The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me (Rex x Reader)
Pairing: Captain Rex x Artist!Reader. No Y/N.
Word Count: 7.1k lmfaooo
Genre: spicy fluff to angst to fluff (+ mutual hurt/comfort if you squint)
Summary: You’ve dedicated your life to beauty, to color, to the fantasy of life. And then there’s Rex: gentle, steadfast, battle-hardened Rex. You respect it, you think you’ve accepted it. But sometimes it’s just too much to bear—and the differences in the lives you lead come to a head.
Warnings/Tags: TW: depiction of a mild panic attack and some depressive behavior. Implied sex, implied/referenced nudity but absolutely nothing graphic. A dream sequence involving some unsettling imagery (though not overtly nightmarish). Mention of death, mention of blood. Swearing. Arguing and making up again. Gender neutral reader. (If I’ve missed anything, please let me know)
It’s stormy over Coruscant and almost quiet. On days like these air traffic’s limited: much less honking, shouting, occasional crashing. But in its place is the thunder, of course, and the wind and the rain and the bristles on canvas, and the snoring from the man behind you.
He got back late. He always does, dead on his feet and covered in bruises. I’m fine, he insisted. Kix patched me up. No matter. Don’t worry. But you worried anyway. You always do. He showered and settled into your creaky pull-out couch; you traced the blooms of purple and black and the nicks too small for bandages, and he was gone within seconds. But you lay awake: watching the creases in his forehead fade and the rain clouds roll in over the city. Clouds like this are a rarity here. They bewitch your mind, filling it up with strange images… Lit from below by the ecumenopolis, they gathered themselves into coils and shapes that lent themselves phantasmagoric to your tired eyes. Broad, inhuman faces; wings like claws and wings like teeth; wings of beauty slipping away…
So here you are next morning before your easel, before the window. Beyond you, a masterpiece in its own right: plumes of black and purple and indigo-gray towering over the skyscrapers, lightning flashing gold and silver and violet. You forget, sometimes, what Light can do when the air is right. You forget how it fills the clouds like lanterns, or sprawls like the fingers of ancient, instant, skeletal gods. It floodlights your studio apartment and shakes the whole city with a wall-shattering CRRAAAAACK.
You flinch. Not from fear. It’s the gasp. Almost louder than the thunder and infinitely worse to your ears. It’s the sound of shifting sheets and newly labored breaths. Your heart aches; your throat constricts. You set your brush on your easel and your pallet on your stool.
He sits bolt upright on the low mattress, panting harder than if he’d just run a mile. Lightning flashes against his face and highlights the beads of sweat already at his brow. You catch them on your thumb and he leans into your touch, closing his eyes.
“Shh. Go back to sleep.” You kiss his forehead and pull away.
“Not too late, I hope. Wouldn’t want to sleep through all my leave.”
You shake together and mix another shade of blue. He doesn’t leave again until Wednesday. You don’t mention it.
“You could use the extra rest,” you hum. “No, not too late. It’s midmorning, I think. Hard to say.”
The bed groans—those springs have been broken for a year and a half—and is silent; you hear heavy footfalls behind you. Warm, strong, bare arms wrap around your waist. Rex buries his face in your neck, kissing along your shoulder, searing your skin, tugging at your oversized black shirt.
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