the unsteady torchlight flickering over the bas-relief carvings makes your eyes swim, as if the figures etched from stone really are moving. On the short end, you watch, rapt, as three feminine figures seem to sway to an unheard song, their arms outstretched to an eclipsed sun overhead. You feel the impulse to squint as you gaze at the eclipse, like the solar corona might burn you even in weathered stone.

But the larger design on the long edge quickly draws your curiosity. It's your turn to tug Ivy along; he doesn't release you, doesn't even let his grasp slip from yours an inch, as you step closer to the altar. A progression of scenes on this face plays itself out just for you. All of them feature four masculine silhouettes engaged in various activities, like the swordfight at the far end that leaves your ears faintly ringing with the distant clash of metal, or the obvious worship being offered at an altar—perhaps this same one—and the smell of rosewater, so faint as to be imaginary, cloying in your lungs.

The middle scene stops you dead in your tracks. Ivy's hand tightens on yours in an approximation of a comforting squeeze.

"This is my purpose?" you ask, not daring to speak higher than a whisper, eyes glued to the way that one of the sculpted vessel's hips dips to meet a faceless figure's body.

"It is." Ivy lifts your joined hands and gently taps the back of your hand to the barred mouth of his mask. "Our most sacred ritual. Very few ever make their way here; very few have the power to keep the Dreaming One doing just that."

"But I do." It's not a question. He'd told you as much yesterday, but standing here, in this cathedral of stone and divine worship, the knowledge prickles more sharply at the base of your spine. "I am ready, Ivy. Please."

"Oh, you don't have to plead," he says, a smirk evident in his voice. "Not yet."

A shiver trails sticky fingers up your back at the way his voice drops on that last statement. The rasp, almost a growl, that curls into your ears and burrows into your brain.

Lifting your gaze to his once again, you tilt your head a little. "What do I need to do?"

His thumb rubs maddening arcs against your skin as he hums in thought. Desire catches in your belly and smolders its way lower. "All you need to do, darling, is let me play my part. You're going to feel very good, but it's going to hurt, too. Remember your promise?"

Swallowing thickly, you nod once. "I do."

"Good." He releases your hand; the loss is devastating. As he turns toward an alcove you'd missed up to this point, he gestures at the altar. "We'll start here. Clothes off."

Exhaling a shaky breath, you know you have no other option. Yet, despite the spike of cold concern suddenly knifing through you, your hands are steady where they pluck at the hem of your shirt and draw it free of your body. The rest of your garments join the first in a haphazard pile on the dais, discarded and immediately forgotten. Your nipples pebble at the feeling of open air against them. Anticipation slides, hot, slick, and curling, through your center.

Ivy's gaze rakes you from head to toe and back; you catch a glimpse of a lazy smirk behind the mask. His heavy attention makes you want to fidget, but you strangle that impulse at the root. It's too close to breaking a rule for comfort. If he notices your restraint, your vessel says nothing.

He deposits two bowls along the short edge of the altar's surface before beckoning you closer. You obey without question. Tilting your head back to bare your throat just the slightest, you resist the temptation to glance at the bowls or try to discern their contents. You'll find out when Ivy's ready for you to, or you won't, and either way, it's out of your control.

Part of you starts to realize that you prefer it this way.

Dipping paint-stained fingers into one of the bowls, Ivy turns to face you properly. His fingers glisten with something thick, oil perhaps, but you're distracted from trying to figure it out by the haunting note that rises out of his throat in the same instant. Something inside you twists hard enough to snap; you draw a ragged breath, eyes suddenly burning with tears.

come close, little darling again and again ask me over and over ‘am I ready?’

His voice drags a sob out of you as it crests into some ancient spell, the syllables rising and falling like breath.

come close, little darling like this and like that tell me over and over ‘I’m ready.’

Oiled fingers anoint your skin like you're the thing that's holy here. Ivy takes his time, letting the rhythm of the song guide his practiced movements, touch gliding over your bare skin in indecipherable patterns. Tears stream down your face. Every few strokes he has to replenish the oil on his fingers, before he returns to the canvas he makes of your skin. Reverent fingertips trace arcs around your nipples, draw strange runes against the softness of your belly, and sketch lines like bones down your arms. When he sinks onto his haunches, your breath hitches. Aside from a brief flicker of his eyes up to your face, he pays you no mind as he continues with his ritual.

come close, little darling away and away let me take you there you’re ready if He wills it, it’s right and He wills it tonight come close and tell me ‘I’m ready.’

Trying to steady yourself, you suck in a deep breath, tasting the peppery notes of the oil in your diaphragm. Ivy rises to his full height again, only to step lightly around you to continue drawing shapes against your back. Heat, whether sparked by his touch or stoked by your own desire, flushes through you as his voice swells with the song.

come close, little darling unshackle your bones give yourself to the night you’re ready

When he returns to your front, he sinks his hand into the second bowl and withdraws with a large fistful of salt grains. Brine hits your nostrils and you inhale, greedy, having never smelled the sea in any of the dreamworlds many facets. With his empty hand, Ivy grabs your wrists to position your hands in a loose bowl, then tips the salt into your grasp.

You nearly drop it.

It burns, scalding, and a hiss of pain slithers through your teeth before you choke it into silence. After a moment, the initial flare of heat subsides, leaving the salt emiting a soft radiance in your palms.

come closer still make this deal we must seal He requires that you be ready

The ritual song fades into the walls of the cathedral. You want to cry again for its absence.

"Bathe," Ivy orders. "Use the salt to purify yourself so you can face Him without the taint of life on your skin."

There is no pressure in your head to comply, not this time, but your hands move to obey just the same. This time, you can't stifle the cry of pain as you begin rubbing salt over your oil-slicked skin. Everywhere they meet, the salt and oil smoke; heat-white pain sears into your entire body as you do as your vessel commanded. Only once you've reached your feet do your shoulders start to relax, the hurt fading just like the song.

"Very good," Ivy praises.

A different type of heat altogether rushes through you at his words. He winks, then gestures to the altar.

"Ascend."

With a single nod, you clamber up onto the stone. Where you expect it to be cold, the rock is almost disconcertingly warm. Now that you're sitting on it, too, you realize that the reddish tint you'd spotted from the doorway wasn't just a trick of the light; rust stains the entire surface in uneven patches, old rivulets running over the edge. Suddenly it hits you that the altar is the same temperature, the same scent, the same taste, as the fogged landscape you'd first arrived into.

Again, Ivy gives you no time to process that. With gentle touches, he guides your legs up onto the stone, helps you rotate, and, with a firm hand in the center of your chest, lays you back. Breath hitching, you watch as he climbs onto the altar with you, still fully dressed.

The dark fabric of his pants does nothing to hide the evidence of his own arousal.

You let your thighs drape open, exposing your heated center to him, to this place of sin and grace. A quiet hum catches in his throat. Blue eyes scour your body, lingering in all the places you expect him to—the heaving of your chest, the curve of your waist—and in a few you're surprised by—the angle of your knee, the pulse jumping at your jugular.

His own chest jumps with ragged breaths the longer he drinks in the sight of you. Emboldened by his apparent fluster, you raise up onto your elbows, a small smile tantalizing the corners of your lips.

"Careful, darling," he murmurs. "Looking at me like that will earn you nothing but trouble."

"What's a little trouble in the dreamworld to a god?" you rasp.

His gaze sharpens, blue flashing like sapphires in the torchlight. With a speed you didn't know he possessed, Ivy crowds your personal space, one large hand curled around your throat, the other digging desperate fingers into the plushness of your thigh. Lashes fluttering, your lips part in a silent gasp as you gaze up at him. Instead of scaring you, his speed, his power, exhilarates you.

Licking your lips, you try again. "Please."

He groans, hand flexing around your neck. "Please, what, darling?"

"Please, Ivy," you try.

A sharp exhale through his nose is all the response you get. The hand on your thigh loosens its grip, then begins a slow, inexorable slide toward your aching center. You can't tell if the tremble you're feeling is you or him.

Your hips jerk without your permission when the backs of his fingers graze over your slick skin.

"So wet already," he husks.

"Can you blame me?" you say, but it comes out breathy, less a challenge and more a plea.

Ivy lowers his head to yours, the shockingly cold material of the mask resting against the same spot of your forehead he'd burned last night. The contrast makes you shudder. Gently, as if he's already forgotten his promise of pain right alongside the pleasure, he flips his hand to rub tentative circles around your clit. Your quiet moan echoes in the cathedral. The heat of his touch only stokes the flames of your arousal higher. Drawing shallow breaths, you peer down the length of your body to watch the way his touch works against you.

Like he can sense your attention there, he presses a little more firmly. Thighs flexing, you shift your hips closer to him, silently begging him closer. His quiet whisper of shit gets lost in the rustle of clothing as he allows himself this moment, paint-dark touch dipping toward your entrance to gather your slick from the source. Pleasure unfurls in your lower belly like the petals of a flower opening for the kiss of moonlight.

"Hells, Ivy, please," you whine as he resumes his torturous circling of your clit. "A little to the left—yes, fuck, right there."

His huff of disbelieving laughter puffs against your face. All at once his scent overwhelms you. Gunsmoke and an ocean breeze, carbon residue and cedar: you're not sure how those notes work together so flawlessly, but it shouldn't surprise you. Your hands remember they exist, and you cling to Ivy's sparkling coat as if you can drag him into your body, into your very being, by sheer will alone. His touch slowly drives you higher, your pussy fluttering around a devastating emptiness that leaves you whimpering.

"Close," you gasp out.

Ivy pulls away immediately. You whine, the muscles that were just tense and straining toward release soothing without the constant stimulus. His hand squeezes your throat again, pulse jumping against his thumb and forefinger on either side.

"Rule five: you don't finish without permission," he states.

His voice, hard and flat, sends another wave of need burning through you. "I-I understand."

His gaze bores into yours for a long moment until, seemingly convinced, he rests two fingers against your entrance. Forcing your thighs wider, you nod, teeth sinking into your bottom lip. Slowly, so, so slowly, he pushes inside. A groan scrapes out of his throat, twining with the breathless moan that escapes you at the stretch of his touch. His fingers nestle inside you like they belong there, like your body was made to hold the shape of him, and that thing somewhere in your soul that had broken earlier listening to his song begins to mend. This is what you need. He is what you need.

"Perfect," he breathes. "So perfect."

You can't stop the smirk that flashes over your features. "Touch me, please. Make me feel good."

Wordlessly, he crooks his fingers up against your inner walls, finding the spongy spot that detonates colorless behind your eyes on the first try. This time, the cathedral walls nearly resonate with the tone of your pleasure, the sound a ritual all its own. Ivy rocks his hand to an ancient rhythm; the wet sound of his fingers caressing the deepest parts of you echoes in the room until you're deaf to anything else.

Deaf to the approaching sound of manic laughter, the sudden chill in the air, the sharp influx of honeyed rot.

"Sound so pretty for me, darling," Ivy croons. His pace never falters, not even when your grip slides up to the back of his neck and digs crescent moons into his skin. If anything, the discomfort spurs him on. His fingers stroke over that shattered shard of bliss on every pulse of his touch. Sweat beads on your skin from his sustained proximity, but you barely register it. The only thing that matters is that he keeps shoving you higher, pushing you to the ceiling of your pleasure hard enough to shatter it.

Your walls clamp down, aching, and Ivy groans deep in his chest.

Except—you whine, desperate and needy, when he withdraws a moment later. Panting, you slump back against the surface of the altar. He doesn't follow save to keep his hand wrapped around your throat. Pleasure ebbs like the tide once again as he lets you drift from the snare of pleasure he'd been laying. Though, it doesn't all drain away this time, not as you let your awareness drift down to watch his free hand pluck at the closures of his pants. Your gaze traces the veins and tendons that stand out, his skin its own bas-relief sculpture. Your tongue darts out to wet your lips.

Ivy's eyes track the brief movement. A flash of longing, quick as lightning and just as searing, lights his blue irises. The mask can't come off—you know that already—but gods you want him to be able to kiss you. He seems to want that, too.

That realization makes you clench around nothing.

Then, with a shuffle, he leans up on his knees, his cock finally free. Your mouth waters, instinct, at the sight. Some part of you half expected every part of him to be slathered in the black paint, so it's a pleasant surprise to be met with the flushed pink of his head and the smooth pale girth of his shaft. A dusting of dark hair curls around the base. His cock is warm and heavy where it rests against your skin, pulsing faintly in time with a heartbeat you weren't sure he still had.

Glancing up for a moment, you flutter your lashes at him. "Can I touch you?"

"G'head," he murmurs. His voice sounds taut, breakable. Which one of you will make it out of this ritual intact?

Shoving that thought away, you focus on keeping your hand steady when you reach for him. Like the rest of him, the heat of his skin against yours requires a moment of getting used to, but the softness of him encourages you to explore more. His breathing stutters when you rub your thumb over his tip, catching a bead of pearlescent precum and smearing it over his skin. With a soft, indulgent laugh, you stroke his full length, delighting in the shudder that wracks his frame and marveling at the size of him in your hand. He's going to split you apart, ruin you, and you're ready to let him.

Yet, with your fingers wrapped around his thick cock, this is the most control you've wielded in the dreamworld so far.

The realization is heady.

"Ivy," you murmur, pouting your bottom lip just a little, "you're so big."

"Gonna take it all, darling?" he rasps. Something dark and dangerous burns in his blue gaze. "Yeah, you are. Gonna make a mess all over this cock. We're so close to the end, sweetheart. Don't want this to be over yet."

"Then don't let it be," you say, soft and inviting. You don't even know the hole you're digging for yourself. "Let me keep you warm. Just soak in my pussy for a while, okay?"

A strangled groan rips from behind clenched teeth at your words. Hand around your throat flexing once, twice, he knocks your hand out of the way and fists his cock. He doesn't bother pumping himself, just notches the head at your entrance and waits for you to find his gaze. You do without hesitation.

The stretch is borderline painful. Without anything to slick his skin, his cock pushing into you dry, it hurts, but the pain is exquisite. Letting out a long breath, you relax into the feeling. Ivy sinks into you inch by inch, until he can't anymore, your hips flush together. Pleasure winds its way around every one of your bones, radiating outward from his hot length buried to the hilt in your fluttering pussy.

"Just like this," you whisper. "Just stay with me like this."

Shaking his head a little, Ivy squeezes his eyes shut a moment. "I- I- Fuck, darling, I shouldn't," he grits out.

"Why not?" you ask, unable to keep the genuine pout out of your voice this time.

"Need to finish the ritual," he says, voice strained. "Your pleasure isn't mine alone to take."

