#trigger cw

(mmmmf okay I love this sort of au and i tried my best to make it as different as possible from stories that already exist (specifically @atelier-dayz's WiP Ben'bajur) and I've thrown in some good women Mandos because they deserve to be written more. some stuff in timeline has been moved around and you get trans Obi just for funsies *kissu* i make several references to this post’s discussion of mental and physical illness in Mando culture. i um. spent a lot of time thinking about what colour Obi’s beskar’gam would be. i have a lot of feelings about it. **Ruusaan Kryze’s name and fancast/design belong to @amillionstarsandyouchoosethisone from this, thank you so much for letting me use them!)

  Jango had not mentally prepared himself to see Obi-Wan again, though to be fair, he hadn’t known he needed to.

  The last time he’d seen Ruusaan’s foundling, Obi-Wan had been sixteen and wiry and spitfire in all the wrong ways, with half-complete beskar’gam and a chip on his shoulder a planet-wide. If he remembers correctly, Obi-Wan had called him an arrogant laserbrain with a junk blaster, and Jango had almost challenged him to an honor duel. But when Jango finally makes his way back to Mandalore after seven— Wait, no, eight years?— abroad as a supercommando, both Ruusaan and Obi-Wan are at Jaster's war table, bent over a holomap of the system and talking calmly as you please. 

  And Obi-Wan is in full beskar'gam, plating painted entirely silver except the yellow clan crest on his left pectoral, and the yellow Mando'a 'ures haal', breathless, lettered on his ghet'bur above his collarbone. He looks up as Jango enters and blinks in surprise, straightening to reveal his helmet under his arm, also silver except the rises of the cheeks.

  Ruusaan breaks into a smile, and for all the trouble Obi-Wan had caused when younger, Jango can’t imagine his childhood without the former Kryze and all she had done for the Haat Mando’ade at the Battle of Galidraan. She’s been following Jaster since she was old enough to denounce her clan, an honorary Mereel even if she thinks herself unworthy of such a connection to her Mand’alor; Jango wonders if she had finally decided on a clan name, if both her and Obi-Wan are painted with a new crest.

  For all the loving buir Jaster is, he doesn’t drag things out, and after a quick hug, he pulls Jango into their discussion of relief aid to Concordia after the latest Death Watch insurgence as if Jango had never left. Ruusaan quickly picks up their easy friendship, closer to siblings than superior and subordinate, but Jango absolutely does not know what to do with Obi-Wan’s new calm cadence, the confidence and knowledge that he’s picked up in Jango’s absence. 

  He’s surprisingly been running relief missions for Jaster for the last five years, when he isn’t busy taking commando missions with Ruusaan. Obi-Wan gets flustered when his buir mentions this, and Jango wonders what in Sith Hells had happened while he was gone to make Obi-Wan settle down so much from his youth.

  His newly-flat chest probably has something to do with it.

  Perhaps it isn’t surprising, then, that Obi-Wan somehow wrangles Jango onto the squad of commandos headed for Concordia, Ruusaan smirking in delight as Jango resigns himself to suffering for the next tenday at least. Obi-Wan just claps him on the shoulder before disappearing into the halls of Jaster’s estate, and something in Jango aches at just how much of his armour is silver, at the sort of intention that went into an almost monochrome set of beskar’gam. Perhaps not much had actually changed, then.

-

  He should have known any mission to Concordia would go to kriffing hell, especially with Duke Kryze ramping up his antagonism of Death Watch like it won’t be the Haat Mando’ade that pay the price. 

  What should have been a simple drop-off of medical supplies to a few refugee groups turns into a firefight with Kyr’tsad, Ruusaan missing her thigh guards and Jango down a blaster, and all three of them ducking into the first empty ship in the guest hangar in hopes of losing their tail. 

  Ruusaan slams the button for the door, Jango aiming his remaining blaster at the catwalk until they’re safely ensconced in the dark of some other Mando’s ship, straining their ears for the sound of anyone still following them. Pulling off her helmet, Ruusaan checks the lifesign reader she keeps in her gauntlet, and then grumbles something about interference that doesn’t fill Jango with confidence. He pulls up his comm to try and contact the nearest Haat Mando’ad, but doesn’t get the chance before a wet wheeze rattles the silence of the cargo bay and Ruusaan whips around with a horrified,

  “Obi-Wan.”

