Embers: Sequel to Crash and Burn

I am like a hunter in the night, stalking her unsuspecting prey, she thought. Actually, that’s exactly what I am, so that makes the analogy not even work. Things are always like what they are.

The main reason that Ingvor Gord had not yet caught Dyar Leeds was because she hadn’t really been trying. Of course, there were other reasons that were as important, if she was being honest about it. For instance, despite being the sister-in-law of one of the best fighter pilots in the entire galaxy, one who was the daughter of both a former Senator and a former General, she was still flying an old clunker that was mostly held together with bargain-store duct tape, plenty of luck, and several layers of gummy paint. And Dyar had the annoying tendency to disappear for weeks at a time, forcing her to take other jobs to support her habits. Habits like wearing clothes and eating twice a day. Zekk lived on public money routed to the Jedi Order. Ingvor lived on her own money. Even if half of it was taken from the pockets of nearly-broke chumps who ran afoul of their employers, and living was something of an overstatement.

Now, however, she’d learned to hone her tracking abilities, although the specific skill she had uncovered and learned to use with a fair degree of clarity was only occasionally useful. One time it came in handy was right now. If she sat still and concentrated very hard, she could use the fairly weak twin bond she had with Zekk, and get a general idea of what he was feeling, seeing, and hearing, and figure out where he was. Ingvor picked up the sound of a gently crackling fire, the feeling of something like wool around her shoulders, and a very young and somewhat grating, whiny voice. From that, she could conclude that Zekk was with his five-year-old son, Verayan, at the Solos’ winter resort home a few star systems away. That was all well and good, but from the perspective of a bounty hunter, and not a Jedi, it wasn’t exactly helpful. Unless the bounty was on Zekk, and that made no sense; he hadn’t annoyed anybody quite that much in well over ten years. Besides, she could trap him easily enough by usual methods. Like lying. All she’d have to do would be tell him that she was interested in learning the Jedi ways, and she could get him into her old ship without much trouble.

The real breakthrough was when she found that she could cast her net even wider. Not only could she locate Zekk when she thought about it enough, but also anyone who had a similar Force bond with him. As far as she could tell, that meant anyone who also shared a womb with them – well, that was nobody, because they were twins, not triplets or some other higher multiple that she couldn’t quite imagine. It also would be anybody who had a strong master/trainee bond with him – again, nobody. Or anyone who had shared with him what would be termed poetically as the Moment of Mystery. And that was also nobody – except for Jaina Solo.

As little as Ingvor wanted to think about that particular aspect of his life behind the bedroom door, she had to appreciate how helpful it could be in a time of need. She could confirm, in some way, that he was faithful to Jaina – or at least that if he cheated, he was pretty bad at it. More importantly, Ingvor could go out a level, and follow the thin thread leading out from the strong visions surrounding Zekk to somewhat weaker ones somewhere else. There was a sense of cold, something bright and white, and – smack – getting hit with a snowball. Jaina was outside at the resort at the winter lodge.

Better still, and closer to her target, Ingvor followed Jaina’s twin bond with Jacen to Jacen himself. That was a little bit boring, and she had to wonder for a minute whether it was local fumes getting to her or if she was actually succeeding at tracking Jacen through the Force. She felt a little woozy, and felt, very lightly, a broken couch spring scratch her on her rump. Jacen’s home getting drunk again, she thought. Shouldn’t he be doing something more interesting? Like a certain blue-eyed sweetheart?

The other reason that Ingvor hadn’t yet traced her bonds to Dyar Leeds was that she thought it would take a lot more steps than it really did, and by that point her visions would be so weak and diluted that she’d need special Jedi focus to even sort them out from the everyday mumbo-jumbo that came through an ordinary person’s senses, and she was not interested in spending years of study to hone her skills.

Sure, the Jedi were an incestuous bunch in a figurative sense, but she hadn’t quite been able to put two and two together, even after the reception after Jaina and Zekk’s wedding, and figure out that there was at least one instance in which it was very literal. But now she knew that the same bond-thread that led out from Jacen and dead-ended at Tenel Ka also led in another direction to none other than Anakin Solo. Jacen and Anakin, at some point, had been lovers.

I don’t know whether that is incredibly karked up, or incredibly hot, Ingvor thought to herself. Then again, it’s not like the principle of mutual exclusivity applies here. Yuck and yum. Jacen and Anakin in the same bed: it’s like a Double Booster Rum Fizz, in a way.

