judge, jury & executioner

[...]

Rowan noted the grin on his lips when he teased about the captain demanding payment. It was something she wondered– what was in it for Sal? Why keep these padawans on board when it was such a huge risk? He didn’t exactly seem like a humanitarian type, but Row went with it for now, as it was all they had. “How would you know about what I’m willing to part with?” she teased, tilting her head slightly. “But to answer your question, yes. I’ve explored a bit around the ship. Not everything, though. I’d been getting too tired out, although I’m feeling much better now. I haven’t seen anything that needs fixing, although some of the air filters should be changed. Maybe I could help with that sometime, since it seems I’ve got nothing but time on my hands for a while. Unless you prefer to work alone. I really don’t want to impose.”

for a moment when she teases him with that question, he considers replying in kind, considers saying something along the lines of well if you’re willing to part with your clothes i could always help with that, but the ship is in agony all around him and he can’t turn that off, couldn’t even turn that off if he were to engage in something as pleasurable as that, and so he keeps his mouth shut and merely returns an amused smile to her words.

then she speaks of air filters and the expression goes back to neutral, his thoughts already going over what he has available, what he can do about air filters rather than replace them since they don’t have any spare ones at the moment. “i do prefer working alone,” he replies to her almost absentmindedly, his attention only returning to her a moment later. “but if you have nothing to do i don’t mind the company.” and that, at the very least, is a strange thing for him to say to a jedi.

[...]

but one thing he can’t bring himself to familiarize with is the way people ignore each other on this ship. ignore. just turn off their hearing as though they have flips inside their heads that they can simply shut down, like that’s not the rudest thing in the world, like that’s going to erase the factual reality around them. zur says nothing, does nothing, bending his apparently pinpointed focus on the wall, and akaides misses home like he misses a lung. “come now, mr. horny, don’t be childish,” he tells him, reaching out through the force to lift up a few small objects on the floor and spinning them around without touching any of them physically. “you’re the one who kissed me.”

he’s about done with the temperature controller and already putting a hand to the wall again to ask his precious darling if there’s anything else wrong in this room now that he’s here anyway when there is a sudden inaudible thrum in the air, an itch to his skin that he knows he’ll never be able to scratch, and this time it even screws up his focus, makes his head feel like an anvil was dropped on it and his eyes seem like they’re swimming. fucking jedi.

he turns around to look over at akaides, eyes burning with utter hatred, especially when he catches sight of the objects floating aboat as if held by invisible threads. his gaze goes to that of the man then, and through the slowly ebbing pounding in his head, he recalls what the last thing was the man said.

[...]

there are three more cravors that crawl into the space like a flood of rushing water, but the godkiller is already finding his footing, reclaiming his stance, his bones burning, his blood boiling. he braces himself for death the way he has since he was a child, and charges back at one of the creatures.

he’s in the middle of the fight when there’s a noise up ahead, a vibration in the earth beneath him that he picks up on with the instincts of a man raised on dangerous soil, and he already inches backwards, lets his opponents think he’s backing out a little, lets their faces turn to victorious smirks. he knows better, of course, even as his expression remains neutral, giving away no sign of what he knows is coming, if only because he’s been expecting them to show up ever since the beginning.

then a human comes running out of one of the tunnels, straight into one of his attackers, and he watches as the human twists them around so the other one is given up to the cravor that follows moments later. there is no time for triumph nor terror, his feet already shifting in place, his body moving before his mind has made the conscious decision to do so. this is survival’s instinct; knowing he can’t outrun these creatures over time and deciding to take his chances now that there’s more than one person available to fight them.

for the time being whatever disagreement was between him and the others is forgotten, their strength united - though in the loosest meaning of the word - against these creatures. the newcomer charges at one of them and zur decides to help this man out, for two against one are more even odds with these creatures, and he’d die before he helps out one of the others, really. so he lets his opponents deal with the remaining two on their own, the first one still snacking contently on the man that’d been sacrificed up to it.

he doesn’t speak as he launches himself at the cravor, doesn’t say anything even as his eyes seek out the biggest loose rock nearby and he picks it up from the ground with a grunt, adrenaline giving him the strength to run it over towards the cravor and launch it at the creature’s head. it collides with a satisfying crack, even as his entire body screams at him with the strain that put on it. his eyes automatically already go over to the other creatures, to his three opponents struggling to keep them at bay, and then they flicker back to the man who’d come tumbling into their little fight.

bade-wavewar‌:

[...] 