Right. His god. The other vessels. You don't care about any of that right now. All you can think about is the delicious stretch of his cock inside you, keeping him here for as long as possible, and eking as much pleasure from you both as you humanly can. Pulsing your walls, you drink in the way he whimpers in response.

"Please, Ivy." You don't have to fake the breathlessness. "Please, I need you just like this. So long as I cum at the end, the ritual will still be finished, won't it? What's a few more minutes?"

Your words are having the exact effect you want them to. Gods above, his pleasure really is all you want. His, and yours. Now that he's inside you, practically part of you, it's all you can fucking think about. His earlier warnings be damned, the pain he inflicted on you last night be damned, this whole fucking dreamworld be godsdamned, this is all you want.

And he's nearly ready to give it to you.

"IV," a deep voice warns from somewhere and nowhere all at once.

You know the moment your pathetic whisp of control snaps out of your hands.

A vicious snarl rips from Ivy's throat. He grabs both of your wrists and pins them beside your head with both hands. His eyes, so dark now that the blues are nearly subsumed by black, bore into yours as he draws his hips back. A shudder passes from you into him, pleasure hanging suspended in the inches between your bodies, tension coiled so tightly you fear the entire cathedral may collapse—

Then he snaps his hips forward.

You cry out. Breasts bouncing with every harsh thrust, it's all you can do to plant your feet and angle your hips for him, enticing him deeper, harder, faster, until you swear he's going to break you in half. The rough stone of the altar chafes your back, but you ignore it. Pleasure, molten and liquid, fuses your bones together. The cord in your belly, winched tight twice already, pulls taut so quickly it steals your breath. Ivy drives into you with a near reckless abandon, his eyes glued to the way your cunt swallows his cock with every thrust, the wet sound of your bodies meeting and your joined moans echoing in the room in a lewd mockery of his earlier singing.

"Touch yourself," he rasps, releasing one of your hands.

Without conscious thought, your hand flies to where you need attention the most. Your fingers press against your clit with just the right pressure, the right speed, the right pattern, and suddenly the precipice of your orgasm is right the fuck there. Your cunt clamps down on his cock hard enough to hurt you both, and only through sheer force do you manage to hold the explosion at bay.

"Ivy!" you wail. "Please, can I- can I cum?"

"Fuck," he snarls, grabbing your waist and using the leverage to push himself impossibly deeper. "Do it, fucking cum, darling, come on."

Pleasure cascades through you with the power of a supernova, a chain reaction of fusion and fission that leaves you half blind.

It's weakness enough for a blade to draw across your neck.

And as your blood drains into the rest of the salt, steaming in the hot air, you realize Ivy had told you the truth after all.

There is no difference between death and Sleep.

You clench your jaw, the damp fabric of your shirt caught between your teeth as you struggle to keep quiet. But gods your fingers feel so good circling your clit and you’re absolutely soaked right now and you have to be quiet because Cal is sleeping in the room across the hall.

The thought of Cal overhearing your late-night activities makes your pussy clench around nothing. Eyes falling shut, you gather some more wetness and press more firmly on that bundle of nerves that has you on fire. Images of Cal’s toned forearms, freckled face, powerful thighs flash through your mind. You stifle a groan.

This is so bad, and you know it. You shouldn’t be getting off to the thought of your friend—never mind the fact that he’s a Jedi. But even when he’s only hidden behind a few thin durasteel walls, he occupies your mind. The way his eyes dance with fiery determination when a new opportunity to strike against the Empire arises. The way his plush lips curve up into sarcastic smiles at your jokes. His tenderness with BD. His softness with you.

And that’s what gets you all riled up in the first place: it’s just how genuinely good Cal Kestis is. There’s not a mean bone in his body. He takes care of you, and you of him, and the domesticity of it all drives you absolutely insane.

Which leads you here. You finally plunge two of your fingers into your tight, wet heat, imagining—wishing—it was Cal’s fingers instead. Exhaling a shaky breath, you crook your fingers up against the spongy wall of your cunt and press. Your hips rock involuntarily, and the added friction against your clit has your toes curling. You breathe deep through your nose, loosening your muscles as the wave of pleasure zinging through you crests.

And you cum, teeth unlatching from your shirt as you gasp out Cal’s name.

Once the aftershocks die down, you shuck the shirt off over your head, the neckline entirely damp with your now-cooling saliva. The temperature is uncomfy; you snatch a clean shirt from beneath your bunk to wear instead. Tossing the soiled shirt toward your growing laundry pile, you settle down under the covers at last, curling on your side as sleep finally, finally takes you.

The next morning when you wake, the comforting hum of the hyperdrive engine is silent. You must’ve arrived at your next destination while you slept. Good. Even though it’s only been you and Cal for about a year now, you still try to keep some extra supplies on board in case any of the old crew decide to rejoin you and Cal. And after your last run-in with the Empire, forcing you into hiding for a standard month, all of your supplies are low. You’ll use this opportunity to restock.

But first, you need to wash up. The lights on both Cal’s door and the ’fresher are green, meaning he’s probably up in the cockpit with BD. Slipping into the ’fresher, you lock the door behind you and turn the knob to heat the water up. Your sleep clothes crumple to the floor as you shuffle out of them, trying to focus on creating a mental list of the supplies you’ll need to pick up today. Yet, your traitorous mind keeps drifting back to your solo fun last night—heat throbbing between your legs at just the thought of how hard you came—and you shake your head angrily at yourself.

“Get a grip,” you grumble.

As if summoned by your thoughts, there’s a knock at the door. You jump. Your heart hammers in your throat.

“Kriff, Cal, you scared me,” you call through the door.

“Sorry,” he calls back, and you hear the genuine regret in his voice. “I just wanted to check to see if you had any laundry? It’ll be a bit before we’re able to get it done after today.”

“Good thinking,” you say. “There’s a pile on my floor. I can get it, though; don’t worry about my stuff.”

He doesn’t respond, and you visualize the sardonic, two-fingered salute he’s recently gotten in the habit of giving. A smile quirks your lips.

A smile that is quickly obliterated as a jolt of pure anxiety bursts through you. Gods, knowing Cal, he’s already gone to grab your dirty laundry, and the shirt—the fucking shirt—is right on top, and you know he can’t always control his psycho-Force-whateveritscalled powers.

The ’fresher door slams open and you dash across the narrow hall to your room.

To your horror, Cal is in fact there, gathering your clothes from the floor, and the warning to wait gets choked in your throat as he grabs the shirt on the top of the pile, the one that’s surely still damp with your spit and sweat.

His entire body stiffens, eyes widening, his grip on the other clothes going limp as he experiences the Force echo you’ve left behind. Feeling like you’ve been doused in gasoline and ice at the same time, it finally registers for you that you’re naked in front of Cal fucking Kestis and he’s feeling you cum to the thought of him.

“Cal, I—”

“Oh.” The strangled moan that tears from his throat has your mind reeling, never in a million years imagining that you’d ever hear him make such a lewd noise, let alone in reaction to you.

You reach for him, placing a shaking hand on his arm. “Are- Are you okay?”

He blinks and seems to physically re-enter this current moment. His cheeks are bright pink, his chest heaving. At his wide-eyed once over of your naked form, your knees nearly give out.

“I’m so sorry,” you continue. Panic seizes at your lungs, making it hard to breathe. “I shouldn’t have- I should have- I’m so so sorry, Cal, I can leave if you want—”

“Hey.” He rests both of his large, warm hands on your bare shoulders, forcing you to look him in the eye. “Deep breaths. I’m not- I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?” You try to catch your breath, but the darkening of his green eyes has your breath catching for an entirely different reason now.

He shakes his head. “How long?”

Chewing at the inside of your cheek nervously, you drop your gaze. “Months. Since we first met.”

Gently, he guides your chin up so that you meet his gaze again. His eyes are soft—darker than usual, yes—but there’s that familiar softness to them that unwinds some of the tension in your chest. He holds your gaze long enough for your heart to stop pounding, but you can’t will away the swirling pit of regret pulling at your insides. He’s not mad, which is great, but he’s still not said anything and you can’t figure out what he might say or what he’s feeling or—

“Can I kiss you?”

You blink dumbly. “What?”

A faint smile ghosts over his features. “Can I kiss you?”

“Oh gods yes,” you squeak out.

A true smile tugs at his lips, and then slowly, giving you ample time to change your mind and pull away, he leans down, one hand supporting the back of your head, the other cupping your cheek. Your eyes close and you stand on your toes, meeting him halfway.

His lips are as soft as you imagined, and you can’t help the needy whine that escapes you as he pulls you flush against him. Your bare, heated skin presses against the leather of his chest piece, tantalizing against the sensitive skin of your breasts. Snaking one hand up into his silken hair, your other grips at his muscled bicep, grounding yourself. His mouth moves slowly against your own.

This is really fucking happening.

He breaks the kiss, but doesn’t go far, resting his forehead against your own. You peer up through your eyelashes at him.

“I take it you feel the same?” you ask, breathless.

“Since we met,” he affirms in a low tone. His thumb brushes over your bottom lip, and you catch the digit between your teeth and suck. He groans. “Gods, if I’d known...”

You just hum, swirling your tongue around his thumb until he withdraws, only to kiss you again. Electricity feels like it dances along your skin where he touches you. Blindly, you tug him backwards with you until your legs hit the bunk. Lowering yourself, he follows, bracing himself over you with his forearms to either side of your head, caging you in. With a soft moan, you hook a leg over his hips and drag him down to you. The friction of his clothes against your aching core makes you hiss.

“Fuck, take these off, please,” you plead, tugging with weak fingers at his shirt.

He sits up just long enough to rip the offending garments off, and you practically drool at the sight of his toned chest as it is revealed to you. Scars litter the otherwise smooth alabaster, and you know you’ll take your time at a later date tracing them, committing them to memory. Right now, though, your attention is drawn farther down as he shimmies out of his pants. His hard cock, the tip a gorgeous shade of pink, bobs as it comes free of its confines.

“Oh gods,” you groan. “May I?”

“Please.”

You’ve never heard his voice so strained before, and you are nothing if not eager to continue drawing sounds from him. Wrapping your fingers tentatively around the hot shaft of his dick, you hum in delight at the way he twitches in your grip. You slowly work his cock, eyes trained on his face, catching every flutter of his eyelashes, every time he bites his lip, every miniscule reaction you can possibly gain from him.

“I want you inside me,” you say.

He groans. “I- I’ve never—”

“It’s alright,” you soothe. You release him for a moment to gather some of the slick from between your folds—and can’t resist rubbing your pussy for just a few seconds, letting a broken moan fall from your lips. Then you use the slick to lube his dick up.

“C’mere,” you say, your legs widening for him to slot in between. “I’ve got you. Say the word and it all stops.”

“I want this,” he says, eyes trained on yours as he settles himself between your thighs. “I want you.”

You hum in delight and, guiding him, line his cock up with your neglected entrance. Wrapping your legs around him, you press down with your heels to push him into you.

His head falls to your shoulder with a broken, gasping moan. You clench at the burning stretch of him filling you, nails digging into his smooth skin. He’s not even touched you, barely begun to fuck you, and you’re already ready to cum.

“Cal,” you murmur, caressing his back, “you okay?”

“S’alot,” he mumbles against your skin. “Can I—?”

“Yes, please.” You press a kiss to his shoulder. “Make love to me, Cal.”

With a whine, he slowly withdraws, every ridge and vein of his cock dragging deliciously on your walls, and then pushes back into you just as slowly. You moan with him at the sensation of filling and being filled, unsure where you begin and he ends, lost in the feeling of just him. He sets a languid pace, kissing your neck, murmuring sweet words in your ear: “You feel so good. Take me so well. Fuck, I needed this. Needed you.”

When he adjusts his grip on you, reaching beneath your body to support your hips, you laugh breathlessly.

“Gonna cum like this.”

He bites down on the sensitive juncture between your neck and shoulder as he snaps his hips against yours, making you cry out. The agonizingly slow pull out, the moment’s pause where only his tip remains in your dripping pussy, and then the overwhelming burst of pleasure as he slams back into you: it’s all you know. It’s all you’ve ever known, all you ever will know. You babble praises, begging, pleading with him, the coil in your belly growing tighter and hotter the harder he fucks into you.

“Can feel you’re close,” he slurs. “Cum for me. Please.”

That’s what does it, hearing him beg for you to cum on him. You go rigid, white flashing in your eyes as the tight coil snaps. Pleasure floods through you, and dimly you’re aware of Cal growling against your ear as he rocks you through it, his promises of cumming in you only serving to draw out the shockwaves of your orgasm. You think you scream. And then, when you feel his dick pulse as he goes absolutely still, you cum again.

He’s laughing when you come down from your high. He remains in you even as he begins to go soft, his giddy, breathless giggles pure music to your ears.

“What’s so funny?” you ask, twirling a strand of his hair between your fingers.

“I just— this is not how I expected today to go,” he says, still laughing.

You smile. “Maybe you should do the laundry more often, hm?”

But tonight the issue is so much more than a mere hiccup. No, the creep at the cantina was far more unpleasant. 

The squad can gather intel in its sleep; any of you could've staked the cantina out alone and been successful. Hunter had insisted everyone partake. In hindsight, you're glad he pushed for it, even if you and Crosshair both grumbled aloud at Hunter's mother-hennishness. You'd strode straight into the shithole bar, determined to get what you were sent for and get out as quickly as possible. 

Then that stranger got a little too friendly. He'd invaded your personal space and put his hands on you despite your very evident discomfort, reeking of cheap alcohol and bad decisions. 

Hunter had stepped in. Well... he'd done more than that. You're not envious of the stranger and his freshly broken nose.

The sergeant, glowering and shaking his hand out, had growled at the others to stay put and finish the mission. Then he'd all but ordered you back to the ship, giving you no choice but to follow or risk his wrath as well. 

Now, back on board the Marauder, you sigh as your irritation grows, prickly and uncomfortable in your chest. "Hunter."

"What," he snaps. 

"You don't have to babysit me." Crossing your arms, you lean against the bulkhead, fixing him with an unimpressed glare. 

"I'm not—" He turns away, jaw working. Shadows play over his face, backlit by the ship's control panels. His heaving chest gives enough indication that he's mentally working through something.

Softening, you take a step toward him. "Will you at least talk to me?"

His nostrils flare as you move closer. "You— You smell him now." 

"I'm sorry?"

"S'not your fault," he says, misinterpreting your words. His shoulders slump. "It's my job to protect you- you all. And I was so close to failing tonight." 

"Hunter," you say gently, holding one hand out. 

He looks down at your outstretched palm and tentatively reaches to hook your fingertips together. Even through the coarse fabric of his blacks, his warmth scorches through you. Though his nose remains scrunched, when his eyes find yours, he seems to finally step back from the edge of anger. But the emotions continuing to shine in his eyes give you pause. 