Luckily – or, unfortunately, from a certain point of view – Ingvor didn’t actually see or experience anything like that through her Force threads. She only got a general sense of what the person in question was doing at that very moment. Anakin was coughing from vanilla-scented smoke swirling around him, which suggested that he was in some kind of bar where that was popular, and she followed the next thread out to Dyar. It wasn’t easy at that point, because through so many threads, she didn’t get a very good sense of anything. Except that now she tasted greenberry liquor over mint whiskey, and the only place she knew of where one could find mint whiskey on Coruscant was Bollo’s Tavern.

“That’s why you’re not supposed to take more than one of those crack sticks in a night, man,” someone said. “Makes you all tired with your tongue sticking out.”

Ingvor snapped her eyes open and licked her dry lips. “I didn’t take any of those dumb overpriced powder sticks. I was concentrating on the Force, thank you very much.”

The two boys gave her a funny look and walked away. Ingvor stood up from her place in the alley behind Bollo’s and strolled in slowly, eyes scanning over the crowd to see if she could see Dyar.

And then, there he was. Well, that was easy. She could see his strawberry-blond hair and closely cut jacket almost from the entrance; he was at the bar, a cigarra in one hand and the other hand on Anakin’s thigh.

No wonder Jacen’s home drinking by himself. Confident that she could catch him now, she snickered, went back outside and waited in the shadows. It wouldn’t be too much longer before Dyar and Anakin decided to head home for a little bit of merrymaking, and she would be right there to rain on their parade and send Dyar back to Boss Moorhaas, who was now the one who wanted the scumball. Dershen’s two thousand credit bounty was still out there, but nobody worth his or her salt would be on such a cheap job, and all that were left were amateurs who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag even with a vibroknife. Moorhaas was offering five times that much, and while that wasn’t exactly going to make anybody rich, it would be good for a few ship upgrades. And furthermore, the fact that Dyar was still free was getting on Ingvor’s nerves.

Three hours later, they finally got bored with drinking and smoking and heaven knows whatever else they were doing and left the tavern. By that time Ingvor really was almost asleep, and she almost missed them. If it weren’t for Dyar’s staggering gait and the really off-key way he sang Lumberjack Lager, she might not have noticed when he came out through the swinging doors.

Now the tricky part. I have to separate them. Even if Anakin was also a few sheets to the wind, she didn’t trust him not to have some kind of trick up his sleeve. Ingvor lifted her blaster pistol and aimed it – at Anakin instead of Dyar. It would be easy enough to get Dyar and haul him away if Anakin was down for the count, but if she went for Dyar first, she would still have to deal with Anakin and he would have the advantage of knowing that she was there.

She squeezed off a single shot, but Anakin spun around and lifted something from his hip. A violet blade extended and the stun blaster’s fire bounced off the blade and landed harmlessly into a wilting pile of weeds on the side of the walkway. Aww, kriff, thought Ingvor, and she made another shot. That one, too, was deflected, and hit the light pole that Ingvor was standing next to. She was far enough from it that she didn’t get the full effect of the bolt, but it was enough to make her head hurt and her arms tingle too much for her to get a good grip on the blaster. Later, Dyar. Now I know how to find you. Wherever you go. Next time Ingvor would just have to make sure to catch him when he really was alone.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Dyar snapped. He grabbed Anakin’s arm. “Put that lightsaber away.”

“Someone shot at us,” Anakin protested.

“It was just a stun blaster, and we haven’t even done anything to piss anybody off. Not this week. You think you’re better than me just because you have some fancy Force power and I don’t? I’m getting really tired of your attitude, Anakin.”

“What the hell is your problem? I was trying to protect us.”

“I don’t need protection from a Jedi. I only put up with you because I like you when you’re not playing hero. You think you’re so great, and you can see everything coming.” Dyar pulled his arm back and punched Anakin in the face. “See that, Jedi boy?”

Anakin put his hand up to his nose. When he pulled it away, blood was smeared across his fingers. “This is the last time I go out drinking with you, Dyar,” he growled. “And don’t you ever hit me again.”

“What are you going to do if I do? Tell your mom on me?” Dyar slammed Anakin into the brick side of the tavern; not hard enough to make anything break, but Anakin felt the rough bricks digging into the side of his face. “Come on, fight back. You have your fancy powers. If you’re really that much better than me, come on and prove it.”