Then Zur invited him, or rather asked if he could, unscrew a panel, and his expression lightened visibly. Seemed like his talking had opened up a door for him. “Of course,” he said confidently. And he could, easy enough task. He didn’t think Zur would entrust him with something more complex.

“cool,” he says easily, pulls a screwdriver out of his belt and throws it at the other man in a little curve so that it’d be easy to catch. he doesn’t expect the man to flawlessly catch the thing, but he’s not looking anyway so if it takes a little bit of a messy flailing in order for the screwdriver to end up in bade’s hands, that’s between the man and the tool.

the conversation about man versus machine in terms of durability is all but closed off in his head, his mind focusing back on his task at hand and therefore dropping anything else that it might have been considering. without further ado, he’s walking away, over to the hallway where the panels are he needs to work behind, and when he reaches the first one he taps it lightly.

tercrai-aloncruz‌:

[...]

Terry laughed. “Okay, sir, noted, get all the stuff on your list, and not the cheap stuff. You really know how to bargain!” But he was glad for Zur, because at least the other was honest and truthful, he would tell him if something was the matter, he would tell him if something was unfixable or what they would need for it to be fixed. He could count on Zur, and that was perhaps most important. For a crew to work, people had to trust each other. “We have the money, so I’ll be looking for a proper thruster, I’ll send out a request ahead, just to be sure.” He noted it down on his pad and then gave Zur one last look over. “Well, I’ll be off then, unless if you have anything else to say?” 

“nothing else, terryperry,” he replies with a playful little grin and another friendly bump against the older man’s shoulder. “not right now at least. but later we should sit together over dinner, i want to hear the rest of your stories from when you were gone. let me live vicariously through you.” he laughs lightly as he says it, then reaches up to ruffle his own hair.

[...]

“Ah, you can call me Row. Rowan feels too… formal, I think,” she said. “As for your question… I suppose I’ll have to speak to Captain Godkiller. As grateful as we are for your generosity, someone out there is trying to kill us all, and the last thing we need is to put more lives in danger. So to answer you… I hope so.” She pursed her lips again and looked down at their feet. “I can understand how uncomfortable it is having so many strangers around, depleting your supplies. I will make sure we compensate you for it. Speaking of being in your hair, I should go,” she said, bringing her warm, hazel gaze back up to meet Zuriel’s before turning to start climbing the ladder. He still hadn’t given her his name, but he was under no obligation to. She had been trespassing, and likely an annoyance with her inquisitiveness.

he appreciates her trying to address the ship as well, even if he thinks she does it more for his benefit than because she truly believes it can understand her. still, he smiles, because he’s mildly amused at the response his words have gotten. “i’m sure she appreciates your reassurances, but she’s a fickle one. i doubt you saying you’re no threat is going to satisfy her. still best to get you out of her underbelly so that you’re in the clear.”

he smiles as they put themselves into motion, follows right behind her, his gaze focused on her but his other senses continuously focused on the sounds and motions of the ship to make sure nothing unexpected will suddenly fall down or blow hot steam at the young woman in front of him. she’s talking to him again, though, and he listens with interest as she answers his question, to the amusement continues to play over his features. she ends with saying she should get out of his hair and then she climbs up the ladder. and though he has other things to fix still, he finds himself climbing up as well once she’s on the ground level.

he almost carelessly taps the hatch closed with his foot, then turns his attention back to his surprise guest. “well,” he says easily. “i call you rowan because you said friends call you row and usually that stage is not so easily cleared. however if you prefer me to call you the short version i’ll give it a think to see if i’d like to be called your friend.” the smile playing around his lips still is an indication he’s joking, even if the rest of him is still as primarily focused on the ship as before. it’s slowly slipping, though, now that they’re on the ground floor, and he relaxes his shoulders ever so lightly.