Swallowing down the burgeoning hope in your chest forcing out the irritation, you squeeze his fingers. "I appreciate you looking out for me. I really do. But is this about protecting me? Or is this something else? I- I can shower if it's a sensory issue—"

"No," he interrupts. Adjusting his hold, his fingers twine between yours. He tugs you closer. "I mean—it won't be an issue for long. Kark, I'm goin' about this all wrong." 

The sergeant sighs, pulling you in for a hug. While you've embraced him before, surprise hums along your veins. Tentative, you wrap your arms around his middle, and tuck your face into the crook of his neck, where his own scent is strongest, a unique blend of earth and musk and sweat that makes your insides stir. He tightens his arms. 

"Not that this isn't nice," you say, voice muffled, "but what're you doing?"

He's quiet for a moment. "Making you smell like me." 

You blink. "Oh." Without meaning to, you inhale a deep breath, his warm scent swirling within your lungs. "You do smell good."

Hunter chuckles. The sound vibrates against your chest. "That right?"

Humming in affirmation, you press the bridge of your nose to his skin. His pulse beats against your nose; its pace quickens. For a heartbeat, you manage to contain the response that leaps to the tip of your tongue. Is this really the time?

But then again, you've been waiting for the right time to broach the subject of your feelings for months. You've shared a few hugs, left countless lingering looks when you think he isn't looking, chased an orgasm or two in silence when he's not around. If you keep waiting, the right time won't ever happen. And you'll be left wondering.  

Throwing caution to the wind, you say, "Be easier if you take your armor off." 

"Mesh'la," he murmurs. The endearment somehow sounds like a warning. "I- Your heart is racing. You're not thinking clearly."

Gnawing at the inside of your cheek, you resist the urge to pull away at what feels like a rejection. Have you been reading all the signs wrong? Did you misread the situation earlier? You're relatively certain any of the squad would have jumped to your defense--but would the others have needed to be physically restrained from doing more damage? Would Wrecker have had to pry Tech, or Crosshair, or Echo, away from your assailant like he'd done to Hunter?

No, you decide, you've been reading the signs correctly. Stepping out of his embrace but not his orbit, you search Hunter's gaze. Threading your fingers together once again, you raise his hand to brush your lips over the knuckles surely bruising under his gloves. Hunter's lips part in surprise. 

"I'm thinking perfectly clearly." You hesitate, then forge ahead. "Tell me you don't feel anything for me, and I'll go back to pining in silence. Tell me I'm the only one who sees something here. Tell me... Tell me you broke his face because I'm part of the squad, and no other reason. Please."

Hunter inhales a shallow breath. His eyes, gray in the dim light of the Marauder's controls, sear into yours with an unidentifiable mix of emotions. "I can't." 

Relief floods through you. With a weak smile, you gesture to yourself. "Do I still smell like him?" 

He nods. 

"Do you care for me?"

Another nod, stronger than the previous. 

"Then do something about it, Hunter." Guiding his gloved touch to your face, you lean into his warmth. 

His throat bobs when he swallows. After another moment of silent indecision, Hunter steps into your personal space, gaze searching your expression. He must not find anything worth stopping for, because his grip tightens behind your jaw. The tip of his crooked nose slides along the side of your own nose, breath puffing warm and unsteady over your face. 

You close the gap. Your mouths slot together, and it's like coming home after a long time away. Humming in the back of your throat, you press closer, deepening the kiss without hesitation. Hunter follows your lead. His armor still blocks you from truly feeling him, but you don't care. His lips are on yours, and your heart is his. 

Your name slips from his lips like a prayer. Eyes fluttering open, you peer up at him from beneath your lashes. "Yes?" 

"A-Are you sure?"

"I am."

"Then let me prove that you're mine," he murmurs. His touch lingers along your waist before drifting towards your center. "Let me prove that I take care of what belongs to me." 

A shiver skates up your spine. "Show me."

Ragu list: to be added or removed go here!

@dystopicjumpsuit @littlemissmanga @anxiouspineapple99 @wings-and-beskar @sinfulsalutations

@523rdrebel @sev-on-kamino @starrylothcat @deejadabbles

@starqueensthings @idontgetanysleep @wizardofrozz @mythical-illustrator

@sleepycreativewriter @bobaprint @dickarchivist @a-single-tulip

@thorsterstrudle @droids-you-are-looking-for @goblininawig @cw80831

@mssbridgerton @isaidonyourknees @dreamie411 @jedi-hawkins

As the bottle rocks to a halt, you glance up to meet Hunter’s piercing gaze. He’s always been extra perceptive, always had the ability to make you feel like he’s seeing through you, but tonight, with magic coursing through him, his eyes pin you in place. A smirk tilts the corners of his mouth up. 

Your breath shudders out of your chest in anticipation as you let your eyes wander over his costume-turned-reality. Ragged lumberjack plaid stretches over his broad shoulders, torn in places to reveal the continuation of his skeleton tattoo. His teeth have sharpened into points, bared in a grin as the smirk on his face widens. Even his hair, usually so neatly held back by his bandana, is fluffier, longer, wilder.

The strobing, dancing lights reflect yellow eyeshine in his gaze, and you shiver. Arousal already begins to pool in your lower belly, molten heat stirring faintly. Hunter’s nostrils flare as he breathes in. The way his eyes flutter lets you know that he can smell you even amidst the press of sweaty bodies, spilled alcohol, and sickly sweet fog. A whimper falls from you, unheard by anyone except him. 

Hunter twirls a fresh shot of clear alcohol between his fingers. “Well, mesh’la?” 

“U-Um,” you say. The rest of the troopers at the table don’t even bother to hide their smug smirks. “Yeah. Let’s do this.” 

Downing the shot, Hunter slams the glass on the table, shaking his unruly curls out of his face. Then he stands, his broad shoulders and narrow waist drawing your gaze down. Already you catch the hint of a bulge outlined at the apex of his thighs. Your mouth waters, body coming alive with electric desire, and you resist the impulse to squeeze your legs together.

Following his lead, you stand as well. He tucks you against his side and leads you through the crowd. Pressed against him, your senses are flooded with the furnace-like heat he radiates, the unique scent of spice and dirt that fills your nose, the tingling sense of controlled danger where his claw-tipped fingers scratch ever so lightly against your waist. You swallow heavily. Kriff, this is going to be a fun night, and you’re grateful once again to whoever sent you the invite to this party. 

To your surprise, Hunter steers you towards the bar. With gentle pressure on your lower back, he guides you to one of the leather stools, but remains standing himself. He leans his forearm on the sticky bartop next to you, his other hand resting on the swell of your thigh. 

“Need some more liquid courage, Sarge?” you say with a teasing smile, your words sounding much more cool and collected than you actually feel. 

He barks a short laugh. “Hardly. No, I would rather keep this experience between us from start to finish. I...” He trails off, eyes studying your face before drifting down to your body, sitting stiff and wound up before him. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “...want you to know what you’re getting into.”

“And what is it that I’m getting into?” you ask. You lean closer to him, so close you can feel his warm breath puffing over your face.

“An experience that requires a few ground rules.” 

You nod for him to continue.

“One: when I catch you, don’t run,” he says. 

The bottom of your stomach drops out with excitement. “‘When’?” 

The grin he gives you is wolfish—there’s no other word for it. His teeth bare in a smile masquerading as a snarl, eyeshine glinting once again. “That’s right.” 

“W-What’s rule two?” 

“If you change your mind, you fight as hard as you can. And hit the panic button on this comlink.” He slips the small metal device from his jeans pocket and holds it between clawed fingers. “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to stay in control if I transform.” 

Gripping the comlink with shaking fingers, you locate the panic button and, with a nod, tuck the device into your pocket. “Rule three?” 

Hunter tilts his head, seeming to look through you again. You fidget in your seat until you realize he must be listening to your body—you become intensely aware of the way that your heart hammers against your ribcage, pulse racing, and of the heat scorching through your veins only to pool deep in your core. When he refocuses on your face again, your cunt clenches around nothing at the hungry look in his eyes.

“Rule three,” he echoes, “don’t hold back.” 

He tilts your head up to capture your lips in a searing kiss. You moan in surprise, body melting with little resistance into his touch. His teeth nip at your bottom lip, not enough to draw blood, but enough that the quick sting sends a jolt of pleasure through you. Resting your palms on his chest, you delight in the way his muscles flex and how he seems to quiver. Like he’s holding himself back, despite his order for you to do the opposite.

You break away with a gasp. Hunter nudges your face to the side and, growling, presses his nose to the pulse point below your jaw. You gasp as he inhales your scent.

“Fuck, mesh’la,” he rasps, his words only meant for you, “you smell good enough to eat.” 

You bite your lip to keep your moan contained, still aware of the bartender shooting you a mildly amused look and of the dozens of people around you right now. As if he can sense you holding back—because he probably can—Hunter bites your neck. 

“Rule three,” he husks. 

“I’ll follow your rules if you follow them, too,” you gasp out. “Don’t you dare hold back, either.” 

He pulls back from you, hooded eyes meeting yours. Whatever he searches for in your gaze, he must find, because a slow, predatory grin spreads over his face. 

“Deal,” he says. “I’ll give you a head start. And then I’m going to fuck you, wherever I find you. Understood?” 

You can’t stop the whine that slips from your throat. “Y-Yes. Understood.” 

“Good.” He steadies you as you slide off the stool onto shaky legs. “Now run.” 

Your brain is several seconds behind, still stuck on the barely-contained growl in his voice and the way your skin shivers with goosebumps, but your body reacts immediately. Legs pumping, you take off through the crowd. Half-assed apologies tumble from you as you knock into people. You have no idea where you’re running to—you don’t even know how much of a head start he’s giving you. You just know you have to hide. Every instinct in you screams to run, to get to safety, to evade the burning gaze you can feel on your back even as you duck and weave between troopers.

You dash through an open doorway and skid to a halt, chest heaving with adrenaline. Before you lie several choices: a branching hallway filled with doors, an exit dead ahead, or a stairwell climbing up to a second-story exit. Glancing over your shoulder, you don’t see Hunter following yet. Part of you, a depraved, wholly needy part of you, wonders how much you should even try to hide—but an even more depraved part of you urges you to make it a challenge. How long will it take for him to find you if you try? 

Mind made up, you take the stairs two at a time and shove against the push-bar so the door swings open. But you don’t step through it. Instead, you let it shut on its own, then you turn and, emboldened by equal parts thrill and desire, you brace your hands on the metal bannister. Heaving yourself up over it, you try to keep as little contact with the railing as possible. 

Your stomach lurches as you drop the ten feet to the permacrete flooring. Thankfully, no joints sprain, and you don’t feel any pain in your shins from the impact. 

Unharmed and feeling pleased with yourself, you bolt through the ground-floor exit. 

Outside, the cool night air kisses your skin and wicks away the sweat that’s already gathered along your forehead. Head turning in either direction, you frantically search for someplace to hide. There’s the crystal forest, sure—but you don’t fancy getting poked with a thousand tiny shards like the ones you walked across when you arrived. You could sneak around the building and run back to the tiny spaceport. But that feels too...predictable. Why run when you can try to hide in plain sight?

To your right, a ladder leads up to the second-floor rooftop. Grabbing onto the cold rungs, you pull yourself up, hands and feet flying. You reach the top and, panting, survey your options. 

This rooftop is barren, save for the doorway you assume leads to the stairs you leapt off. But the next building over has several clusters of chairs and tables, tucked into the shadows of a decorative art piece that twists with elegant curves towards the cloud-studded sky. 

You go to take a step when an idea strikes you. You rip off your jacket, baring your arms to the chilled air, and drape it over the edge of the rooftop next to the ladder. Maybe the extra body heat, sweat, and scent clinging to the fabric will draw his attention and throw him off?

You slink to the closed doorway, then leap past it. You really have no idea how much of your scent you’re leaving behind, or what clues he’ll use to find you, but leaving as few footprints behind seems like a safe bet. Once you’re past the doorway, you break into a sprint again. The next-door rooftop isn’t too far, and after a relatively easy jump, you stumble toward the table tucked closest to the art piece. 

As quickly and quietly as you can, you crawl under the small, square table and arrange the chairs to block your body from view. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s the best you can do. 

And it’s not a moment too soon. The door on the other rooftop slams open. Hunter’s dark silhouette stalks out. Even from this distance, you can make out the way his head twitches back and forth as he tries to sniff out your trail. Clenching your jaw, you do your best to calm your labored breathing and urge your racing heart to slow. Anticipation trembles in your limbs.

Hunter jogs to the ladder and picks up your discarded jacket. He leans precariously over the edge of the roof, searching, and for a moment you think you’ve won. 

The wind shifts. 

Cool air sighing past you, you shiver as the sweat dries on your skin. A moment later, Hunter’s head snaps up, and he looks straight at you.

His teeth shine as he bares them in a dangerous smile.

“Oh kriff.”  

You gather your feet beneath you before you remember rule one: don’t run. All you can do is sit, frozen and shaking, beneath the would-be safety of the small table. Hunter prowls toward you. 

When he makes the jump between rooftops, you whimper, scrabbling backward until your shoulders bump against the swirling art piece, deeper into the shadows. You know it won’t help, but the darkness is comforting. Cold seeps into your bones even as your body alights once more with fresh arousal. Kark, have his shoulders always been so broad? 

He comes to a stop directly in front of the table you hide beneath. For a moment, you hold your breath, and the world around you seems to freeze. What is he waiting for? 

The table and chairs scatter with a crash as he yanks the furniture away from you. 

You yelp, surprised fear thrumming through your veins. Above you, standing tall and imposing, Hunter cocks his head at you. He tosses your jacket in your lap. 

“Nice trick,” he says. His voice grates against your skin, causing you to shiver. “Woulda worked if the wind hadn’t changed.” Then he shakes his head. “Well, it woulda worked for a moment. Could smell your cunt all the way over there.” 

He lowers until he crouches in front of you. In the faint starlight, his skull tattoo stands in stark relief, a terrifying visage of death. Your lips part as you pant with need. 

“Fuck, you have no idea how good you smell,” he murmurs. His dark gaze rakes over your cowering form, his tongue wetting his lips. “C’mere.” 

Clawed fingers wrapping around your ankles, he yanks you towards him. You yelp, body stretching flat, and he uses your momentary surprise to tear your pants from you. The fabric yields with a loud rrrrrrip, only to hang in tatters from your waist. 

“K-Kriff,” you swear. “Hunter—”

He shushes you gently. “Let me taste you.” 

