You were both still young, both on the precipice of the line, teetering between Padawan and Jedi Knights. Naïve and immature and both agreeing that it wasn’t hurting anyone.
It had began as a comfort, a coping mechanism after the loss of your master. Delving deep into the forbidden feelings of sadness, anger, hurt, desire. Finding only release within each other.
A mission on Daiyuu had gone wrong. It was supposed to be easy. In and out, collect the hostage and get out of there, but the force had other plans for you that day. Count Dooku had arrived and everything went to shit.
Devastation had enveloped your entire being, encapsulating you into being unable to move or eat for days. Cooped up inside your dark, messy room after given some time off by the Council. The Jedi weren’t being sympathetic, they were more afraid of you doing something stupid out in the field than actually giving you time to grieve.
So instead you watched.
You watched as life flourished and continued in the metropolis of Coruscant. Peering through the slats of your window from the confines of your mattress wrapped up in the standard issue duvet.
It was cruel, you thought watching as a family laughed in their speeder heading off to home, or a party, or anywhere. It was cruel that the galaxy could keep living, that you could keep living after someone is no longer breathing.
It wasn’t fair.
It had been two weeks before you remembered you were alive.
When he came to you first.
Making sure you were okay and had eaten something. It was what best friends did, right? Come to you in a time of need when you need them the most.
For hours there was silence between the two of you. A blank sheet of nothingness as he held you, as you both now watched the outside. Laying in bed for hours, the tears rolled onto his shoulder as he patiently sat and said nothing.
You weren't sure if you had made the first move.
Was it you laying your hand on his thigh or was it he making you laugh through tears for the first time in weeks?
He was good at that. Making you feel good.
Anakin looked down at you, surprised but not entirely by the gesture. The warm flesh of your hand against the thin fabric seeped through to his skin. You both knew then what was going to happen.
And you let it.
It was slow. Warm. Sweet, sincere, and innocent.
He stormed out of the room after.
You didn’t talk for two standard months before both agreeing that it was a mistake, hormones and sadness playing a part in the clash. Rendering you both not able to think straight.
He wanted to comfort you and it had worked.
A one time thing that would never happen again.
Until it did.
Again and again, until became a nightly occurrence. He would always come to you, never to his room. It’d always be the dead of night when you heard the door slide open, letting in the dim light of the hallway before it closed as fast and quiet as it had opened. He didn’t lead up to it anymore as he had in the early beginnings of the affair. His hand would no longer caress you. No hesitation when he took off your clothes.
It became primal.
Dirty.
Needy.
And most of all, it wasn’t love.
He’d constantly remind you of it. The impossible idea of love with him was something he screwed into your brain for the last three years.
Love was a bad word.
You knew of him and Padmé. It wasn’t so secret as he thought, as those close enough to him all knew about their own affair, but he was always worried you would say something to her. Tell her about your affair. Tell her about the way he would kiss you. Tell her the ways he would make you come undone. The way he had been inside you more times than he had been inside her.
And now the datapad in front of you held the weight of the galaxy in front of you. Eight small words crushed your entire being. Eight small words changed everything.
You were fucked.
“Not tonight.” You shrugged him off in doorway of your cabin on the Republic Cruiser you both were on, heading to Kamino for the oversight of extra troops to both of your legions.
“Why?” Anakin knew something was off, pushing himself into the small room.
“I’m not feeling up to it.” You sat down on the bunk, undoing your shoes, ready to put your swollen feet to rest.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just tired.” You waved him off.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Anakin.” He could never just take no for an answer.
“There’s something wrong. I can feel it."
“I’m fine.”
“You can tell me."
“I said I was fine.”
“Well you’re obviously not fine.”
“I really don’t feel like talking about it.”
“Why not? I’m your best friend.” You laughed at that.
“Best friend?! Anakin, you haven’t been my friend for years!”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about!"