[...]

instead of answering the question, akaides rolls over onto his back once more, on one of the larger pillows, an arm curling up behind his head to prop it up, as though this is comfortable, as though this is normal, as though this isn’t a complete breach of space and privacy that crawls up akaides’ spine like an insect with barbed legs. he smiles even wider at the ceiling. “would you believe me if i told you that was my first kiss, zur? you have no idea how important a kiss is to my culture, if we were back on goreo gamma, we’d practically be married by now.” a lie if ever there was one, but zur doesn’t know that, doesn’t know about the hamil’gadairn, the rituals of intimacy. very few people in the galaxy do.

akaides doesn’t give him a proper reply, instead just continues his one-sided conversation about how unfortunate it is that they couldn’t have gotten even more close and personal in that little escapade he’s already erasing out of his memory. so rather than try and still listen to whatever the man is saying, he turns his focus to the temperature controller, the jedi’s voice blurring to static noise in the background as he puts a hand to the wall, fingers gently running over the metal alloy when he asks the ship what’s wrong with her.

he doesn’t know, notice nor care about the way the force moves to his will as easily as air displaces itself in his passing, doesn’t notice the way it seeps into the thing in his hand as well as the surrounding ship and highlights everything that is wrong with it. instead he pats the wall where his fingers rest lightly and then pulls his tools out of his belt to get to work.

it’s a long going habit to unscrew the back of the controller, tucking the screwdriver away again after and then quietly getting to work on the wires, getting to the one that’s frayed so he can pull it out. he reaches into one of his many pockets to pull out a new wire, attaching it first to the one end and then reconnecting that to the other. he also doesn’t notice how automatically he keeps the electricity from running through the wire until he’s let go of it, keeping himself from getting electrocuted by the tiny bit of wiring. when it’s all properly in place again, he turns the machine around to see if he turns up the desired temperature if the heating turns on. it does, with an audible rumble of the machinery behind the wall that he smiles at because it sounds like contentment to his ears. screwing the back panel onto the controller again, he then crouches down to pick up the screws he’d send tumbling earlier, so he can attach the little thing back to the wall.

joules-roscoe‌:

[...]

It was nearly time for him to go get rest anyway, only he wouldn’t get much rest tonight. So, Joules opted to be the bigger man and walk away from all of this before he changed his mind and blasted the other’s smug face. It wouldn’t be the first, or the last time. He didn’t look back at Zuriel as he walked away, steeling himself for more insults now that his back was turned. That’s how it always seemed to go, anyway.

the boy keeps shooting daggers at him with his eyes, but he doesn’t really mind. he doesn’t really mind anything as long as his ship is safe and so he just calmly watches the boy throw a little hissy fit opposite him without ever really doing anything, and it proves his point well; the kid talks too much to really go in for the punches. if he’d been a fighter, the first punch would have fallen before any words did, but this boy is more of something else; a pilot or just too high up the economical ladder to have had to throw his own punches in the past, time will tell.

zuriel watches the boy turn around and leave, an amused chuckle falling from his lips at the order given as if the boy can claim he’ll listen only to the captain and then expect zuriel to do anything other than that. so rather than do anything with the chair once the boy is fully gone, he turns back to the flight controls and gives all the panels a proper once-over. there’s nothing truly wrong here on the flight deck, however, and the ship doesn’t suffer from there not being a chair, so he simply puts a hand to the panelling and lets out a soft sigh.

bade-wavewar‌:

[...]

Maybe after… but Bade didn’t like to think about what would happen after. Often when he thought about it, all he saw was darkness.

“the day i get so sick you have to leave me to die by myself, there wouldn’t be anything a doctor could do about it anymore either anyway,” he says with a little laugh as he straightens up, stretching his back and legs for a moment while he looks down the hallway he’s in to figure out where he’ll have to get to work next. “so yes, if it comes to that point, i would just have it you left me to die by myself.”

he listens to the man explain then how he thinks bodies are like machines, and he’s got a point there, of course, but when he says some parts need to be replaced he huffs out a little snort. “replaced with machinery, because that doesn’t die as easily as a person,” is all the response he gives to it, giving a shrug of his shoulders. “like i said, to each their own.” he doesn’t mind people disagreeing with him, he also doesn’t mind a good discussion on certain subjects, but this is something he’s made his mind up about a long time ago.

joules-roscoe‌:

[...]