He hooks one claw under the flimsy elastic band of your underwear and, with a sharp tug, the fabric snaps twice against your skin. When he peels back the ruined undergarment, you both groan at the faint, shimmery line of slick that pulls away with it. 

Like a man starved, Hunter presses your legs wide open and buries his face in your wet pussy. All concerns about your ruined clothes flee as soon as he licks through your folds. You cry out, pleasure rippling through you as his warm mouth envelopes your center. Propping yourself up on one elbow, you twist the fingers of one hand into his curls, holding his head against you. Your hips rock in pure reaction. Hunter growls, the noise vibrating against your clit. His eyes pierce yours, dark wells of lust and need. Your mouth falls open as you moan. The sounds of your pleasure bounce off the sculpture behind you.

“F-Fuck, Hunter!” you squeal as he sucks on your clit. 

He drags his nose through your folds, inhaling your sweet scent. “You’re soaked, mesh’la. Did you like running from me, huh? Liked running from the big bad wolf?” 

“Ye-e-e-es!” you keen, throwing your head back as he fucks you with his tongue. Deep in your belly, the molten lava of your desire begins to solidify into something more solid, something that promises bone-melting pleasure. 

Overhead, past the art installation, you watch with hazy eyes as the clouds drift lazily across the sky. Steadily, the night grows brighter. Though your upper body remains in shadow, your legs, and with them, Hunter, become bathed in silvery moonlight. 

Hunter’s grip on your thighs turns painful. His claws press a little too hard against your soft skin. Wincing, you snap your attention back to where Hunter’s mouth closes around your cunt. A moan punches out of your chest as you watch his eyes blink rapidly, shifting from lust-blown to golden and shining, alight with an intelligence that isn’t quite human. 

He shoves himself back from you, stumbling away, his entire body convulsing. “D-Don’t run,” is all he manages to grit out before—

Snap! 

You gasp, unable to do anything but watch with wide eyes as Hunter’s body violently contorts and transforms before you. His limbs elongate, knees bending unnaturally, ribs cracking as a new form tears itself out of his skin. Fear and desire chase each other through your body; you don’t know which one you feel most intensely.

With a deep, sonorous howl, the Hunter you know is replaced by a hulking wolven beast. Crouched on two legs, the werewolf pants heavily, staring down at massive, clawed hands. Hunter’s clothes hang off the beast in rags, shredded by the way his body swelled and grew during the transformation. But what strikes you the most is his fur. Dark gray fur, shot through with white streaks, falls in a shaggy coat all across his body. With a jolt you realize the white fur matches exactly the skeleton tattoo Hunter bears—in his wolf form, the tattoo is still humanoid, reflecting the person now trapped within.

“H-Hunter?” you ask, voice shaky and tentative. 

The wolf snaps his attention to you. Those bright, intelligent golden eyes lock onto yours as a snarl, animalistic and deep, tears from him, his teeth bared. His snout, rough and ridged, twitches as he scents you. Your legs remain open, slick folds still bared and glistening in the moonlight.

Dropping onto all fours, the werewolf sniffs the air again. Then, quicker than you can fully process, the wolf pounces. His claws dig into your sides as he drags you closer once more, a startled scream tearing from your throat. The sound only seems to encourage him. Growling deep in his chest, Hunter—the werewolf—he lowers his head and licks a stripe up your pussy. 

You gasp at the odd sensation. His tongue is long and rough against your sensitive skin, but you find it strangely pleasurable. A shudder runs up your body as the wolf laps at your dripping core; the heat simmering in your lower belly blazes back to life, a raging inferno of need blinding you to the fear of what this wolf really could do to you if he wanted. But you don’t dare move within his grasp.

You fight to keep your hips still as you watch the werewolf lick your cunt. Gasping for breath, you catch sight of something—something thick and red, hanging between his thighs. 

A groan claws out of you. “F-Fuck. Hunter, please.” 

Whether the werewolf understands you or not, you’re unsure, but he withdraws his mouth, the fur around his lips soaked with your juices. You heave a shuddering gasp as he hooks one large hand under your ass, angling your body. His other hand wraps around his large, throbbing cock. Watching in fascination, you moan as the slim, pointed tip drags through your soaked folds. 

“Please,” you whimper. “Please.” 

With another low growl, Hunter thrusts into you, burying his thick length to the hilt. You shout, pleasure and pain biting through you in equal measures, as he splits you open. Walls fluttering around the intrusion, you go boneless, forcing yourself to relax. 

Hunter sets a brutal, punishing pace. His cock reaches parts of you no one ever has before, stretching you in ways that you’re sure will ruin you for anyone else. High, heady moans tumble from you with every sharp thrust of his hips, your nipples pebbled in the cold night air. One of your hands squeezes the soft flesh of your breasts, the other snaking down between your bodies to circle around your clit. Pleasure spikes within you, orgasm drawing closer as you play with yourself. 

“G-Gonna—” You let out a choked moan. “Gonna cum.” 

Maybe the wolf does understand you, because he bares his teeth in a terrifying display, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Spit drools onto your heated skin. Gathering some of it on your fingers, you return to your clit to rub frantic circles there. 

Hunter adjusts the angle of your hips by a fraction, and you cum with a scream as he drives into that one devastating spot inside you. Back arching off the permacrete ground, your vision whites out as the wolf fucks you through your orgasm. Wave after wave after wave of pleasure crests over you, until you’re sobbing from overstimulation. 

Pushing with weak arms on the wolf’s chest, you somehow manage to get him to pull out of you, to give you a moment to catch your breath and recover. The wolf looms over you, panting and drooling. His cock twitches when you reach down to stroke the strange appendage.

“Good boy,” you mutter, leaning up to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. On a whim, you reach up to scratch behind one of his ears. The wolf’s eyes slide shut, a pleased hum vibrating in his chest.

Then his instincts seem to kick back in. With a huff, Hunter flips you, his nails scratching across the soft skin of your tummy. Chest pressed to the ground, ass in the air, you whine brokenly as he pushes his length into your tight heat once again. You rock your hips, meeting him thrust for thrust, mind melting into incoherency as he fucks against that shattered piece of heaven in your cunt. A second orgasm begins to build in your lower belly, and you desperately chase it, circling your clit once again. 

Hunter is getting close as well. His incessant growls are steadily becoming higher, more akin to whines than snarls. His claws dig into your flesh hard enough to break skin; tiny rivulets of blood slide down your front. You don’t care, just so long as he makes you cum again. Tears form in the corners of your eyes as your body winds tighter and tighter, orgasm threatening to pull you under at any moment. In your slick cunt, Hunter’s cock pulses, and seems to bulge. 

Then, without warning, he buries himself in you as deep as he can go. You cry out, body shuddering with pleasure as his cock—swelling and knotting—presses against your walls. You cum on his knot like that, squealing in delight, nerves obliterated and frayed as he cums with a howl. Knot pulsing, he paints your insides with ropes of hot cum that just don’t seem to stop. He fills you to the brim, and then some—you can feel his hot spend dripping down your thighs where it leaks out past his cock.

Slowly, Hunter begins to transform back into himself. His fingernails shrink, pulling the tips from your body. His fur dissolves into ash, and now against your back, his sweaty skin sticks to yours where he gasps for air. But his cock remains knotted in your cunt, both of you swollen and sensitive. 

You regain the ability to talk before he does. “H-Hunter. Hey. You okay?” 

He hums, forehead pressed between your shoulder blades. 

“I need a verbal answer,” you say between pants. 

“I’m—fuck, I’m good.” He pushes himself off you with shaky arms. But he remains kneeling behind you, locked in your tight walls. “Did I hurt you?” 

“Not in any way that I didn’t like,” you say. “Honestly kind of forgot about the panic button. Not that I wanted to use it,” you hurry to add. “That was... I don’t even have the words. ‘Amazing’ doesn’t cut it.” 

He chuckles, and the vibrations make you both moan. Your pussy clenches weakly around him. With warm, human fingers, Hunter squeezes the flesh of your ass and rocks you gently back and forth. 

“Oh stars,” you breathe. “I can’t, Hunter, it’s too much—”

“You can,” he murmurs. His hands help you move, each gentle thrust loosening the knot still swollen inside you. “You can take it, mesh’la.” 

Keening, your hands scrabble for purchase. Fingers wrapping around his wrists where he holds you, you crane your neck to look back at him over your shoulder. His face is sweaty, hair plastered to his skin, and his lips are flushed and swollen. His eyes are half-lidded and still dark with lust. In a word, he looks debauched. When his gaze meets yours, he smirks.

“That’s it,” he encourages, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your hips. “Just like that.” 

You cum again, preening under his praise despite the way your aching body screams for rest. This orgasm is slow, bone-deep and debilitating in its power. But the extra gush of slick is enough to push Hunter out of you. You both groan at the sensation of separating. 

“Look at that,” Hunter murmurs. When you glance back again, his eyes are transfixed on your cunt. His cum, all of it, wells up and spills out of your spent pussy. Seemingly without realizing it, he gathers some of the sticky substance and pushes it back into your cunt with his thumb. 

You hiss. He withdraws his hands, then tugs you up onto your knees and cradles you to his chest. “You did so well, mesh’la.” 

“You, too, Hunter,” you mumble against his skin. For a long while, the pair of you remain there, wrapped in a comforting embrace, until you chuckle. 

“What’s so funny?” he asks. 

“Our clothes are ruined,” you say. “How are we supposed to go anywhere?” 

He laughs with you, despite not having an answer. That’s alright, you think, it’s an excuse to get him into one of those rooms downstairs....

His hands are rough and insistent against your body, pulling clothing from you without a second care for where they end up. He hadn't even bothered to take his armor off; you'd fixed him with a heated look when he entered the cockpit, alone, and he'd simply gestured for you to stand with two fingers. He'd only asked you one question, voice steady and modulated: "How do you want me?"

Arching away from the cold durasteel ship wall, you gasp, cold racing over your skin even as heat burrows into your core. Tech uses the opportunity to slot one of his thighs between your own. Deftly, in the same movement, he snags both of your wrists and pins them above your head with one hand. His other hand grips your hip hard enough to bruise as he adjusts you to his liking. Desire, electric and insistent, hums through your veins. It only becomes more intense when your soaked folds make contact with the rough denim, separated only by the flimsy material of your underwear.

"Stars," you gasp. "Please, Tech."

The little red light on Tech's helmet never wavers when he tilts his head. "Please, what, cyare?"

"Please touch me," you whine. You try to rock your hips, gain some much needed friction on your aching clit, but Tech's grasp tightens impossibly. Through his goggles, his gaze hardens in warning.

"I am touching you," he states. "If you would like me to do something different, you must use your words." 

Swallowing hard, you try in vain to wrest control over your panting breath and racing heart. Maker, he'll be the death of you, and you'll greet death willingly if this is how you go. 

"Tech," you say, a pleading note in your voice, "please play with my pussy." 

You can't see the smirk, but you can hear it. "Why would I do that..."

The world spins as he flips you around and, one hand between your shoulder blades, pushes your chest flush with the cold metal wall. Hissing, you wiggle your hips, moaning at the vulnerability of the new position. 

"...when I can fuck it instead?" 

While he'd been talking, he'd freed his cock from the confines of his pants and, holding your panties to the side, splits you open over his hard length. A choked moan strangles in your throat at the sudden intrusion. Without any prep, the stretch is almost too much—almost. Your body accepts him like it was made to; pleasure alights every nerve. Tech doesn't stop until he's flush with your ass. Both hands come to rest on your hips. 

"Remember, cyare," he says, withdrawing without giving you a moment to adjust, "you asked me to be rough." 

Your mind goes blissfully blank as he fucks into you with abandon, fulfilling your request with every sharp thrust of his hips. 

You’d heard the rumors, of course, whispered with bright eyes and furtive expressions in shithole Outer Rim cantinas of a flame-headed being cutting down Inquisitors and Imperials. When you first overheard a snippet of the tall tale, you’d nearly choked on your cheap spotchka. Right, you remember thinking, a fiery figure opposing the Empire. Did they run out of good gossip today? 

Most rumors have at least a kernel of truth at their centers, and you figured it was the same with this one. And besides, you are indifferent to the Empire, at best; you’ve been avoiding their attention as much as you can, but you suspect that the thick cloak of the darkside you wear like a mantle has kept most of the Inquisitorius oblivious. They’re looking for Jedi, who cannot resist continuing to do good in a galaxy rotted to its core, and you stopped being a Jedi long before the Empire rose to power. They probably pay no mind to one lone figure who straddles the line of light and dark, temptation and virtue. 

But that doesn’t mean Jedi pay no mind to you. Most of them, you can avoid; you fight when necessary. Currently, you’re thinking a fight might just be necessary. You’re on some planet you’ve already forgotten the name of, densely populated and urban. You stand with one foot propped on the edge of a rooftop, neon lights glimmering on wet permacrete. Rain drizzles in a fine mist. You gaze placidly across the gap to the next building—to the flame-headed being. Without even needing to try, you feel his Force signature: he burns in the Force, even as he tries to hide it. His coppery hair ruffles in the slight breeze, stubble darkening his face. 

With a steadying breath, you tilt your head to one side. “Got a name, friend?”

“Not one you need to know,” he calls back. His posture is loose, casual, but you sense the whipcord tension in his Force aura; he’s on the alert. 

As he probably should be. 

“If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?” You offer him a disarming smile. “Seems only fair, right? Equitable partnership.” 

He snorts. “There’s no partnership.” 

“Fine,” you huff. You tell him your name anyways, and he mouths it silently, but none of that tension dissipates. You take the moment to appraise him a little more closely: lean body, self-assured slant of his shoulders, faded burn scar cut across his face. Heat licks up your spine.

“Cal,” he eventually says. “Cal Kestis.”

You smile wide at his honeyed voice. “Nice to meet you, Cal Kestis. Mind moving out of the way so I can continue on my merry way?” 

“Afraid I can’t do that,” he says, but there’s no trace of regret in that gorgeous voice, only immense exhaustion. 

Your saber hilt twitches against your back as your hand flexes nearly out of habit. Taking another deep, cleansing breath, you shrug as if his answer means nothing. The dark tide of the Force surges through your body, tingling in your fingertips, sharpening the smoggy night air into fine detail. “Well, can’t say I didn’t ask nicely.” 

And then you leap, going from a dead standstill to a flurry of action in the space of a heartbeat. As your unstable crimson blade screeches to life, bathing the rooftops in flickering light, an answering snap-hiss echoes around you. Blue beam clashes with red, showering sparks over both of you. 

Oh, he’s strong, and for some reason that makes your skin flush. You bare your teeth in a mockery of a smile and shove. He staggers back, feet slipping for a moment in the gravel surface of the rooftop, before he recovers. 