  She rushes to Obi-Wan’s side, where he leans one hand onto the nearest wall in an effort to keep upright, and oh, Jango had forgotten just how harrowing this was. 

  Ruusaan removes Obi-Wan’s helmet with practiced ease, setting it aside to pull a rag from one of his belt pouches, holding it to his bleeding nose as she tilts his head forward. Kriff, but Jango hasn’t seen Ruusaan need to use the Force on her foundling since Obi-Wan was a kid, though he knows it must have happened more often behind closed doors. The years since he’s had to stand by and watch Ruusaan restart Obi-Wan’s lungs has only made it that much harder to stomach. 

  Only Jaster knows the whole story of how Obi-Wan had ended up with Ruusaan, just what infection had festered in his lungs before she found him that had ruined him for the rest of his life. Jango has heard rumours that he had been on Melida/Daan during the civil war, that Ruusaan had taken a job from the Young and left with a sick foundling, that his system had been so damaged that he can’t handle a transplant. And Jango’s seen it before, Obi-Wan’s lungs suddenly failing and scaring the osik out of every Mando present, even if they had made note of the marker on his collar. 

  By some sort of Force miracle, Obi-Wan had been found by one of the only Force-sensitive Mando’ade that Jango has ever heard of, with just enough power to force her ad’s respiratory system back to rights, almost as if she had been meant to find him.

  Obi-Wan coughs as Ruusaan presses one hand to the front of his chest, the other between his shoulder blades; Jango feels almost dizzy with something that feels too close to worry, the hair on his neck standing up at the swell of the Force in the tiny cargo bay. 

  “K’atini,” Ruusaan whispers, pressing her forehead to Obi-Wan’s temple with a touch of desperation. “K’atini, ad’ika, breathe.” A beat of tense quiet, but then— 

  “K’atini,” Obi-Wan wheezes back, and Jango lets out the breath he’d been holding. Ruusan laughs wetly, pulling back just enough to finish wiping under his nose, and brushes his hair back with her free hand; Jango feels a ping of jealousy, but forces it to the background, at least until they can get back to Mandalore.

  “We need to get back to the ship,” Ruusaan says to Jango, all while Obi-Wan won’t meet his eye. “He’ll be fine for a while, but I can’t give him what oxygen he’s lost.”

  Now this, this Jango can do. He can step up and lead, protect those that are his aliit in everything but name, because this is action, and not just standing there watching someone’s body give up on them. “You good to run?” Jango asks on external comm, Obi-Wan looking to his buir before giving a short nod. Ruusaan purses her lips, but nods as well and stoops to pick up her helmet. 

  “Not for long,” she warns, giving Obi-Wan his own before setting her hand back between his shoulderblades. “But the Force is telling me there’s no one outside; we move now.”

  Jango trusts Obi-Wan to Ruusaan and swiftly leads the way back into the hangar, taking them through two halls and across a catwalk to get to their own ship’s berth; Obi-Wan punches in the key for the door, and lets Jango pull him up into the ship without complaint. Ruusaan is the best pilot out of the three of them, but Jango climbs into the cockpit to start the pre-flight sequence so she can get Obi-Wan set up in the single-bed medbay, because kriff if Jango would know where to start. 

  Ruusaan joins him in the cockpit just before take off, some of Duke Kryze leaking through in her stony expression as she drops into the open seat. “Jango,” she says, surprisingly calm for the situation, “please go make sure my utreekov of an ad doesn’t leave the medbay.”

 Technically Ruusaan has been Haat Mando’ade longer than Jango, but she isn’t that much older than him, and he’s the son of the Mand’alor, so she shouldn’t be able to order him around like one of her foundlings. But Jango is also a warrior, and he knows when to pick his battles, so he simply nods and lets her get them out of the hangar.

  The medbay is little bigger than a closet, and like most, there's just enough equipment for emergencies, but Ruusaan and Obi-Wan had retrofitted theirs to include a proper ventilator and oxygen tank, as well as a bacta vaporizer Jango has never seen outside of high end Kaledevan hospitals. Luckily Obi-Wan seems resigned to his fate, propped up in the little alcove bed and holding an oxygen mask over his face. He glances up, but only gives Jango a nod and an apologetic smile. 