“I can and have been flying the Derelict well enough. You’re still intact because of me. If I didn’t push her, we’d all be fucking dead in Devaron. I’d have taken another fucking ship and gotten myself out of there somehow. So consider it a blessing to die free choking in space than in chains back there, or worse. Are you salty because I CAN fly this ship better than the last guy? Or because you can’t fly it?” He didn’t care about being called a ratbrain. He’d been called worse, and honestly, it didn’t sting. It was amusing, actually, but he was too busy being pissed at getting thrown across the cockpit to really find anything amusing. “Maybe it’s neither. Maybe you just can’t handle being told you don’t know how to do your fucking job by a ratbrain? Doesn’t feel very good, does it? You wanna hit me? C’mon, then, let’s go. Right here, right now.” He wasn’t one to back down from a fight first. Not when it meant that someone else thought they could cow him into doing whatever they wanted just like that.

the mere fact that the ship can fall back to a more acceptable speed already takes a load off his frayed nerves, and together with the rumble of the engine, the zabrak turns back to more normal levels as well. he relaxes a little, shoulders dropping somewhat as the thing coiling in his gut slowly unfurls as well, its heavy warning ceasing. the boy continues to spew insults at him but he’s less focused on what the kid is saying for the time being, turning his attention momentarily more inward as he focuses on what the ship is telling him; on where it is still lacking and how it is doing. only when he’s satisfied that she’ll survive for a little longer does he refocus his gaze on the kid, just in time to hear the last few goading comments made at his expense. surprisingly they don’t make him explode - he’s been in fights too many times to make that mistake. instead he lets out a little laugh, a soft and amused thing.

“you talk a lot for someone who wants to fight,” he says then, almost warmly, the way one speaks to a child, to someone they think is cute or endearing acting up like they are. he doesn’t see an opponent, after all, he sees a child thinking a little too highly of his own knowledge. “if you do have a corelian firefighter, why aren’t you on it right now, kid?” he says a moment later, and then easily continues without giving the boy the chance to reply to that. “you can fly the ship and you’re definitely doing a better job than the last guy when he started, but when it comes to what she can and can’t take, you’re simply wrong." he lifts his shoulders in a shrug and then motions behind him at the flight controls. “keep her at this steady speed and she’ll make it to the planet you’re trying to get to. keep pushing her like you were and i’ll personally see to it that you get your death wish fulfilled without taking the rest of us down with you.”

[...]

“Apparently, I’ve been in a medbay recovery pod for weeks, anddd… I just woke up. I’ve been trying to get to know the ship when everyone’s asleep, I suppose. But I don’t want to intrude, so I’ll see myself out again,” she said, gesturing to the direction from which she’d come. Rowan couldn’t help but mentally scold herself for spilling out all this information the mechanic had not asked for. Stop talking, Row! Let him be.

he listens to the girl talking while putting his tools away again in his belt, some of them going into one of the many pockets of his pants, everything going back to its proper place. when he's got everything stored away, she seems about roughly done with her long explanation as to how she ended up where she is. he’s mainly focused on how she said in a medbay recovery pod for weeks because he heard about that, and so he knows she’s one of the jedi. and really, he should have known that beforehand, the way his skin is crawling, but then it’s never really stopped feeling like that since they took the jedi aboard, so he’s stopped paying attention to the feeling. now that he thinks about it, though, he feels it more intensely than before and he doesn’t bother resisting the urge to run a hand over his arm, scratching lightly at the itch.

“it’s a restricted area because it’s dangerous,” he says, like he heard almost none of her explanation, or wasn’t paying attention, or doesn’t care. but he lifts his head then and looks at her. “i’ll take you back to the regular hallways. wouldn’t want you to get lost.” he flashes her another little grin then, and adds without any specific kind of intention: “the derelict can get a little grumpy sometimes when there’s someone prettier than her around.”

he lifts an arm and motions with his hand in the direction they should go back in, reaching with his other hand for the makeshift ladder and pulling it away from the machinery to lean against the wall instead. he’ll come back for it later, he thinks. he’s not done repairing things down here, after all. and he won’t be for a long time if their pilot doesn’t learn how to fly the ship properly.

tercrai-aloncruz‌:

[...]