“I’ll give you this one chance to stand down,” he says, voice thick and low and oh how it makes you shiver. His eyes glint in the blue light of his saber. 

“Funny,” you snap, “I was just going to say the same to you.” 

A frown tugs at his mouth. Lowering into a defensive stance, his eyes never leave yours as you languidly swing your saber in a half circle around you, content to draw this out. You’ve killed your number of Jedi in the name of self-preservation—necessary sacrifices to ensure the continued balance of Light and Dark—but there’s something about the way his green eyes harden into sharp gems the longer you twirl your blade, the casual power in his veined forearms, the absolutely pure gold energy he radiates in the Force. 

With an aggravated shake of your head, you press the attack. Overhead, backhand, thrust, thrust, parry—you and Cal settle into a dangerous dance. Bright light bursts where your sabers connect, sparks skittering across the gravel. For anyone watching nearby, the pair of you probably look like blurs of red and blue light—another light fixture among this technicolor urban landscape. 

But for anyone skilled in the Force, the radiance of your sabers dims in comparison to the pillars of energy you both become. One golden and bright as a thousand suns, shot through with faint tendrils of inky blackness; one glowing in shadow, a black hole ringed by its event horizon, smears of golden light. 

Both the light and the dark are present in this fight, and you smile grimly. In all things, balance, as your master used to say. 

The memory is a distraction, and Cal manages to break through your guard and punch your nose. Searing pressure spikes through your head, warmth dribbling down your face. 

You merely grin at him with blood-covered lips. “You’ll have to do better than that, Kestis.” 

And again the two of you become a flurry of attacks, parries, counterattacks, feints. In the distance, the low drone of a police siren reverberates off the tall glass buildings of the downtown area. You’ve been spotted. Time to end this now. 

You make a show of appearing to be tiring, breathing coming in heavy gasps, your saber still meeting Cal’s in time to stop him from separating your limbs from your body, but just a fraction slower than what you’d begun with. And you give ground. Just a half step at first, and then several steps. Cal seizes the opportunity to push you back, force you into submission, gain the upperhand—

Not knowing he’d lost this fight the moment he’d placed himself in your path. 

The Force is with you. In the Force, your arms seem to glow with terrible, purple-black ultraviolet power as you surrender yourself to its currents. There is no longer you and your saber; your saber is you. There is no longer you and Cal Kestis; there is you and the last piece of yourself that you’re willing to atrophy. Veins of golden Light criss-cross under your darkly shining skin—and as you stand firm once again with your back to the low roof edge, you will those golden veins to flush, to swell. You’re going to triumph here, and it’ll be with the approval of the full Force.

Cal’s face gleams with sweat, his brow furrowed, delicious mouth curved down in a frown. You lick your lips. 

“Yield, Kestis,” you say. One last chance. 

He just grunts, and in a blur of motion, separates the hilt of his saber. Another beam of blue snaps to life. Fear flares in you for a moment—but the Force remains with you, and you let the emotion siphon into your cracked, bleeding kyber. Plasma spits off the sides of your blade as you block attack after attack after attack; you’re an infinite well of patience—but that siren is getting closer, and you know that time, unlike your patience, is of the essence. 

In a flash of inspiration, you reverse your grip on your hilt mid-parry, then swipe the angry blade out and up. A cry of pain, and one of the blue sabers retracts as the hilt clatters to the gravel. Cal stumbles back, cradling his left arm to his chest, his remaining saber held in front of him. 

You can’t help the surge of pleasure at besting your opponent, even temporarily. As you twirl your saber again, a spotlight suddenly beams down on the two of you. With a grimace, you swing the saber down towards the soft juncture of Cal’s neck where it meets his shoulder—

And freeze when you catch a glimpse of the calm, resigned look in his eyes. Your blade hovers mere centimeters off his skin. 

Amid the roar of hovercraft, the police siren, and the rushing of blood in your ears, he murmurs your name.

“Kark it all,” you spit. Gathering the Force within you, you shove him back. A shout of surprise, a flash of blue, and then he’s tumbling over the edge of the building. You retract your blade and dash in the opposite direction without a second thought. 

Your master had always been honest with you about how little he, or anyone, truly knew about the mysteries of the Force. During your years as a padawan, you spent countless hours in meditation chambers deep below the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, feeling the constant ebb and flow of the Force around you. The first time he brought you there, your master explained in hushed tones how the temple had been built millennia ago over an old Sith temple. The Force resided in a nexus point there; streams of energy flowed from all over the galaxy and converged—and then diverged—from the temple. 

Sitting in meditation now, you breathe deeply and steadily as the memory crests over you. 

“But, Master,” you asked, “if the temple used to be a Sith stronghold, doesn’t that mean the dark side of the Force is strong here, too?” 

His kind, patient eyes crinkled as he smiled. “That is right, my Padawan. In all things, there must be balance. Light and dark only exist because of each other.”

A frown tugged at your lips at that, and you cocked your head to the side. “But aren’t we supposed to resist the darkness?” 

“Yes,” he said. “The darkness is an overbalance—an overabundance—of emotions, passions, fears. The Sith, and all who use the dark side, manipulate the Force to their will, instead of letting their emotions, like the Force, flow through them.” 

Something about that didn’t feel right. “But—” 

Your master held up one hand, forestalling the line of questioning you were about to launch into. He stepped through a large, arched doorway into a dim, echoing room. “Come, Padawan. Perhaps meditating will provide the answers you seek.” 

You inhale slowly and open your eyes, squinting against the bright blue glare of the hyperspace lane. No matter how long or how hard you meditated under the temple, you grew no closer to an answer than by asking your master. Despite your frustration, you kept returning to the chambers below the Great Hall. The Force there was...comforting. Balanced. And yet, so infuriating in its mystery. You could feel both the light and the dark, and neither were good or bad. The Force just...was. Perhaps it was the long hours you spent in the tunnels and vast echoic chambers there that you developed your keen sense for the composition of the Force.

Standing, you groan softly at the ache in your knees. As you settle back into the thinly padded pilot’s seat, you massage at the joints, wondering just when you’d gotten old. 

Probably when that droid shot through your master’s heart on Geonosis, and you’d physically felt the Force tip off-balance half a galaxy away, deep in meditation on Coruscant. The memory is painful, and digs its festering claws into your heart yet again. 

The Council hadn’t even needed to tell you your master had perished in the opening salvo of the Clone Wars. The morning after his funeral, with both his and your sabers in your pack, you’d fled the temple.

The old fool, you think, slashing the memory of him from your awareness.

By now, you’re used to the pit of emotions yawning in your very essence. You hold onto your fears, your angers, your anxieties—but also your loves, your passions, your desires. Without even really thinking about it, you reach for the loose compartment that holds your master’s saber. Its duranium-plated hilt is slowly corroding, matching the slow degradation of yourself. The blade jumps to life with a snap-hiss. The green glow it casts is almost sickly, the blade bright, but thin and tremulous. It’s been weak since he died.

As you stare, eyes burning, into the flickering core of your master’s blade, you reach into the Force for the kyber at its heart. No matter how many times you brush against the crystal with your mind, you’re never prepared. A screech, unending and agonized and fearful, rends through your consciousness. For a moment, the green sputters, crimson taking its place. 

You drop the saber, gasping. The hilt clatters to the floor and blade retracts, and you’re left again in the pressing silence of hyperspace.

In all things, balance, drift the words through you once again. Green against crimson. Crimson for blue. You think about Cal Kestis, his blinding presence; you think of your vacuous silhouette; and you take all the rage you can muster and twist it into your own heart like a dagger. The joists of your ship groan in response.

The second time you meet Cal Kestis, you almost wish you’d killed him all those years ago.

Just a few months after that first encounter on rain-slicked rooftops, you caught wind of a rumor that the flame-headed being attacked the Fortress Inquisitorius itself. This time, you didn’t discount the story, having witnessed first hand—for however short a time—the Force-empowered determination of that single human being. None of the rumors about Cal Kestis surprise you anymore. 

But you routinely have to curse his name as the Inquisitors have now turned their attention beyond just Jedi. The cloak of the darkness is no longer enough on its own to hide you from the long gaze of the Empire. You’ve taken to hiding out on barely populated Outer Rim worlds, hanging around long enough to establish some kind of routine, before the gentle ripples of the Force lapping against your subconscious grow into towering, dangerous waves. And then you hop back in your ship, barely more than scrap welded to a hyperdrive, and scuttle off to the next system. 

Which is where you find yourself now. Koboh could be promising. As you crouch at the edge of an exposed cliff, you study the cosmic anomaly that orbits the planet. The Abyss. You’re not sure what it is, but whatever it is, it creates a strong enough disturbance in the Force that you’re hopeful it will mask your own signature. And, you admit to yourself as your gaze lowers to the breathtaking landscape spread out below you, you’ve hidden in worse places the last few years. Koboh seems promising, indeed.

You spend a few days studying the locals, trying to get a feel for how life works here. For the most part, everyone here seems like they’re from off-world—which is good, because it means you won’t stand out for very long as a newcomer. Everyone here is a newcomer. And everyone here is more concerned, it seems, with the things that lie in the dirt than in the world aboveground. All the better for you. 

Concealing your saber hilt against your back like always, you make sure your ship, bucket of bolts that it is, is well-hidden enough to dissuade any potential scrappers. Tucked high on an outcropping, you hope most folks won’t care too much to check out the shiny metal bits not covered by plant matter. Not when it’s several dozen feet above solid ground. 

And you make sure you look as uninteresting as possible. With your saber out of view, you could pass for a refugee without issue. Force knows you’ve been weeks without a proper shower; you can feel the dirt and grime on every inch of your skin. Your clothing, usually neat and tucked in, is dusty, torn, and stained with dried blood. 

Yes, you’ll fit in nicely here. 

As you pass beneath a metallic archway decorated with a massive horned skull, you reach out in the Force, making sure that none of the town’s inhabitants can get the drop on you. You bypass squat, square buildings that are probably homes of some of the folks here. None seem of interest. Instead, your gaze is trained on the larger, multi-story building near the center of town. As you draw nearer, you realize the sign above the door reads, “Saloon.” Perfect. 

The door opens to admit you into a hallway; at the end, you wait in front of another door for a moment while a mechanical eye studies you. Chattering in a deep, unintelligible voice, the eye withdraws, and the second door whooshes open to reveal the barroom. 

No one turns as you descend the few steps to the floor. Crates and clutter stock most of the booths along the side wall, a few folks talking quietly at smaller tables or sitting alone and nursing a drink. Quiet, staticky radio music plays over the speakers. 

Behind the bar is a tall, four-armed droid who skids to a halt where you lean against the counter.

“You’re a new face,” the droid says. “Name’s Monk. What can I get you?” 

You quirk an eyebrow and give the droid, Monk, an alias, your sixth one in as many months. Then you say, “Got any spotchka?” 

“Indeed I do,” Monk says. “Shall I start a tab?” 

“I’ll pay up front,” you say with a shake of your head. 

Monk gives you the cost as he pours the glowing blue liquid into a clean glass, and you slide the credits across the counter. The alcohol’s familiar burn slides down your throat as you lean your back against the bar. Over the rim of your glass, you study the other patrons here at the saloon. Dusty, tired figures, the lot of them. In the Force, they are marginal, giving off only nominal signatures, no different than most other living beings. Most of them aren’t important enough to even warrant a clear affiliation with light or dark; they just are. Your upper lip quirks in a grimace.

Extending your awareness out farther, you’re not sure what you’re searching for, but you suppose you’ll know it when you find it. The hilt of your saber digs uncomfortably into your skin, but you ignore it, using the pain to sharpen your focus. You sense more townsfolk going to and fro outside the saloon, but none of them of any more note than those inside.

Something in you itches. Frowning, you lower the glass of spotchka and try to focus in on that feeling. It’s under your skin, out of reach, just behind your spine, but if you just push a little farther—

You gasp, cringing away from the sudden supernova that blinds your awareness in the Force. Cal Kestis. It has to be Cal. No one else burns quite like him. 

You yank your Force signature back into your body, hoping he didn’t feel you like you felt him. Figuring you only have moments to get out, you make a split-second decision between the several other doors leading away from this main room. Spotchka glass still in hand, you dart for the nearest door, and it slides open to reveal a staircase that winds upward. You take the steps two at a time. At the landing, you hiss at the sight of a second-floor loft. Stairs seem to continue along the other side, continuing to wind upward, but before you can run for them, a familiar voice drifts up from below. 

“Hey, Monk, good to see you,” says Cal Kestis. 

Your body flushes with warmth. Kriff. 

Monk says something you can’t quite make out. 

“Another newcomer?” Cal says. “I’ll make sure to say hi when I see them.” 

Grimacing, you creep across the floor toward the second staircase. Your foot just touches the bottom step when a voice behind you calls your name—your real name, not the alias you gave the droid. 

You sigh, chin falling toward your chest. “Cal Kestis.” 

“How did you find me?” 

His green gaze burns into you almost as hot as his Force signature. You roll your eyes; typical Jedi, thinking the world revolves around him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” you say. “I’m...laying low.” 

He crosses his arms across his chest, and you’re distracted for a moment by the way his muscles bulge against the fabric of his shirt. “I’m supposed to believe that.”

“Believe whatever you want to, Jedi,” you bite out. “I’ll go find my own desolate planet.” 

“Can’t let you do that,” he says, following behind you as you climb the stairs. 

“I’d love to see you stop me.” 

You feel the disturbance in the Force and brace for it. His attempt to yank you back down the stairs fails as you push against it—but you can’t push past it. Equally matched. Balanced. 

With a growl, you spin on your heel and point an accusing finger at Cal. “Are you really sure you want to do this right now?” 

His eyes narrow at you as you stand there, chest heaving with emotion, both of you crackling with energy in the Force. You down the rest of your spotchka and shatter the glass on the ground. Cal doesn’t flinch. The longer you stand there, the hotter your face flushes. Ignoring the impulse to shudder, you don’t miss the way his green eyes study your face, your posture, your signature. 

“I know you,” he finally says. “From the temple.” 

You snort in derision. “Good for you, kid.” 

“I was still a youngling when the Clone Wars started,” he says. “I...understand what it’s like to lose your master.” 

Your vision pulses black for a moment, and on instinct you reach out with a clawed hand. Cal’s eyes widen in fear as his hands fly to his throat, grabbing at the invisible hand you squeeze there.

“Don’t. Ever. Presume to know anything about me,” you hiss. “You know nothing, Cal Kestis.” 

“You’re—right—” he chokes out. “I’m—sorry—”

You shove, the Force exploding through your palm as he slams into the opposite wall. Sputtering, he coughs, rubbing at his throat. 

