#fiording

[kungfuslipper]

Ok, here's my contribution for The Clone Wars Post Exchange 2021.

UXO is something that I'd been working on; just needed an excuse, and some well-matched prompts, to put my elbow into it and crank it out (pun intended, eheheh).

So glad I signed up for this exchange--it was really a pleasure to be a part of something like this. The deadline and the support helped me to produce something I am really proud of.

Thank you to all the mods, and of course to @purgetroopercody for your gift, Initiative, which I absolutely adore. A special thank you to my beta. Your feedback was just what I needed to make this into something coherent and meaningful.

[kungfuslipper]

[He clicked twice to establish a private channel with Ordo. “Hey. How’s your skirt?”

No response.

“I bet it’s clean. Wouldn’t be if you were out here. It’s shabla dusty as fuck. You know what? We should get Procurement to make sand colored katarn next. I look like an old knick-knack on your grandma’s shelf.”

Silence. Even throwing in a phrase he’d picked up who-knows-where didn’t prompt a reply. “If I were there, I’d take it off for you. In front of Maze and all the rest of them.”

A sharp intake of breath snapped in his ears. Fi shivered, at his own mental image as much as the response. “Those funny criss-cross holsters though, I’d have to get those off first--how long does it take you to strip down?”

“Be quiet.”

“How long?”

An impatient sigh.

“I bet I’m faster. Katarn is less finicky, I heard. Made for meat eaters.”

“Shut your mouth, Fi. This isn’t--”

“--So then I’d unbuckle your belt. I bet it’s got snacks in all the pouches, huh. Do you have warra nuts?” Fuck, he was hungry. Ration bars were all he’d had to eat lately. So stale...]

[kungfuslipper]

WIP Wednesday

...

He didn’t like it at all, feeling like he had cracks. Feeling like Fi could see through them.

Why did Fi look at him and smile? Maybe it was just because of the kama joke, the di’kut—

but nobody really looked at Null-11 and smiled. They grimaced; they showed teeth. Sometimes they smirked nervously while avoiding his eyes, but not a genuine, open smile like that—like he was more than Kal’buir’s tightly-tethered favorite pet.

Ordo’s discomfort swelled from multiple locations. Time to end this.

“I'll contact Maze and we can pull a replacement from another squad,” he said, tightly.

“You know there’s no-one to spare,” argued Fi. “Maze wouldn’t let you, anyway. I’m going.”

Ordo snorted. Maze could try to stop him, and see how it went.

...