Dyar released his grip, and Anakin pulled himself away from the bricks. “I’m not going to use the Force to fight you. Oh, if I thought you were strong enough to actually hurt me, I would, but I’m not afraid of you.” The alcohol must have loosen Anakin’s tongue a little bit, too, because normally he listened to Dyar’s complaints and just let them pass. A lot of people who were involved with Jedi ended up being insecure about it. He even thought that his father might have resented his mother’s power, just a little bit. And he was afraid that if he said something he shouldn’t that Dyar was going to get up and leave him, just like Jacen had done more than eight years ago. Jacen finally got too scared that someone was going to find out about the two of them, and that it would wreck their standing in the community. Anakin was willing to take that risk, but Jacen wasn’t, and ultimately it was his decision; he walked away, and after what they shared together, there was no way to undo it and go back to simply being brothers. Jacen and Anakin were ex-lovers and could no longer support each other. And Anakin hadn’t been ready to go back to life without someone to lean on so closely.

He couldn’t go back to Tahiri, not now that Tahiri was with Valin Horn, and besides, he didn’t even like women that way anymore. Jacen was the standard that everyone else was compared to, and there was simply no way that Tahiri, or any other woman, could match. They didn’t have the necessary parts, although he guessed that they could be obtained as temporary measures in certain novelty stores in seedier areas of the planet. Dyar was the only person who had come to him in those critical first weeks, and been friendly to him, and self-assured enough (at the time) that Anakin could latch onto him and take some of that assurance for himself. It was a rebound, but a very, very long one, and Anakin couldn’t imagine having to be on his own, without anybody to talk to or do things with. Other than when on Jedi assignments, Anakin didn’t really do anything unless Dyar was with him, because Dyar was still afraid that Anakin would stray and cheat on him. “You’re a handsome guy, Anakin,” he had said. “Everybody’s going to want you, and I’ve already claimed you as mine. Nobody else gets any.” And every time Anakin assured him that he had no intention of straying, Dyar would spout something about not understanding the Jedi and knowing that they usually put the Order before the family, and unless Anakin was actually working, he didn’t want Anakin hanging around any of them. Even Jaina. And very especially not Jacen.

Now Dyar stood over Anakin, who was just a tad on the short side, since he hadn’t grown at all since he was about seventeen. Dyar grabbed Anakin by his shoulders and threw him to the concrete. Then he grabbed a fistful of Anakin’s hair and slammed his head into ground. “I’ll teach you to talk back like that.”

Anakin kicked Dyar away from him and sat up. Now the pain was a lot worse and he figured that his nose was broken. He could show Dyar exactly what he was capable of, and leave the other man lying on the ground in agony, but he didn't. Told himself it was because it wouldn't be right. Didn't mention to himself that it was more because he didn't want to burn his bridges even after crossing them. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m leaving. And if you hit me again I’m going to break your arm.”

“Leaving? Oh, come on, sweetheart, you don’t mean that. There isn’t anybody in the whole galaxy, except for me, who’s going to still want you after they know about your secrets. Oh, sure, they might take you home and bend you over a chair for awhile, but once they find out who’s been there before them, it’s going to be over. I still want you. So shut up and come home.”

“I’m not going.” Anakin had no idea where he would be going, except that it most definitely was not back to the high-rise apartment with Dyar. He tasted blood now, running down into his mouth, and his head ached. It was mild enough that he could block the pain, but he'd need a healing trance to completely stop the bleeding.

Dyar backed Anakin against the brick wall again, but this time just stood close enough to be intimidatingly within Anakin’s personal space. “I’m going to tell you one last time. You shut your kriffing mouth and you come home. Or I’m going to throw your stuff out, what little you have, and change the locks. That means you are going to have nowhere to go, you stupid pile of shavit, and you’re going to be whoring yourself out on the streetcorners just so you can get a few millicredits for old food. Or you can crawl back to your mom like you’re four years old. Is that what you want?”

“The Jedi Order will help me, so I’m not going home with you. I meant what I said.” Anakin put on his serious face.

“Then come get your stuff from the hallway tomorrow morning. You’ll need it to pawn so you won’t have to drop your pants for strangers right away. Give you a week or two to get used to the idea first. Ever been with a four-armed Tharsian? Well, you’ll find out what that’s like. Better practice with your lightsaber handle.” Dyar made a rude gesture with his hands, and then kicked Anakin behind his left knee before walking off. Anakin fell to the ground and didn’t pick himself up right away. His head was still buzzing a little bit from his drinks, and he was starting to feel cold.

Reality set in in minutes. Anakin resisted the urge to chase Dyar down and say he was sorry, that he didn’t mean anything that he said, and please take him back, please, just so he didn’t have to be alone. Sleeping alone still terrified him. Disgustedly, Anakin realized that he should have said the things he actually did say a long time ago. He was twenty-seven years old, and perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Or he should have been. He didn’t really have any experience with that, since he’d been living with his parents or other caretakers all of his life before Dyar, except for when he was stranded on G0-CVII with Jacen, and when he was at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4.