“I don’t need your pity, Jedi.” You spit the title like a curse—like the curse that it is—and turn to take the staircase up and out. The door at the top admits you to the open-air roof, the cosmic explosion of the Abyss looming overhead. 

You step over the edge of the roof, calling on the Force to cushion your descent. At the bottom, you ignore the flabbergasted expressions on a few of the locals as you stalk off. Past the saloon, past the stables, through the shallow river—you’re not sure how far you walk, but it’s dark by the time that you realize you’re lost. 

“Kriff,” you sigh. 

Thankfully, whether by luck or by the sheer force of presence of your Force signature, you’ve not been bothered by any of the (frankly terrifying) wildlife on this planet. Tentatively, you reach out, but you find nothing but a few docile Nekkos and, farther off, a dozing bilemaw. 

In the dim light provided by the Abyss and the Shattered Moon hanging heavy in the sky, you determine that a shallow cliff alcove nearby will be as good a place as any to rest until morning. Settling under the rocky overhang, you exhale a shaky breath. 

It’s been a long time since you let your emotions take control like that. You allow yourself to feel them, even to use them to your advantage—but you rarely lose control. Not recently, anyways. 

You bare your teeth at the thought of Cal Kestis. He’s by far only the latest in a string of former Jedi you’ve encountered, but none of them, even the ones who you remember from your years as a padawan, created this amount of turmoil in you. So why him? 

Should probably just ask him myself, huh, you muse, hearing a twig snap nearby. You don’t need to look into the Force to know who it is. 

“Who’s following who now?” you call. 

With a familiar hum, a blue blade sings as it springs to life, illuminating the alcove you’re hunkered in, as well as Cal’s lean figure. You’re too exhausted to be angry at this point, but a different kind of heat licks up your spine as you push up onto your feet. The warmth settles between your thighs, throbbing uncomfortably as he raises the saber overhead, his arm muscles flexing. 

“Had to make sure you didn’t hurt anyone,” he says, halting just a few feet away. 

“No one out here to hurt,” you say. “What are you really doing here, Kestis?” 

He hesitates, shifting his weight between his feet, eyes not meeting yours. Squinting, you extend a tendril of awareness toward him—past the burnished gold aura, past the shell of Jedi honor he projects like a shield, until you brush against one of those tiny black cracks in his signature. He stiffens, shifts his stance into a defensive half-crouch. There is darkness in him. 

And there is lightness in you, sighs a voice that sounds very much like your master’s. 

You ignore it. 

“Well?” you prompt. 

“I- I don’t know,” he says. 

You snort. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know.” Sinking back into a meditative pose, you let your eyes slide shut and effectively shut out all things Cal Kestis.

At least, that’s what you try to do. The karking idiot seems to have decided that you’re not a threat—a poor miscalculation on his part—as his saber retracts and you hear the sounds of someone settling into a meditative trance next to you. Peeking one eye open, you glance over to find him sat back on his heels, palms resting on his thighs, his face blank and serene. He’s beautiful like this, you think. 

“I could kill you right now, you know,” you say, letting your eye fall shut again. 

“You won’t,” he says, sounding so matter-of-fact that you’re almost convinced that you really wouldn’t. 

Then you shake your head. “Don’t be so certain.” 

“You didn’t kill me five years ago. You won’t kill me now.” 

Gnawing at your cheek, you find you have no response for that. 

The third time you face Cal Kestis, you want to hate him. 

Koboh proves to be big enough for two powerful Force users. You keep to the wilderness, and he sticks to the town. For the most part, anyway. You occasionally catch a glimpse of copper hair as he explores the planet, following all the inane rumors of the locals. Why he even lowers himself to their level, you’ll never understand. 

And besides, Koboh has turned out to be a perfect place to continue your search for answers about the Force. You’ve never wanted to stop knowing, never stopped asking “But why?” The Abyss above is a physical presence most days, nearly oppressive in its crushing weight. It absolutely deafens you in the Force whenever you try to reach for it, painful screeching assaulting your senses. There’s something behind the noise, though, but it’s too far, too deep, for you to reach it. 

You haven’t seen Cal in a while now. And you’re fine with that. You’d watched his ship take off in the early hours of the morning a few weeks ago, and it still hasn’t returned. 

Shrugging, you decide that today is as good a day as any to do some exploring of your own. You’ve watched Cal enough to know that there are hidden vaults on this planet, and from what you’ve been able to tell, they’re old. Maybe they’ll have some answers. 

The sunrise peeks over the craggy cliffside, casting a gentle pink hue over the world, still hushed in its predawn slumber. Dew collects on your pant legs as you pass through a small clearing of scrubby bushes. A couple dozen feet up the hill glints a hint of gold. None of the Koboh prospectors would have left this alone unless it were for a reason, you figure. Maybe this is one of the vaults. 

Resting a palm gently on its surface, the gold is cool to the touch. Glyphs in Basic and other languages spiral around the circular door-like structure. When you examine it through the Force, you feel the mechanism that keeps it locked, but no matter how much you push, pull, yank, shove, the door remains sealed. 

“Dank farrik,” you curse. “How does Cal do it?” 

“Very carefully,” a familiar warm voice says from behind you. 

You barely glance over your shoulder, flushing from the embarrassment of being caught unawares, but somehow unsurprised he’s managed to find you. You should have known that even thinking of his absence would cause it to revert. 

“Very funny,” you say. “What secrets are you hiding, Jedi?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Sith,” he says. 

As he sidles up alongside you, you glare at him. “I’m not a Sith.”

“Coulda fooled me,” he says with a shrug. “Red saber, strong in the dark side, angry all the time.” 

Huffing, you roll your eyes. His hair is longer than it has been since you first met him, and there’s another scar, pink and shiny, on his upper bicep, like he’d been cut with a vibroblade. As you study him, you also realize he looks...older. More tired. More weary. 

“You look like bantha fodder,” you say helpfully. 

He hums noncommittally. “Do you want into the vault or not?” 

“You’re gonna let me in?” you say, eyebrows raising in surprise. 

With a half-shrug, he says, “I’ve already explored this one. Nothing left in it for you to gain, except maybe some manners.” 

He reveals a small, handheld device that, when he raises it toward the golden door, blips. The door expands open, revealing a turbolift in the center of the floor. 

“Why are you helping me?” you ask, not moving from your spot. Suspicion bubbles in the back of your mind. 

Cal pockets the device and gestures for you to go ahead, giving you a sardonic two-finger salute. “It’s in my nature.” 

With that, he takes a step back, then another, and then pivots and trudges back downhill, tucking his fiery hair behind his ears. 

The vault teaches you something, alright, but it isn’t manners like Cal hoped. Even two century-old tech and warbled messages from a Jedi named Santari Khri cannot lift the veil of jade that rests over your eyes. The Order has always been faulty. The Order has always been weak. Your master was always fated to die, and you to wander, adrift. You grind your teeth in anger. Is that all that exists for you? For anyone? To live and die at the whim of some cosmic, unknowable power? 

The vault also reminds you of your mortality. As you work yourself into a silent rage about the unfairness of the galaxy, at the cruel and nonsensical nature of the Force, you miscalculate the distance between two crumbling stone platforms. With a Force-assisted leap, your arms windmill as you keep yourself balanced, but your feet only just manage to catch the edge of the platform. You wobble, anger bursting into fear, as the stone grates against itself before your stomach is in your throat as you plummet straight down. 

The rush of frigid air steals the scream from your lungs. Try as you might, the Force refuses to help you grasp onto the quickly receding lip of this chasm. 

And then pain rockets up your legs in jagged, arcing lines from your heels to your hips, and you collapse. 

It’s only by sheer willpower that you don’t black out. Grit your teeth. Take a deep breath. Curse until the pain abates. 

You take stock of your body. Your legs are on fire, and any attempt to move them sends a fresh wave of lava licking up your nerve endings. Otherwise, you wipe away blood from scrapes on your palms and tenderly poke at the bruises already forming on your ribs. Around you, myriad rocks and small boulders litter the cracked, moist ground. Mist clings to the spaces in between. When you look up, the ledge you fell from is completely obscured. 

“No Jedi wisdom for me, Santari Khri?” you croak as you gently shift into an upright position. Your teeth squeak from clenching your jaw against the pain, but you manage to prop yourself up with your back against a sizable rock. 

The mist deadens your words. Instead of an echo, it’s like the words get clipped short before they can fully materialize in the air. The back of your neck pricks. But, studying your surroundings once more, there is nothing for you to do but meditate. Perhaps, for once, the Force will provide.

You have no way of knowing how much time has passed as you sit in meditation, methodically stretching your awareness to its limits, trying to snag onto any signature in the Force that might help you out of this predicament. Your butt goes completely numb, as do your legs—a fact you feel should incite panic in your already-tight chest, but you can’t find it in you to care. By the time that you’re ready to give up searching, your throat tickles with dryness and your stomach begins to feel empty. 

But just as you heave a sigh, rising out of the meditative trance, the Force tugs on your awareness. Furrowing your brow, you concentrate: up, up up up, and to the left. Something steadily growing closer. Something bright, and familiar, and warm. 

Cal. 

For once, you’re grateful for his annoyingly Jedi-like qualities. You track his presence through the Force, unable to do more than monitor as he seems to approach your location with frustrating slowness. 

“Come on,” you mutter, mouth thick. “I’m here. Come find me like you always do.” 

After what feels like another small eternity, you finally open your eyes and peer up through the opaque mist. Above, you swear you hear boots crunching on loose rock, and the distant bwee-boop of a droid. 

“Down here,” you half call, half croak. The words don’t seem to make it past your throat. 

For a terrible moment, you think Cal is going to search the seemingly empty vault and, not finding you within, leave. You can’t tell, through either his footsteps or his Force signature, what he’s doing up there. At the last moment, a burst of panic seizing your limbs, you lean forward with a groan and retrieve your saber, still miraculously tucked into your waistband. 

The spitting crimson blade is a comfort as it screeches to life in the oppressive space.

A voice calls your name, cautious. 

“Here!” you shout, voice cracking painfully in an effort to be heard. 

Blue flame bursts to life somewhere above—much farther above than you initially thought—and you nearly sob in relief. 

“Watch your eyes,” Cal shouts down, and you have only a moment to register what he means before you duck, retracting your blade. The unmistakable sound of saber scoring through rock reaches you, heated pebbles showering down on your covered head, and then the sound of two soft leather-clad feet touching down beside you. 

Wary, you raise your head. Cal crouches next to you, his face painted with a cautious kind of concern. 

“You came back?” You don’t mean to make it a question, but the softness in his eyes, the gentleness with which he ghosts his hands over your many injuries, makes you reconsider your previous anger toward him. At least, for a moment. 

“Like I said,” he murmurs, “it’s in my nature.” 

“Legs are the worst of it,” you say, gesturing weakly to your two limbs stretched in front of you. Both are angry shades of blotchy red and purple, but no bone peeks out from within your skin at the very least. 

Cal casts a questioning look up at you, his palms hovering over your legs. You give a small nod, and he lowers his hands until they make feather-light contact with your skin. Even as careful as he’s being, pain erupts all over again when he brushes over your shin, and you squirm, cursing. 

“Probably fractured the bones,” he says. “Need to get you back to town.” 

You groan. “Unless you plan on carrying me out of here, Kestis, I’m not in any shape to make it all the way back.” 

He studies your face for a moment, really studies it, and you can’t help the way your lips part at the intensity in his gaze. Despite the aching pain in your legs, you can’t suppress the heat blooming up your neck into your cheeks the longer his eyes roam your face. Surely he can sense the way your Force aura grows more agitated. 

Whatever he’s searching for on your face, he seems to find it. Shrugging his shoulders, the curious little BD unit you’ve noticed with Cal peeks its white-and-red head up. With a boop?, Cal jerks his chin at you.

The droid slides down Cal’s back and trots up to you. Tilting its head, the mismatched eyes whir and toggle as the droid seems to study you with the same scrutiny as Cal just had.

“What—”

In the blink of an eye—faster, even—a flash of green light dazzles you, followed by the sharp pain of an injection. But that doesn’t even matter, as a blissful, cool relief spreads immediately from the injection site through the rest of your body. The ache in your legs subsides to a dull throb, and you find that you can finally move the limbs without wanting to vomit. 

“Stim,” Cal explains. He rises to his feet, and holds a hand out. “Come on. It’ll wear off soon.” 

His hand is warm, achingly so, when he grasps yours and tugs you to your feet. Grimacing at the wave of nausea that sweeps over you, you cling to his hand until it passes. 

He’s studying the sheer rockface to either side. “I may be carrying you out of here either way. Come on. Hop up.” 

He turns to retrieve your saber where you dropped the hilt—he stiffens for just a moment, so quick you think you imagine it, before he hands the hilt back to you. And then he remains facing away from you. You realize, with a deep-seated groan, that he’s removed the jacket he was wearing earlier, when he let you into the vault. His shoulders are bare and so strong and pretty and freckled and— 

His soft question of your name breaks you out of your reverie. 

“Right,” you say, clearing your throat. Tentatively, you hook your arms over top of his broad shoulders, trying to ignore the way his skin feels against yours, and he crouches so you can more easily clamber onto his back like a pack. 

“BD, up,” Cal orders, and you squirm as the droid clambers up your back to rest with one foot on your shoulder and the other on Cal’s. 

Even with the stim working through your system much like coolant in your ship’s engine, and even with Cal doing all he can to keep you steady on his back as he Force-propels himself up the vertical rockfaces of this cavern, you bite into your cheek hard enough for it to bleed to keep yourself from yelping in pain. It’s bad enough that he had to save you from a slow death in this Force-forsaken vault; he doesn’t need to know the fire that licks up your nerve endings with every jostle. 

You shuffle off his back as soon as you’re able. A grimace contorts your features as you stumble a few steps, but you wave away Cal’s steadying hands.

“I’m fine,” you grit out. 

“Yeah, you look fine,” he says. 

You shoot him a glare, but you’re more exhausted than you are angry. “You didn’t have to come back for me.” 

“If it makes you feel better,” he says, gesturing for you to step onto the turbolift first, “I don’t expect anything in return. You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Ha,” you bark out. Your stomach lurches as the turbolift shudders into its ascent. “Of course I owe you, Kestis. It’s all about balance.” 

“Balance,” he says, his voice strangely hollow and contemplative. “You murdered Rexan Binette and Sarela Webb and the others for balance?” 

The names of the Jedi you killed reverberate off the curved walls of the lift chamber. Breathing through your nose, you avoid his gaze—and then shake your head at yourself, angry. Why should you be ashamed? It was them or you. 