“You never do!” Standing up from the bunk, you went to confront him in his face. Giving him no leeway.
“I care about you!”
“You have never cared about me!”
“I’ve always cared!”
“No.” Your voice now barely above a whisper.
“No? You’re denying my feelings? Invalidating them?”
“That’s thick! You have invalidated me as a person for years!”
“How?”
“You have used me, my body, for three and a half years! Coming to me almost every night! Telling me it isn’t love, that I am just a device for your pleasure!”
“You enjoyed it too!”
“For a while, yes! But then you came back to me married, Anakin! You continued to go behind your wife’s back. Telling me that it was okay, that she’d never know! It kills me to even look at her because of what I've done to her!”
“What we have is good.” He quieted, his voice choking in his throat.
“What we have is you clinging on to a constant release and me clinging on to you because I’m scared that I’ll lose you completely if I stop letting you fuck me every night!” You headed for the door, trying to escape him before the tears you felt rising could fall.
“What?”
“And congratulations you’re a father.” You thrusted the datapad into his chest, storming out of the small cabin.
you’re sat on his lap, his long hair held back with a headband and his long eyelashes batting as he looks up at you.
‘What are you gonna do to me?’
‘No need to look so scared, Alex, I just wanna put some eyeliner on you.’
‘This better not hurt.’
You slap his shoulder playfully, giggling, and his hands grip your hips firmly as he smiles up at you.
‘I’m joking, babe. I trust you.’
You steady yourself with one hand on his shoulder and lean down, concentrating as you bring the eyeliner to his face, carefully dragging the tip along the underside of his eyelid. His face flickers twitches a little and his hands tense as he tries not to move.
You realise you’ve been holding your breath and you exhale gently, bringing a mirror up to Alex’s face for him to peer at his reflection.
‘Wow. It actually looks ok.’
‘Okay? Alex you look hot as fuck.’
He just rolls his eyes at you. ‘As always.’
That earns him a second slap to the shoulder and you both burst into a fit of giggles
a/n: first attempt at joel miller, idk what this is really. it’s not particularly well written, but i’ve been in a writing rut and i’m just happy to have completed something.
She’s grating on his last nerve today and she’s doing it on purpose, working it until he gives her the reaction that’s inevitably going to end in her sulking and him sulking even harder.
It’s almost funny to her. It’s like her very own source of entertainment and the more she stirs the very melting pot that is Joel Miller, the bigger the explosion will be.
She keeps mentioning family, asking him questions that makes him dig his fingernails deeper into the already worn leather of the steering wheel, and now the sound of his teeth grinding keeps growing louder than the steady purr of the energy. She asked if she’s family, and he told her no. She’s just cargo. He didn’t miss a beat, didn’t waste a breath and then didn’t leave a second for her to wonder if he meant it or not.
But you knew the second he said it, the way he said; perfectly rehearsed. Completely devoid of emotion. Something he’d practised a million times over in his head, “No. You’re cargo.” There was no real weight behind the way he said it, but she’s just a girl, a child who’s known nothing but disappointment… and somehow she still laughs in the face of misery. But the way her face fell spoke far louder than any words ever could and you knew she wouldn’t be quipping back with a pithy retort this time. She’s too busy hurting.
And boy, she makes her hurt known, she sighs loudly, curses under her breath and kicks at the dashboard in front of her. He yells at her for being careless and damaging shit she can’t replace, she tells him to go fuck himself and he says words you can’t bring yourself to repeat.
Some days you think they both simply forget you’re there and today is one of those days. You learned pretty early on that silence is your best tool in these situations and just not to get involved, so you don’t remind them of your presence. You wait it out, you wait until Joel spots something he’ll point out to the both of you and she’ll ask little questions about it and it’ll soon be almost forgotten. Almost.
You know later that day, when he’s taking a few moments to himself that she’ll come to you for something she won’t ask for. She’ll stand in front of you and make stupid jokes or even worse she’ll say something that’ll break your heart and attempt to laugh it off. And then you’ll give her what she’s searching for, you’ll pull her into your arms and wrap your love around her for a few seconds before she pulls back.