Anakin had never had to really survive on his own, without someone else there to watch over him, not even once. Sure, there were little incidents here and there where he had to make decisions and figure out how to deal with the world around him, but he was never actually self-sufficient and making it day to day and week to week without someone to lean on. And he didn’t really have the tools to try. He could go back to his uncle Luke, the Grand Master of the New Jedi Order, and ask for a room at the Temple, but somehow that seemed like such a step down from having an entire apartment and only having to share it with one person. And he didn’t even have to pay for anything; Dyar took care of it, and Anakin’s only contribution was doing what Dyar told him.

Kind of like I’m four again and living at home.

He was confused, and he was starting to get a nasty headache. The only thing he could do now would be to go on home and explain what was going on to his mother, if his mother was home; that he and Dyar had a fight, and he needed a place to stay for the night. Jacen’s apartment was a lot closer, only ten kilometers away, but Anakin knew that if he even set foot in that apartment building and Dyar heard about it, he’d never, ever, ever take Anakin back. And it was very unlikely that Jacen would even help him. They hadn’t spoken in a long time, and Anakin had the feeling that Jacen didn’t want anything to do with him, either. They couldn’t put back together what had been smashed into a thousand pieces. Jacen would help out a sibling who was in trouble – and the only one he had left was Jaina. Anakin really wasn’t anything to him any more.

Without any credits to take a taxi and unwilling to mind-trick someone into taking him all the way to the rich districts without any money, Anakin started walking. He didn’t want his mother to see him with his face all smashed up and bloody, anyway. Anakin ducked into another busy bar and did manage to hide himself from people who would have bothered him, and then wiped his face down with slightly dirty water in the ‘fresher. He’d tape up his nose when he got there, later.

Anakin figured that he would just walk all the way back to the apartment complex where he and Dyar lived, and sleep outside or just inside until morning, and then get his stuff and go away. But thirty kilometers was a long way, and with his head pounding like it was, and the lights from buildings and speeder cars flashing all around, he didn’t want to make that long of a journey.

Anakin shivered and pulled the sides of his coat more closely around him. It wasn’t really that cold out, but he felt it, more from the inside than the outside. He hadn’t been alone in years, and tonight, he would have to be.

Eventually, he gave up. He could swallow his pride and go to Jacen’s place, and ask if he could sleep there, just one night, on the couch or something. It wouldn’t be too much to ask; even though they didn’t really have any special relationship any more, they were still two Jedi in the same Order, and therefore Anakin reasoned, now that his mind was clear and he was only left with a headache, that Jacen wasn’t just going to tell him to go to hell and get out of his space. At least, Anakin doubted that it was going to happen like that, and if it did, then he was no worse off than before. In fact, it might be a little bit better, because then he’d at least have been out of the breezy air and the exhaust fumes from speeder cars in the time that he was going up the steps to Jacen’s door.

He drew on the Force a little bit to get him the rest of the way there without getting too tired, and he climbed the long flights of stairs on the outside of the seemingly unkempt building. Once he reached the tenth floor above the maintenance level, though, and went through the doors, he noted that the inside was a lot better looking than the outside. Tenth floor was a bit of a misnomer, though, since on Coruscant, it was more likely to be the thousand and tenth floor, with the bottom stories so low that nobody could see them on the city planet unless they went down into the depths. Nobody who was sane ever did that, and Anakin resented that Dyar implied that he should go down there and drop his pants just to make a few credits. I’ll show you, Dyar Leeds, he thought angrily. I’m going to be the best that I can be, and I’ll show you that I don’t even need you. I’ll just have to start it tomorrow, that’s all.

Anakin found the right apartment number and hesitated before he knocked on the door. It was late – really late, and Jacen might already be asleep. Heck, he might even have found himself a girlfriend, and they might be sharing a moment that they certainly wouldn’t want interrupted. Jacen had divorced Tenel Ka six years ago and he doubted that he’d still be alone and celibate for that long.

Then Anakin’s stomach rumbled, and he realized that he was tired, in pain, and hungry, too much for it to really matter about his pride. If Jacen was going to say anything bad about him, then he’d pretty much be declaring himself a hypocrite. This is all your fault anyway, Jacen, he thought. Because you’re the one who left me.

Anakin knocked on the door then, and waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again, and then heard something rustle on the other side of the door, then footsteps, and then the peephole in the door darkened for a moment. “Hold on. Gotta get the lock,” Jacen said, and then the door swung wide open.

