For Ferus/Roan Week Day 5: Jedi / AO3 Link
Roan awoke from a sharp kick to the back of his knee and knew there was trouble. Ferus was a disturbingly still sleeper, until he wasn’t. The nightmares had grown less frequent with time, but the severity of them never seemed to decrease. His husband had demons from his past, and after all these years they still wouldn’t leave him.
Something about this seemed different though. Usually the best thing he could do was wake Ferus as gently as possible, and then hold him while he came down from whatever past horror he had been reliving. The dreams often had him twisting in his sleep, crying silently, and awaking with the name “Darra” on his lips. This time Ferus’s breathing was uneven as well, and rather than only his limbs twitching with old muscle memory of lightsaber combat, his husband’s entire body was convulsing and Roan was at a complete loss of how to help.
With a gasp, Ferus’s eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused. He moved abruptly, but still didn’t seem to have full control of his body and tumbled out of their bed, taking a sheet halfway with him. Roan followed quickly behind him as Ferus landed on his hands and knees.
“Ferus, love, it’s just a dream. It’s over. Long ago. You’re safe here, I’m with you.” Roan dropped to the floor and attempted to put a comforting arm around his husband’s shoulder. To his extreme surprise, Ferus not only reflexively moved out of his embrace, but clasped his own hand around Roan’s wrist, twisting him in a practiced pain compliance joint lock.
This finally broke through his husband’s dissociated state, but uncharacteristically Ferus did not start apologizing profusely as he let go of Roan’s wrist. He was still sucking air hard, and it looked like that very breath pained him.
Roan cautiously reached out to cup his husband’s face. Ferus inhaled sharply again, but seemed comforted by the touch and reached out to grip Roan’s other hand. Roan pulled him close. They were positioned awkwardly, but physical touch often seemed to be the best thing to anchor Ferus back in the present. Ferus did not melt into his embrace as usual however, and Roan could feel that his muscles still twitched irregularly.
Ferus drew another shaky breath. “They’re dead,” he croaked, hands shaking, and eyes glistening with tears.
This was most definitely not a normal nightmare. “Who’s dead?” Roan asked softly.
“All of them,” Ferus’s voice still shook, “The Jedi. They’re dying. Everywhere.”
Roan was shocked speechless for a few moments. Eventually he stumbled out a “How?” He wasn’t sure what question he was asking, be it how they were dying, or how Ferus knew it was happening when he had let his connection to the Force fade away all those years before. It never left him completely, and Ferus had known when his former Master had been killed, but sensing widespread death across the galaxy seemed beyond his usual still slightly superhuman abilities.
Ferus just shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he drew another shaky breath. “Roan-” his voice sounded very small.
Roan lifted his husband under the arms and pulled them back onto their bed. He positioned Ferus in a way he hoped was comfortable and just held him, stroking his hair gently. He didn’t know what else to do.
Roan understood that the implications of what Ferus had said would mean that something terrible and unknowable had happened on a galactic wide scale. He had an awful feeling that when dawn broke on their little corner of Bellassa, it would shine on a changed world, and all of their lives would never be the same.
But the sky was still black and full of stars, and in the hours he had left before having to fully face cataclysmic change, Roan was going to hold his husband and comfort him.