The lift comes to a smooth halt at the top, and you’re somehow unsurprised to find that it appears to be dawn again. Your eyes find Cal’s green ones. They look nearly black in the early morning haze. His expression bares all of his emotions: hurt, suspicion, concern, worry. But he doesn’t seem...afraid. Not of you, anyways, and instead of filling you with rage, that realization makes you deflate. 

“The galaxy changed,” you say, voice flat. “You change with it, or you die.” 

He fixes you with his stare for a moment more, and then shakes his head and begins the long walk back downhill without a word. Heaving a sigh, you follow him. You can’t repay the debt you now owe him if you die from an infected wound. You tell yourself that the heat bubbling in your chest is hate, hate that you’re now bound to this life debt, hate that of all people you’re in debt to Cal Kestis. But hate has never felt so soft.

The final time that you and Cal Kestis cross paths, you remember why hatred is easier. 

It’s only a few weeks after when you’ve fully healed thanks to Cal’s quick intervention, the extra stores of bacta that you had the good foresight to stash in your ship years ago, and perhaps a nudge from the Force. You’ve retreated to your ramshackle abode in the wilderness; thankfully, the worst you have to deal with upon returning is a stray Bogling. No matter how hard you try to shoo the pesky creature away from your hut, it comes back again. 

“You’re lucky you’re so cute,” you grumble, watching the Bogling scratch at the dirt out front of your hut. It chitters as it works to burrow its den. 

Cal has disappeared again, which works just fine for you. It’s easier to attune to the Force when he’s gone. When you’re not distracted by his burnished radiance, his soothing calmness, his serene meditation posture, his hair that looks as soft as the Bogling’s fur, his...him.

Genuinely, who the kriff does Cal Kestis think he is? Where does he get the right to continue to do good in the galaxy when all the galaxy wants is to kill him? To kill everyone like him? How does he continue fighting? 

For that matter, how do you continue fighting? The sudden self-introspection is jarring. You squint a glare up at the Abyss, the technicolor explosion hanging heavy in the sky, as if it personally arranged your fated entanglement with the Jedi. As if it asked the question of your purpose, not your own conscience.

You have to squint in part because, in the Force, the Abyss is blinding. Stare too long and you’ll be blinking away spots from your vision for hours afterward. As your eyes start to water, you shake your head and bring your gaze back to terra firma. Kark it all, you think, bitter. You continue fighting because you have to. Because you have to know the answer. You have to understand the balance. 

In the Force, you’ve watched for years as the streaks of light in your otherwise void-like existence pulse and contract. Here, underneath the staggering presence of the Abyss, the galactic, even cosmic, struggle between Light and Dark, splashes across your own skin, a microcosm. It makes you angry all over again, as you study the vapors of golden lightness drift around you. The anger is good. The anger makes the darkness pulse and surge and rise; the anger makes you more focused. 

Gritting your teeth, you try to hang onto the anger. 

And then you don’t have to try at all. In your peripheral awareness, the Bogling has scurried in fright into your small hut as the sound of footsteps—many, many footsteps—echoes off the surrounding cliff walls. Your lips curl back in a snarl at being interrupted. Saber hilt smacking into your palm with a familiar weight, the unsteady red blade fills your small clearing with a threatening hum. 

Around the corner comes a full squad of Imperials. For a moment, you have to blink, to make sure that what you’re seeing is correct. But no. The hard white duraplast armor gleams in the midday sun, the mixed group of scout- and Stormtroopers advancing as one giant, grotesque organism. And at its midst, in the nucleus, are two black-clad figures wielding crackling electrostaffs. 

Purge Troopers. 

How dare they. How dare they come to your planet—and you hesitate only a moment over the possessiveness in your anger—and only another moment more when you find that you include Cal’s place on Koboh in that possession. This is your planet, together. The Light, and the Dark. 

In all things, balance. 

“Enemy located,” crackles the voice of one of the troopers. You don’t know, and don’t frankly care, which. 

As the white-clad troopers fan out in a loose semicircle, blasters and batons raised at half-ready, the two Purge troopers continue a few paces forward. They’re nearly identical, all the way down to the way that they settle their weight on their right feet, perfectly unbalanced. 

“You won’t get away,” the one to your left calls, his voice imperious and cold. “Not this time. You’ll be coming with us.” 

“Don’t be so sure,” you call back, feigning disinterest. Through the Force, you mentally draw the battle map, the path of carnage and rage and blood you’ll wreak through the ten troopers in front of you. 

“There are ten of us,” the other Purge Trooper says, voice cocky and self-assured. The battle map in your mind halts, then reasserts itself with a new pattern. One that places Mr. Cocky and Arrogant at the top of your assault. 

You snort. “Glad to know the Empire is teaching its troopers basic math. Let’s get this over with, shall we?” 

You twirl your saber in a half circle around your body, a familiar ritual, a reset button to remind you to keep your head clear. As blasters raise to full height, you take a deep, centering breath, and close your eyes.

A silence takes over your ears, your mind, your very being. You are one with the Force; the Force is with you. Despite all your issues with the cosmic Force, you know it will not fail you now. You don’t hear the order to fire, you don’t hear the clicks of triggers, you don’t hear the scream of blaster bolts. You don’t need to. Guided by the Force, void-like and in command, your arms—your saber—jumps into place. 

Four blaster bolts pelt your way. Four blaster bolts ricochet and catch their originators in the chest. Four troopers fall. 

You open your eyes, lips tugging back over your teeth in a mockery of a smile. Sound returns to you just as one of the scout troopers, shaken, stumbles back with a cry: “St-Stormtrooper KIA!” 

You enact your battle map. 

Gathering the Force to yourself, you push off the ground and shoot forward with a Force assist, your saber swinging up and cleaving back down at the critical juncture between the cocky Purge Trooper’s neck and shoulder. The glowing plasma sinks easily through duraplast, fabric, and flesh alike; the trooper’s groan of pain gurgles as your blade cuts through his lungs. Now there are five. 

You whirl, saber moving nearly of its own accord to intercept each blow that the remaining troopers rain upon you. It’s nearly child’s play to parry their attacks, send them staggering off-balance. In a crucial moment where all your opponents hesitate to move forward again, you bare your teeth. Reaching out with a clawed hand, you grip the throat of one of the troopers, lift him bodily with the Force, then yank down as hard as you can. There’s a satisfying crack when he hits the ground.

You’re doing fine. You’re going to triumph here; the Force has willed it so. The fear of the remaining troopers is palpable and you draw on it, siphoning it into yourself, into your cracked and screaming kyber crystal. With a leaping slash, two trooper heads bounce away.

The remaining two troopers look at each other. You don’t need the Force to smell the fear rolling off of the scout trooper in waves, and you fix him with a feral grin. 

“No more quips?” you ask, voice harsh. 

He drops his baton and runs.

“Just you and me,” the Purge Trooper observes. 

“How very astute of you,” you say. “Your friend was the smart one. You can still run; I’ll let you go. For now.” 

“Not a chance.” The buzzing electrostaff twirls through the air as the Trooper lowers into a defensive crouch. “Surrender.” 

“Not a chance,” you echo, matching his stance. “Now, why don’t—”

A voice, familiar and warm and distracting, shouts your name from above. Like a fool, you hesitate, turning. There’s a glimpse of coppery hair, a blue flame, and golden radiance. You growl at the interruption—

And cry out as the electrostaff comes down across your upper back, singeing into your clothing, biting into your skin. 

You drop to your knees, vision blurry. Stupid. That was stupid. 

The Purge Trooper immediately raises the staff for another strike, but before it can make contact with the back of your neck, a rush of energy steamrolls over you and shoves the trooper fifteen feet back. His heels dig into the soft dirt. 

“Jedi!” If the trooper is surprised to see Cal Kestis coming to the rescue of the likes of you, you can’t hear it in his voice. “Guess this is my lucky day.” 

“Don’t count on it,” you wheeze. Grunting in pain, you shove to your feet and reset, saber singing in the air, the smell of ozone stinging your nose. 

Your name again, gentler this time, and closer. This time, you don’t turn, instead waiting for him to come to you. And he does, just like you knew he would. In the corner of your eye, Cal Kestis and his supernova signature provide something like...comfort. Heat bubbles and sputters in your chest at his closeness. This feeling is hate, you reassure yourself. 

“You’re hurt,” he says, voice pitched low. 

“I’ve had worse,” you say. “You here to help, or to mock?” 

He fully faces you, and you sense more than see his eyes rake over your profile. With a shake of his head, his copper hair flowing nearly to his shoulders, he raises his saber, point-first, toward the Purge Trooper. With a satisfied smile, you swing your saber in lazy circles. Finally. 

The two of you attack at the same time, nudged along by the Force. Together, you flank the trooper, whose training seems to have prepared him for a moment such as this. But for all the training this trooper has, you and Cal have more. You and Cal have more to fight for. More to lose. More to gain. 

Cal’s blur of a blue saber slashes through the air, at every turn blocking the trooper’s pressing attack, forcing the Imp to recalibrate. And when he attempts to do so, tries to even catch his breath, you’re there, the Force driving your swings harder. You know the blows that land on the staffs jar the Imp’s wrists all the way to his shoulders. You know he’s going to falter. You know he’s going to die. 

When the fear once again rises from this trooper, you smile. 

Overconfident, you twirl, blade seeming to bend as it whirls through the air. It will connect with the trooper at his waist.

It does—but his staff connects with you once again at your own waist, and this time it bites into your flesh and holds. 

“No!” Cal’s shout is harsh and angry. With a final flash of blue, the Purge Trooper slumps sideways, body collapsing into the dirt. The momentum yanks the electrostaff out of your side. 

You drop your saber hilt to press against the bleeding wound, hands shaking. Kark, this hurts. Why does it hurt so bad? Cal’s face, with wide, scared green eyes, appears in your field of vision. 

A spark of anger temporarily distracts you from the pain in your side and along your back. “Kestis,” you grind out. “I had it under control.” 

“It’s in my nature,” he says, like that explains everything. You suppose it does. Your anger abandons you, and you stagger forward, into his embrace. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against you as he ducks under your arm, taking your weight. “C’mon, we’ll get inside and I’ll patch you up.” 

“Got any more of those stims?” you ask, words slurring a little. You glance down at your side and blink dumbly at the amount of red staining your clothes. 

“A few more,” Cal says. “They’re yours. Just need to get you inside.” 

The several dozen feet to your hut pass in a blur and in a blink—you’re not sure which. Maybe it’s both. But you sigh as you settle down into the familiar comfort of your small cot. In the corner, you’re dimly aware of the Bogling cowering below the small kitchen table. Critter is cute, you suppose. Maybe it can stay. 

You’re delirious. That has to be it. You’d never willingly take in a stray. 

BD hops up on the cot next to you and, at Cal’s nod, ejects a glowing green stim canister. Cal catches it and then plunges the small needle into your side, just above the gash there. Cool relief tingles through you, and you smile at him. 

“That feels good,” you mumble. 

“I’m glad,” he says, an odd note in his voice. “You got medical supplies?” 

You gesture vaguely to the screened-off back corner, your ’fresher. “If I do, s’in there.”

BD stays with you while Cal rummages through your meager supplies, the little droid’s head tilted to the side as though studying you. You blink at him. 

Bwoop-beep? the droid chimes. 

“I don’t speak Binary, sorry,” you say. 

Cal chuckles, returning with a handful of supplies. “He’s wondering if you’re feeling okay.” 

You feel okay enough to feel annoyed at the question, and you shoo the little droid off your bed. When you return your attention to Cal, he’s hesitating, a roll of gauze, bottle of alcohol, and a needle in his hands. 

“What,” you ask, flatly. 

“Need to take your shirt off to clean the wound properly,” he says, and if you knew him better, you might think he sounds nervous. Embarrassed, even. 

But you don’t know him that well, and so you ignore his tone of voice. “Fine.” 

You struggle for a moment to lift your shirt over your head, hissing as the movement pulls at the wound in your side. Once it’s off, you throw it toward the ’fresher. 

Cal still hesitates, his eyes everywhere but on you. Another surge of annoyance flares in you, and you snatch the medical supplies out of his hands. 

“I’d really like to not bleed out here, Kestis,” you admonish. He at least has the sense to look abashed at that, and assists you in cleaning out the wound, stitching it shut, and wrapping you in gauze to keep pressure on it. You don’t let out a single curse, hiss, or groan the entire time, making the inside of your mouth bleed with how hard you bite down. 

“You okay?” he asks once you’re bandaged up. 

“What do you think?” you retort. “M’gonna sleep. You can go.” 

“I’ll stay,” he says. He withdraws, but remains in your small hut, slinging himself into the hand-hewn wooden chair at your dining table. “Rest. I’ll keep watch.” 

“Why?” You can’t help the way the question sounds equal parts frustrated and incredulous.

“Just sleep, Sith,” he says. His voice brooks no argument, and for once, you have none.

When you wake, it’s still light outside. Your mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with gauze and left to dry out, your head not much better. With a soft groan, you roll onto your side and peer into the half-lit room. 

Cal’s already watching you. His gaze meets yours and pierces you, pinning you to the small cot tucked against the wall. Swallowing against the dryness in your throat, you study his features. The dark scar across his face. The lean lines of his torso and muscles. The strand of fiery hair that curls over his forehead and teases his chin. Despite the lingering shards of pain in your side, heat flickers in your core.

“Why did you really come here, Cal?” you ask, voice low, the stillness around you demanding to remain unbroken. “Why did you come back for me at all? You know the things I’ve done. The people I’ve killed. I can’t be worth saving.” 

He is quiet as he contemplates your question, his hands loosely clasped in his lap. Silence stretches between you, slow and languid, and you nearly hold your breath waiting for his response. 

Eventually he gives a half shrug. “There was a time when I believed everyone is worth saving. Since the Empire, things have...been different. I’m not so sure everyone deserves to be saved.” 

“So why come back?” 

His eyes are soft when they find yours again. You want to be angry, want to latch onto the residual pain in your body and sharpen it into a vibroblade, hurl it outward from yourself and hope it hurts him as much as you’ve been hurt. In your gut, the darkness stirs, but in your heart, the light whispers patience. 

“I see too much of myself in you to not come back for you,” he says, so quiet you nearly don’t process the words. 

But when his confession does register, you blink in surprise. You can’t help the chuckle that escapes you. 

“We couldn’t be more opposite, Kestis,” you say. “Do you know what you look like, in the Force?” 

When he remains silent, shifting in the wooden chair uncomfortably, you push yourself up into a sitting position. A sigh sloughs out of your throat. 

“You’re the most...beautiful thing I’ve seen,” you say, hesitating only briefly over the words. “You shine. You’re a beacon of light. Stars, Cal, you’re practically a star yourself.” 