He waved Zur’s comment away. “Think of all the adventure we can get out of running amok with the Jedi? Not to mention the spotlight Sal has gotten us into, or will get us into at least, I haven’t heard much about these jedi yet on the planets, but they might.” Or they might bring them a whole lot of trouble. Although Terry knew the Rebel Alliance had won the war, and they would stand up to protect the jedi again if time called for it. He had lived enough years under the control of the First Order, he was glad for the change, and knew Rey would return. One jedi master always did. 

“tiny jedi sounds about right,” he says with the big grin right back on his face, and he truly likes the way it sounds, because to him all of them are tiny in comparison, he thinks, and to them it will probably be a very annoying name to be given, so he’ll most definitely use it all the time from now on. “i’m sure they’ll appreciate you giving them such an easy to remember nickname. you’ll be the hero of the tiny jedi, terry.” he’s grinning so widely his cheeks nearly hurt, but he can’t help it, as amused as he is by this entire thing. he’s always liked the older man, after all, specifically for reasons like this.

he entirely foregoes any comments on the supposed adventure they can get out of ‘running amok’ with jedi. he doesn’t think any good will come of it, has already had more trouble with the little bastards than anything else, but he figures if he starts about that they’ll be talking about the stupid little cunts even more, and he can do without that.

bade-wavewar‌:

[...]

“The jedi planet,” Bade responded, although the name sounded strange. Thus he didn’t say the name of the planet, kept it easy, pretended he didn’t care. Because he didn’t. Although that planet had kept him from getting his revenge. “I was trying to become a decent medic there… read actual medic, when the… whomever they were… attacked Devaron. This happened to be the first ship out of the place, so I took it. Kinda like it here, it’s comfy. The captain gets us in a lot of shenanigans, so I’m in.” 

he snorts when bade loudly proclaims the ship is amazing, though there is some appreciation in him for that; the way the man takes his oddities in stride and just accepts it as it is. he likes people who don’t make a big deal out of useless things, likes even more when people know how to joke with him. “she is magnificent indeed,” he agrees with a nod of his head, as he pulls a different tool from his belt and leans right back into the panel, to continue working while he listens to the man’s reply to his question.

“honestly i don’t see the point of being a medic,” he says when bade seems done talking. “people only have a limited lifespan, and nothing you can do as a medic is going to make them live longer than that. so what’s the point in trying so hard to save them? if someone’s bound to die, they’ll die anyway.” he gives a shrug of his shoulders as he screw the last part in and then moves back out so he can click the panel back in properly as well.

[...]

the second thing is all zur’s weight falling atop him, crashing into akaides like a tsunami on the rocks, both of them falling back on the cushioned, pillow-strewn floor, the awkward meshing of their bodies, the crush of zur’s lips against his. it’s all there and then gone within a few moments, seconds at the most, but as soon as the other pulls away enough to look at, akaides grins manically, blue eyes shining like a summer sky. his head is pounding and he’s pretty sure zur has gotten their legs entangled, but he can’t help it, can’t help how insubordinate it makes him, can’t help how angry it surely makes zur, can’t help that this is the most interesting thing to happen to him this morning. he laughs and wraps his arms around the other scandalously, yanking zur’s hips down against his own. “well, hello there, zuriel, so good of you to come visit, i hadn’t realized how desperate you were to see me.”

there is horror, and then there is coming back to full awareness of himself because of akaides’ arms come around him and his body is unceremoniously yanked against that of the other male. there is a high level of discomfort in the entire situation, his body tense and he jerks away instantly, yanks the entirety of him out of the foul touch and back to freedom. he seems to regain most of his surefootedness in the process, because he’s up on his feet almost instantly and he straightens without even casting another glance in akaides’ direction, instead turning around again and plowing through the assortment of pillows and strangely placed parts of what appears to once have been a desk, to where the ship is pulsing its wrongness at him.