  “How often does that happen?” Jango musters the courage to ask, leaning on the doorjamb. Obi-Wan laughs tiredly, his mask fogging as he thumps his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. 

  “Not as much as before,” he says vaguely, his voice still a rasp. “The surgery helped.”

  If he’s still dealing with kriffing dying on a monthly basis, Jango is thoroughly impressed he’s been able to serve so close to Jaster for so long, and kriff knows Jaster isn’t soft, so Jango knows whatever space Obi-Wan occupies with the Mand'alor is earned, no matter who his buir is. It seems Jango’s missed quite a lot, off exploring the stars.

  Obi-Wan gets a little smile, then, dropping his hand but not opening his eyes. “If I recall... the last time we spoke alone like this—”

  “You called me a laserbrain and told me my blaster was sub-par.”

  He barks out a laugh that’s more like a cough, trying to work off his chest- and backplate; Jango watches him struggle for all of a moment before sighing and pushing the rest of the way into the room to help. Obi-Wan smiles all young and stupid up at him, and from this close, it lodges something in Jango’s throat.

  Breathless, indeed. 

Mando’a: beskar’gam — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy ures haal — breathless, lit. "without breath" ghet'bur — the collar piece of the chest plate on some beskar'gam, sitting over the shoulders and below the throat. a form of gorget. Haat Mando’ade — lit. “true children of Mandalore”, True Mandalorians buir — “parent”, gender neutral Kyr’tsad — Death Watch osik — impolite form of “dung”, shit ad — “child”, gender neutral  ’ika — diminutive suffix, similar to the suffix “ita/o” in Spanish. generally used only by close family and friends utreekov — idiot, fool, lit. "empty head" K'atini — “it is only pain”, used in the context of “get up. Keep going. You can and you will survive this.” aliit — family, clan

He sometimes has a wish.

🔅: What’s a place that holds special meaning to them? Why?

Another thing he won’t admit, but infor!!Mashun, along with the Book Graveyard, were both places that he cherished. The Informant was in his element, with all the books he could read that contained all sorts of information concerning Dreamsend or the world that Russell came to know. 

As for why he would (ever) say those choices, libraries were a safe haven for most people. It was quiet, he didn’t have to deal with his family, and he could stay until closing. Russell spent a good chunk of time there whenever he wasn’t drifting around or at Chris’ house, so it’d only make sense that The Informant, the other part of Russell, would also make his safe havens akin to a library..

👊: Have they ever been involved in a physical fight?

Has he in real life? Probably not. Despite having bullies at school, the most they’d do is just tease him or judge him because he was deemed the poor weirdo that skipped school. It never got to anything big enough to start a fight since his quiet nature would freak most schoolyard bullies into just leaving him alone.

There’s also the times he’d deal drugs with Chris, but with his best friend watching his back, Russell didn’t have to worry about getting into fights. Other than that, The Informant can’t really recall getting into a physical fight. 

Dear conservative side of Tumblr: Please stop using “triggered” as an insult. 

One, it’s not actually an insult, so it makes you look dumb.

Two, if you’re using it as an insult, you’re making fun of people with often very painful trauma, so you’re a dick.

Three, I do not think it means what you think it means. It doesn’t mean “my wittle feewings were hurt so i’m gonna cry and pout!” It has nothing to do with being a “bleeding heart liberal.” It is a very real phenomenon in which something - some visual, sound, event, etc. - causes someone to emotionally relive a traumatic event or re-enter something painful. It’s a clinical term, not a political insult. Words have precise meanings - stop diluting them.

And guess what? “Triggered” doesn’t even have to be a psychological thing. I get “triggered” more easily than I’d like - by certain shades of blue and red lights. I get horrible migraines, and they are “triggered” by exposure to these lights. I also get very mildly “triggered” when I’m driving and a bit of debris comes at me because of a car accident I had a few months back. I don’t shriek or cry, but there’s just this slight feeling of cringing away that I didn’t have before. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not ashamed of it, nor should I be, and nor should someone who has much more severe traumas to handle.

If you want to disagree politically, be my guest. But can we maybe, just maybe, have the human decency to not turn a legitimate medical term into an insulting shorthand?

It’s okay, we’ve all been there, make sure not to hate yourself for it.