Jacen was in some form of bedclothes – dark green shorts, no shirt, a pair of old white socks with holes in the toes. He looked like he’d just woken up. “Anakin? What are you doing here?”

Anakin looked down at his own feet. “It’s a long story,” he explained. “Um, Dyar and I had a fight, and he kind of threw me out of the apartment. Said I can’t go get my stuff until tomorrow morning.”

“All the hotels booked or something?”

“No, I don’t know – you know how he is with money, and I don’t have any, not unless I went home to get it.”

Jacen opened the door wider to let Anakin in, and when he had crossed the threshold, Jacen closed the door and took a better look at his brother. “He did all that to you, didn’t he.” It wasn’t really a question.

“All what?”

“You look like you got into a fistfight.”

“Yeah, we got really mad at each other.”

“Did you tear him up like he deserves?”

“No, I didn’t really do anything but kick him.” Anakin looked down and studied his own boots, brown and scuffed.

“You’ll need to see the medics, Ani. I can take you to the center tomorrow, or we can go tonight if you’re in a lot of pain.”

“I’ll be fine for now. It’s not that bad.”

Jacen surprised him by catching him in a firm hug. “All right, then. Stay here tonight. You can sleep on the couch – no, you take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch. It’s not very comfortable and you look like you’ve had a rough night.”

Anakin nodded and pulled himself away. It was still awkward, even after years having passed. He didn’t know what to say, so he just shuffled over to the couch, and then let Jacen lead him to the bedroom.

The apartment itself wasn’t furnished very well. There was an empty bedroom, with nothing in it but some exercise equipment, and Jacen’s bedroom, which had a bed, a dresser, a small desk, and a single chair. Some clothes were strewn on the floor and the bed wasn’t made, but it seemed almost clean. He noticed that the furniture was pretty old and not in good shape, but the couch, with its exposed springs in the cushions and a tear in the orange and brown fabric over both armrests, seemed worse.

“Goodnight, Anakin,” Jacen said. “There’s an alarm clock on the dresser if you want to get up at any particular time.”

Anakin shivered again, even though he now wasn’t cold anymore, and he pulled the thin blanket around himself. He remembered back to being on the Millennium Falcon, eight and a half years ago, just after Jaina had rescued both him and Jacen from what he now thought of as their prison planet, held there by the Sith even though the Sith themselves rarely came to bother them directly. He also bitterly remembered that Jacen hadn’t promised him forever; even after Anakin opened himself up to Jacen completely, and they shared in pleasures of the flesh that they wouldn’t dare admit, the only promise that was made to him was that they would try to make it work, hidden away from prying eyes. Try. What about do or do not, there is no try? I should have known that it wouldn’t last.

Anakin missed Dyar, then, the way that the other man would put his arms around him and hold him close after the lights were out, tell him he loved him, that he didn't really mean the bad things he said but didn't know how to express himself any other way. Anakin was alone now, and even though being in Jacen’s apartment was a lot better than sleeping on the stone floor in the lobby of Dyar’s building, it didn’t make him feel much less lonely.

The pillow smelled like a mixture of Jacen and Corellian whiskey. Anakin turned his face to the fabric and breathed it in deeply; somehow, on some level that he couldn’t quite figure out, it was a comforting scent. He pulled it out from under his head – there were two pillows, and he rested on the other while he clutched the first one. I missed you, Jasa, he thought, careful to keep his thoughts contained. They had a weak telepathic bond once and Anakin wasn’t sure that it was completely gone.

He started to shake, and had to expend a lot of effort to keep himself calm and not depressed. Sure, there was always the chance that it would blow over and that Dyar would sober up and realize that he had been a complete ass. He wouldn’t apologize, not exactly, but he might promise not to do it again. Like last time, although he hadn’t gone quite as far as breaking Anakin’s nose last time.

No, Anakin couldn’t trust Dyar, and it was time that they made a clean break and went apart. Anakin just had no idea how he was going to do that. And it didn’t help one bit that he was sleeping in Jacen’s bed – even though Jacen wasn’t in it with him.

A part of him wished that Jacen would open up the bedroom door and sit next to him, and take his hand, and tell him that they’d give things another try. No, that they’d get back together, and that everything would be all right. It hadn’t worked before, though, and Anakin had no reason to think it would work now. Jacen must have had more sense, because he fell asleep by himself, and Anakin eventually did, too.

Author's Note: There will be Jasakin smut in the next chapter, I promise. :)