Marc’s seen plenty of aliens in his time. This is
just…rather more of one than he’s used to seeing, all at once.
With a heave, the alien hauls himself up out of the water,
shaking out the tangle of thick tentacles growing from his head in place of
hair, and then turns, offering a hand to a clone trooper in diving gear as he
surfaces. Jedi, then, Marc thinks, and takes a deliberate step back, only to
run right up against plastoid armor that might as well be an immovable wall.
“Reinforcements,” Rex says, and the relief in his voice
almost makes Marc wince. Suddenly, this whole charade just got a hell of a lot
more complicated.
He can hear Khonshu laughing from here, and it’s a goddamn pain.
“They actually sent General Fisto?” Waxer asks, stunned.
“But he’s beaten Grievous.”
“Maybe Grievous is about to make an appearance of his own,
then.” Rex doesn’t sound pleased by the idea, but he steps past Marc, dropping
a hand on his shoulder as he goes, and offers him a reassuring smile. “If they
sent a Council member out, you should be able to tell him your whole story in
person, sir.”
Council member. Of fucking course. Marc eyes the
distance between the edge of the sea and the strange, twisted trees that dot
Umbara’s surface, and reluctantly concludes that bolting for the treeline is a
bad idea.
“Why,” he says, aggrieved, “is he naked.”
Waxer coughs, and Boil, attached to his elbow the way he’s
been since Khonshu brought Waxer back from the brink of death, snickers audibly.
“Sir, you ended the raid on the Sep base in your cloak and nothing else. I
don’t think you have room to talk.”
Marc rolls his eyes, but years of ending up fighting crime
in his boxers at least once every few months has left him more or less immune
to the embarrassment of the memory. “Whatever. I need my—”
His white cloak lands on his head, and Fives helpfully
drags it down to fasten it for him even when Marc hisses at him in annoyance.
“No problem, sir,” he says, and grins. “We wouldn’t want anyone forgetting that
our general’s a shiny.” He gives the cloak a friendly pat, smoothing it
over Marc’s shoulder, and says, “Got your lightsaber?”
It’s worse than working with Steve Rogers, the
biggest mother hen to ever live. Marc rolls his eyes, batting his hands away,
and says dryly, “I even remembered to comb my hair, don’t worry.”
Fives smirks. “I couldn’t tell,” he says, and laughs at the
face Marc makes at him. “Don’t worry, sir. If General Fisto and his men are
mean to you, we’ll toss them right back into the ocean.”
“My hero.” Marc tugs his hood up, then takes a breath. He’d
feel better about all of this if he had his mask, or his armor, but—borrowed
thermals and his cloak are going to have to do. It’s not like Khonshu left him
anything else when he dumped him headlong into this dimension.
Marc doesn’t exactly mind, given where he landed—war zones
suit him, and being able to save a whole host of dying clone troopers made a
hell of a first impression—but he’d have stocked up on crescent darts if he’d
known he was about to be booted through realities.
Steeling himself, Marc resigns himself to the ruse he’s
gotten embedded in finally coming undone. After all, a Jedi who’s on the
Council definitely isn’t going to buy the excuse he gave Pong Krell to get
close enough to kill him. I’m a new Knight, the Council sent me won’t work a second time,
and—Marc has no idea where he’ll go or what he’ll do if he has to run, but
he’ll figure something out.
“Sir?” Waxer asks quietly, still leaning on Boil a little,
still wounded, but also still kind. Coming back didn’t seem to hurt him any,
and that’s almost as impressive as how he’s managed to keep his faith. Marc
knows better than most how much dying can suck.
“I’m fine,” he says curtly, but takes a step forward, then
another. The Jedi, talking with Rex, flicks a glance past the captain and cocks
his head, and Marc bows to him, perfunctory, and then tips his chin towards a
stand of viney trees in a particularly upsetting shade of magenta.
Huge dark eyes narrow, and the alien inclines his head in
return, then turns a bright, warm smile on Rex and claps him on the shoulder.
Rex smiles back, and the Jedi says something that makes him laugh, then slips
away from him, approaches Marc with quick steps. He’s only wearing swim trunks—skintight
swim trunks—and a few leather bands around his head tentacles, but he moves
easily, unselfconsciously.
He’s also hot. Marc suddenly finds himself in the unprecedented and rather awkward
position of understanding exactly why people might find mermaids—even the
man-eating kind—sexy.
It’s aggravating.
“Well met,” the Jedi offers as he approaches, and his voice
is warm, steady. “I do not know all the Jedi in the field, but I would have to
say you do not strike me as a Pong Krell, my friend.”
Marc grimaces, twisting his fingers into the edges of his
cloak. “I’m not,” he says. “Pong Krell was forcing troopers to kill other
troopers.” Remembers Khonshu’s vicious glee when he pulled Pong Krell’s heart
from his chest, and says, “He fell. To the Dark Side.”
There’s a long, long moment of silence as the Jedi watches
him, and then a breath. “And you dealt with him.”
It’s not a question, but Marc inclines his head. “They were
dying,” he says, and opens his mouth to confess, to tell the Jedi that he’s
just an impostor and won’t stick around—
And finds a hand over his mouth, cool, damp, and salty.
Freezes there, unsure what to do, and it makes the Jedi chuckle.
“I am Jedi Master Kit Fisto,” he says, and there’s a light
in his eyes that Marc knows means nothing good for his sanity. “Forgive
my spotty memory. You are…?”
“Marc Spector,” Marc says, a little wary.
The feeling of bony fingers closing around his shoulder
doesn’t help at all.
“What a pure heart,” Khonshu says, hungry. “Don’t
you want to touch it, my knight? Possess it?”
With the ease of long practice ignoring his god, Marc
controls the blush he wants to have, dismisses the clutch of talons against his
cloak, and says, “You have wounded.” After all, healing the 212th
and the 501st helped put him firmly in their captains’ good graces;
there’s no saying the same method won’t work again.
“A healer, then?” Kit asks warmly, and steps close, clapping
a hand on his shoulder. His fingers go right through Khonshu’s. “How fortunate!
Our medic was lost in the last attack, and several of the men are suffering
from more than a bacta patch can cure.” He pauses, smile going crooked, and
says, “I confess I have little talent with Force healing, myself.”
That puts him head and shoulders above Marc, who doesn’t
have any. Still, he at least has a god in his head, and Khonshu can earn his
keep for once.
“I can handle anything more serious,” he says, and hopes
he’s telling the truth.
Kit is watching him, close, quiet. His smile is small, a
little odd, but when Marc eyes him warily, it splits into something far more
genuine. “I believe you can,” he says, and squeezes Marc’s shoulder lightly,
then steps back. His head tentacles sway, and he cocks his head curiously.
Perfectly unwavering, perfectly aware, Kit’s eyes fall on
Khonshu, still looming behind Marc, and—
He smiles.
“Glad to have you,” he says, and Marc notices what’s missing
from that statement more than what’s in it.
Kit hasn’t called him a Jedi even once.
the-dank-farrik