“like i said; there’s something wrong with the ship and i just need to check what it is,” he repeats his earlier words, utterly straight face and utterly even tone of voice, which in the zabrak’s case is the most obvious sign of how he’s not comfortable at all with the way the situation unfolded, because usually he’s always up for a joke or something of the likes. if the mirth comes at his expense, though, he’d rather be shot in the foot. and in this particular situation, he’d rather be shot in the face.

he doesn’t even bother with being careful, yanks the temperature control box from the wall panel, sending the screws keeping it in place tumbling to the floor with a melodious ringing that seems altogether like the ship is laughing at him. he makes a face at the line where the ceiling and the walls come together, even baring his teeth for a moment. he’s not angry, per se, but he is uncomfortable and that is honestly even worse than anger. at least anger he knows how to deal with. this just makes his skin crawl and he wishes akaides wouldn’t have thrown him such an devilishly pleased smirk because he just knows this will follow him for the next ten years at least and - fuck!

joules-roscoe‌:

[...] 

“I know what I’m doing. And she can handle it.”

it’s one thing to insult him, to go for his shortcomings or remind him of his failings. it’s another thing altogether to speak badly of his precious ship. but to do both and be this arrogant about it like the scrawny youth is so much better and so much more wonderful than them because he usually flies a ship not made of secondhand parts from all over? whatever the list of people zur likes aboard the ship looked like before; this kid just tumbled all the way to the bottom.

he doesn’t even bother grabbing for the human, he merely takes hold of the back rest of the chair again and pulls it backwards so hard it, and the pilot in it along with it, goes tumbling through the cockpit, falling on its back and sliding over towards the door.

“you come onto my ship, fly her until she’s near falling apart and then you have the audacity to try and tell me i don’t take care of her properly?” he says, and where he was roaring before, his voice has now gone down to a soft rumble, a very lethal sort of sound that is indicative of the utter rage bubbling beneath the surface, merely waiting for the boy to make one wrong move so he has an excuse to use his fists - and the screwdriver in his hand - on the boy’s face rather than merely on a piece of the ship itself.

tercrai-aloncruz‌:

[...]

Terry snorted. He didn’t believe that for a single moment. “What, no gossip for me? I thought you were a ray of sunshine who spoke to everyone!” He offered with a grin. Though of course, he knew better. He might have Zur’s friendly smile, but most people looked at him and saw only the horns and the tattoos, and could not see the kind heart underneath. Also, mostly Zur had his back turned to most people because he was always so busy with his work. “You didn’t even talk to the jedi? I would think having those appear on a ship would turn anyone’s heads. I for one can’t wait to speak to a jedi.” 

he laughs out loud in genuine amusement when terry puts a hand atop his own head to indicate his lacking height, and there is very little else he can hear for the time in which he’s just laughing, utterly amused by the well-aimed comment. “that is true,” he eventually manages to say, nodding his head lightly before he breathes out another chuckle, the grin not leaving his face anymore. “but you know there’s plenty ladies a lot less tall than that, you’re just not looking hard enough.”

he reaches out his hand to punch his old friend in the shoulder lightly, then lifts it to run his fingers through his hair, because terry starts talking about jedi, and honestly it’s the last thing he wants to be talking about. “don’t talk to me about jedi,” is therefore what he also says. “they wave their little laser swords around and pretend to be all that, but really they’re all just annoying and their heads are too big to fit on their tiny shoulders. lots of words and very little to back it up.”

bade-wavewar‌:

[...]

He handed the mechanic the wrench. “You’ve been on the ship long?” he asked, just making small-talk. 

once the weight of the wrench settles in his hand, he pulls it back and instantly uses it. he doesn’t have to look at it to know it’s the right one, but a small smirk still appears on his face when his eyes fall on it. the man isn’t stupid, at the very least, which is more than can be said from a lot of people aboard the ship. so when a question is asked of him, he is a lot more inclined to reply.

“several years now,” he says easily. “came aboard along with the captain, have been keeping this big pile of rust together ever since.” he gives the metal flooring a few loving pats with his free hand, then lets out a little chuckle as the ship groans and creaks with the usual work of staying afloat in space. “yes, yes, you’re beautiful and flawless, i heard you,” he tells her fondly, finally pulling his head back out of the wall panel so he can cast a glance at bade. “she doesn’t like being called rusty,” he tells the man with a small grin, throwing the wrench back down with the rest of his tools.