His lips part in surprise, and you can’t ignore the way your core twists at the expression. “But—”

You raise a hand. “There’s darkness there, sure, but you are the light, Kestis. And sure, there may be light in me, but believe me, I’m a void. The void. You’ll never carry the sins that blacken my soul.” 

His toned chest rises and falls with his rapid, shallow breaths. When he swallows, you watch the way his throat bobs, the muscles that strain at his neck, the tightening of his hands into fists. Without even needing to look, you can feel the way his Force signature roils with confusion and surprise. You’ve caught him off-guard, yet again. The knowledge sends a pulse of heat to the apex of your thighs.

“Show me,” he whispers. 

You frown, brows furrowing. “What?” 

“In the Force,” he says. “Show me.”

“I’ve never—” 

“I have a gift.” He grimaces. “Psychometry. It might not work. But I want to see.” 

Ah. You understand how he knew the names of the Jedi you murdered, and glance at your saber hilt resting on the table near him. How much has he seen? 

Apparently, not enough. 

Worrying your lip between your teeth, you shrug. “Fine. C’mere.” 

The cot groans under the added weight, not meant for two people, but it holds. You adjust yourself to sit with your legs crossed, your knees touching Cal’s as he mirrors your posture. A slight twinge tugs at your ribs as you move. Cal’s eyes soften again as you grimace. 

“Don’t,” you grit out. “Save your pity.” 

“It’s not—” He huffs. “Whatever.” 

Glaring up at him through your eyelashes, you nevertheless rest your hands palm-up, fingers outstretched toward him. Cal gently rests his hands over yours. His skin is heated, electric where it touches yours. The thought crosses your mind, fleetingly, what your odds would be if you decided to finally end it here and now; the thought disappears as soon as his calloused fingers wrap around your forearms. 

“Like this?” he murmurs. 

“Feels right,” you reply in the same tone. “Here goes nothing, yeah?” 

You inhale a deep, centering breath, and allow yourself to sink into the currents of the Force. For a moment you have to squint as Cal’s truest form explodes across your perception. This close, you’re surprised he doesn’t radiate any extra heat. You’re also surprised at the imperfections you find in his signature, the small nicks in the otherwise flawless, gleaming golden skin. You have to restrain yourself from leaning forward to examine him even closer. The desire to know him, to pick him apart and put him back together, rushes through you, pulsing in your fingertips. 

When you feel adjusted to his presence, this close, this intoxicating, you squeeze his hands. Focusing on the places where the two of you connect—your palms, your knees, your signatures—you will your unique sight to bleed into his awareness. 

Judging from the way he stiffens and gasps, you figure it worked. Your combined abilities and strength in the Force, overlapping just this once, let him see the world like you do.

“You’re so...” He trails off, voice strained. “Empty.” 

“Thanks for noticing.” You squeeze his hands again. “Do you underst— oh.”

You nearly choke as the Force nudges against your mind. For a moment, you’re no longer in your hut, but instead on an unfamiliar ship, palms pressed against a stranger’s—no, not a stranger—her name drifts to you. Merrin. You’re comparing palm sizes with her, and her hands are nearly as big as yours—as Cal’s. 

You rip away from Cal Kestis and the illusion breaks. 

Heat burns up your neck to your face. “What the kriffing hell was that?” 

“What did you see?” he asks, concern flashing in his eyes. He reaches for you, and you lean away, glaring. 

You don’t even know why you’re angry. Any emotions you’ve felt for Cal have been ones you can explain: anger, frustration, begrudging respect, competitiveness, hatred. You recognize his attractiveness, and you don’t deny the effect his presence has on your baser desires—but the nearly painful flare of possessiveness pulsing in you right now is foreign. Inexplicable. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you eventually mutter. “Did you see?” 

“I saw you,” he says. Tentatively, he skims his fingertips over your leg, up to your knee. When you don’t retreat, he gently snags your hand and threads your fingers together. “I’m sorry.” 

You bare your teeth and tug your hand away—or try to. His fingers tighten around yours, holding you in place. “I told you before, Kestis. I don’t need your pity.” 

“Then don’t see it as pity,” he says. “See it as an understanding. A mutual experience.” 

Sucking on your teeth, your jaw clenches for a moment before you sigh. “Fine. Who’s Merrin?” 

“An old friend,” Cal says, a little too quickly. “She’s... She went her own way a while ago.” 

Something like triumph glows in you. “Good.” 

He fixes you with a confused look, a crease forming between his brows. “Wha—” 

You cut him off, surging forward to press your lips greedily against his. The impulse to be closer to him, impossibly close, is overwhelming in this moment. His palm is warm and steady and grounding against yours. He grunts against you, going absolutely still. 

When you pull away, not moving more than a few inches away, you meet the shock in his gaze with a sense of pride. His eyes flit between yours, searching. You drag your eyes down to his lips, parted and damp and so fucking pink.

His other hand cradles the back of your head and pulls you forward into another kiss. 

You groan into his mouth. His lips are warm and soft and sweet against yours, moving slowly, uncertain. You tilt your head, nudging his nose with your own. With your free hand, you grip at his shirt and claw your way into his lap. You need more. More of him, more of his warmth, more of his touch, more more moremoremore. 

He breathes your name against your lips, and you shush him gently. His body is hard and lean beneath yours, his touch hesitant. Fingers still intertwined, you guide his hand to your waist. Without the barrier of your shirt, his touch burns, scorching you from the outside in. His fingers splay across your skin, trailing molten desire in their wake. Heat pulses in your core.

“Kriff,” you sigh, “please.” 

“Didn’t think you had manners,” he quips, trailing open-mouthed kisses across your jaw, down your neck. 

You reach up and tug on his fiery hair, earning a low groan. “Rude.” 

He chuckles against your skin, his lips brushing against a sensitive spot. A shiver dances up your spine, a quiet sigh passing your lips. When he bites down there, you moan. 

“Kestis,” you pant. 

“Shh,” he soothes. The hand on your waist trails down to your hip and squeezes in time with another bite to your skin. With another groan, you rock your hips down into him. A grin curls your mouth up in pleasure at the feeling of his half-hard cock beneath you. 

“Off,” you order, tugging on his shirt. 

He breaks away from you long enough to yank the offending article up and over his head. Your palms smooth over the rippling muscles beneath his pale, freckled skin of his stomach, and he shudders. Brushing your thumb over a blaster scar under his ribs, you press a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Did it hurt?” you ask. 

“I’ve had worse,” he says. 

“Show me.” 

His green eyes are dark, nearly black, when he meets your gaze with a questioning look. In response, you skim a featherlight trail over his torso, lingering at the scars that mar his otherwise perfect skin—mirrors, you realize, of the imperfections of his golden aura. 

When you trace the pink scar that bisects his face, he shivers. His hand catches your wrist, halting your movement. 

“That one,” he whispers, voice pained. “That was the worst.” 

You recognize, this close, the telltale signs of a saber wound. He’s lucky to have survived that, you realize. 

Kriff. You press your mouth to his once again, wrapping your legs around his torso. His body fits against yours, hard planes to soft edges, and you groan in unison. His kiss is still tentative, but he moves against you without hesitation when you deepen the kiss, your tongue licking across his bottom lip. His tongue is hot against yours. Spit slicking your lips, you groan into his open mouth. 

Fuck, you need more. Pulling at his hair, you urge his head to tip back, exposing the pale column of his throat. You lick a stripe down his skin, tasting his natural saltiness, delighting in the way his cock hardens against your clothed core. 

“Want you,” you mumble against his collarbone. 

He hums. “I’m yours.”

That possessive flare from before practically obliterates any coherent thoughts your brain was still capable of producing. Growling, you push him onto his back, shuffling down, kissing and licking and biting at his skin as you fumble with his pants. The buttons come undone; his hips raise to help you shuck the clothing off. His cock bobs as it comes free of the confines. 

“Oh fuck,” you moan. “Been holding out on me, Kestis.” 

“If I’d known—” His voice cracks. “If I’d known all you needed was to be fucked, we coulda done this sooner.” 

Tingles spark through your core hearing him curse—hearing him talk about something as base and dirty as fucking you. Stars, the heat in your core is nearly unbearable. 

You need to taste him. 

Wrapping your fingers around his heavy cock, you smear a droplet of precum over his flushed head. His body jerks in response, his eyes half-lidded as he gazes down at you, a smirk playing at his lips. Without warning, you envelope him in your mouth. Cal cries out, hips jerking up. You moan in satisfaction around him. Hollowing your cheeks, you sink your mouth further down onto his length, before sucking, tongue teasing the underside of his head. One hand cupping his balls, you relax your throat and take him deep. The curls at the base tickle your nose. 

“Oh stars,” he breathes. “You’re so good at that. F-Fuck.” 

You hum, settling into a rhythm. His hand, broad and strong and warm, rests on top of your head—not pushing, just there, feeling you. His chest heaving, you can’t help but admire the flush rising to his cheeks, painting him in sin. Spit dribbles out of your mouth, coating the parts of him you can’t reach. Your eyes never leave his. 

Snaking your free hand down your body, you moan at the pleasure that zings through you at the momentary relief of touching yourself. 

“No.” Cal’s voice is strangled, strained. He flicks two shaky fingers, and your hand is yanked out from beneath your body by the Force. 

An obscene pop echoes in your hut as you pull your mouth away from his weeping cock. “Either touch me, or I’ll do it myself,” you growl. 

“Then c-come here,” he stutters. 

Shimmying out of your pants, you discard the garments to the floor without a second thought and climb your way up his body. His hands skim your sides, his touch barely there, as your mouth reconnects with his. You don’t think you’ll ever get enough of his mouth, his touch, his cock. He feels too good. 

You hiss when his hand brushes against your aching sex. He breaks the kiss long enough for his eyes to find yours, a silent question there as his fingers find purchase at your core. 

You can only nod, not trusting your voice. When he moves his hand against you, your vision blurs and you press your forehead to his. 

“Stars, Kestis, just like that,” you hiss. 

He rubs his nose against yours. “Let me take care of you.” 

His touch is electric. Your body jerks against him when his fingers move just right, applying just the right amount of pressure. Heat and tension build in your belly, growing more and more taut by the second. Your legs shake on either side of his hips. 

“Cal,” you whine. “Gonna cum.” 

His touch retreats, and you whimper at the loss of contact. 

“You’re g-gonna cum on my cock,” he promises, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. The sweetness of the action contrasts with the filth of his words, and your stomach lurches. 

“Fuck, yes, okay.” You spit in your hand and reach down to make sure you’re ready for him.

He slicks his own palm with spit and jerks his cock once, twice, getting himself prepped. With his hand at his base, steadying his length, you slowly sink onto him. He splits you open inch by inch, the delicious burn of him in your core drawing a pitiful moan from your chest. When he bottoms out, you twitch in his lap, chest heaving. 

“T-Take me so well,” he murmurs, ghosting his fingertips over your face. “Stars, you feel so- so good.” 

You whine. “Cal.” 

“I know, baby, I know.” 

The pet name seems to surprise him as much as it does you. The heat that’s been simmering in your chest for months now, since the first time you encountered him, dulls into something...softer. More muted. More pliant. 

Eyes locked together, you test the waters and raise your hips a fraction. Moans tumble from both of you at the friction, and that’s all you need. Rolling your hips, you work his cock, drawing the most delicious noises from him. He caresses your face, smooths a hand over your back, kisses you sweetly. You find just the right angle where his cock brushes against that bundle of nerves deep inside, and you shudder. 

“Cal, I—” 

“Yes,” he groans. “Don’t stop.” 

You don’t. You drag your hips frantically against his, chasing the sparks bursting in your core with each thrust. His touch turns harsh as you ride him; your hips will surely bear bruises tomorrow in the shape of his fingertips. You moan at the thought. Mine. Mine mine mine mine. 

Rutting against that raw piece of heaven in your core, you’re blind to everything else. Your injury forgotten, the empty void that yawns in your soul, your frustration with Cal Kestis: all of it is irrelevant right now. All that matters is that you keep fucking Cal. All that matters is the way his cock feels sliding in and out of you, dragging against your walls. All that matters is the way he moans your name like a prayer. 

“Need you t-to cum,” he orders, words faltering as you clench around his cock. 

“I’m close,” you say, voice hoarse. The tension in your belly draws hot and tight, ready to snap. 

Cal finally thrusts up to meet you when you bounce down, and you scream. That taut cord in your belly releases, snapping in two, and you see white. Pleasure explodes through you; every nerve lit on fire, tears dew in your eyes from the intensity. You claw at Cal’s chest, searching for purchase as he absolutely rails into you, chasing his own release. 

Through it all, he babbles. “J-Just like that, baby. Cum all over this cock. Fuck, you’re g-gonna make me— I— fuck, ngh, I’m—” 

He stills as he cums, his cock pulsing against your walls, and you jerk at the sensation, oversensitive. 

Your eyes flutter as you look down at him in the gathering darkness. His skin shines with a thin sheen of sweat. As his cock softens inside of you, letting some of his cum drip out, you groan softly. 

“This was a mistake,” you whisper. 

He swallows visibly, and nods. “I know.” 

You capture his lips in another kiss, one he returns with a fervor. Stars, you almost wish you really did hate him. This would be so much easier. 

“What now?” he asks, thumb brushing over your tender hips. 

You shrug. “Same time next week?” 

He huffs a laugh. “Very funny.” 

“Thanks.” 

He hums. “I’m leaving tomorrow.” 

All of the heat of the last few minutes dissipates immediately, and ice knifes your insides. You push away from him finally, his cum dripping down your inner thigh as you stand, bend to retrieve your clothes, tug them on. 

“Okay.”

“That’s it?” 

“What do you want me to say, Kestis?” 

He sighs as he reaches for his own clothes. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“You should have left when I told you to,” you say, arms crossed over your chest as you stare out the single window of your home at the rapidly falling dark. 

“Yeah, maybe.” His hand is warm and familiar where he rests it on your shoulder. “You could...come with me.” 

You narrow your eyes. “And have to live by your Jedi code? No thanks.” 

“No code,” he says, quiet, contemplative. “Just the fight.” 

“Just the fight,” you echo. When he nods, something you sense more than see, you sigh. “I could...tag along. Just this once.” 

“Of course,” he says. His lips press against your temple. “Just this once.” 

Swallowing against the strange metallic taste rising to your mouth, you blink and summon the Force. You’re grateful for Cal’s grounding presence behind you. Your signature is...muddied. Marbled black and gold. When you glance down at his hand on your skin, you find that his aura is the same as yours. Mixed. Confused. 

Balanced.