And then you’ll repeat it all again tomorrow.
You didn’t hear him come back, and the sound of his voice ringing through your ears makes you almost jump to your feet.
“Where she go?” he mumbles out as he sits down a few feet away from you.
“Sleeping on the backseat,” you say with a shrug, “She made a comment about just being cargo.”
“That’s what she is.”
“So, you keep saying,” you say with a raised eyebrow, “Yet the second she’s out of your line of sight, your chest starts to heave up and down.”
He scoffs and you don’t need to turn to look at him to know the exact look that etched across his face.
“I'm not going to get into this with you, but…”
“Then don’t.” He warns.
You feel your breath hitch as you ignore his warning, “But… it wouldn’t kill you to choose your words more carefully. Rehearse something a little less cruel.”
And this time you do turn to face him, just as he screws his face up at you with something almost like disgust, before rolling his jaw and sitting up straight, getting ready to unleash his hell on you.
More of his signature cruelty that’s clearly his favourite tool for keeping everyone at arm's length, and you take a not so subtle breath as he starts to spit his venom.
‘You’re a child. Defenceless. Your head is in the clouds. You have no clue how this world works.’ The usual stuff before the inevitable rant about how you could make his life easier and just leave.
And this is usually the part where you apologise, you tell him how grateful you are that he’s giving you a ride across state and he’d respond with a couple of grunts before telling you to go to bed.
But something inside of you breaks and instead of taking his ranting and raving you’re throwing some of your own back in his direction.
“I have no idea? I have no clue?” you yell back, “My life is a cakewalk, right? I found a big strong man to keep me safe and I should keep my mouth shut and just endure. We are all living the same shitty life, Joel, we all know this pain and we all know loss.”
“You know nothing about loss!” he grits back, every word drowning in venom and laced with an undisguised hatred.
“I know nothing about the kind of loss you went through,” you say back as calmly as you can, “And I won’t ever deny the loss of a child is the worst kind of a loss a human can endure, but you can’t spend the rest of your life discrediting other people’s loss unless it matches yours.”
“Don’t you fuck—” he begins to yell.
“I know loss, Joel, and she knows loss. I know pain and she knows pain. And it’s not the same as yours but it’s valid, and when you tell a child that she’s nothing but cargo, you are contributing to her pain.”
The silence feels thick, the air feels thick and threatens to choke you from the inside out but despite the overwhelming urge to start coughing and freeing your throat of the imagined substance blocking your oesophagus; you don’t. You clear your throat and you continue.
“I mourn a life I never got to have,” you admit with a sad chuckle, “I read in books these stories about a man and a woman living a life that seems almost benign, because it’s so dull. And it’s sad because I crave it so much that I dig my fingernails into the meat of my thighs unconsciously just to bring myself out of the pathetic fucking fairytale that i’m creating in my own sickened mind. I dream of a husband, and I dream of working a boring job that barely covers the monthly bills and most of all I dream of the warm breath of a babe I birthed sleeping soundly on my chest and keeping them safe with a downpour of never ending love…. And that girl… that sweet and funny girl simply dreams of being more than just cargo. More than being just a potential cure. And whilst she may never be your blood and will never ever begin to replace what you’ve lost, she deserves for you to be honest with her. She deserves to think she’s more than just cargo to you.”
Nothing more is said. He clicks his tongue a few times and shakes his head before looking away, you give him a slight nod of your own as you scramble to your feet and make your way to the car. You won’t sleep that night, nor will he, but you’ll both feel comforted by the sound of her soft snores from the backseat.
Very much not a fan of how my company tells us 140 jobs are at risk in our “capability” but refuses to say how many people are even in this capability they just made up. Like, what are my chances of losing my job? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? WHO KNOWS.
