Author's Note: In my attempt at doing a readershot with Grievous, I accidentally created something that will probably span several chapters instead of the one or two I had originally intended. Whether those chapters will span chronologically like a regular story or use this as a set-up for a cool readershot 'verse like I have for my Daft Punk readershots, I HAVEN'T A CLUE.

But uh...well, WHOOPS. Also I specified DFAB reader (Designated female at birth) because though I'll avoid gendered pronouns, my tried-n-true genitals for writing readershot smut is usually female by default unless suggested or asked otherwise.

Keep an eye out for continued chapters for this. Though this won't be as important to me as my other ongoing Star Wars fic, Truth Within, my lack of time and whatnot with my upcoming graduation has me just wanting to do some relaxing readershots instead.


Complicated. That was the only word you could use to even begin describing how you felt about what you had experienced. In all of one day, you'd been kidnapped, nearly killed three times, then confronted with a lover you had thought died nearly a year ago. A lover who was, for all accounts, nothing more than a whispered name to be written in old legends of a race that wasn't your own.

Honestly, you didn't even recognize him at first. He had changed in body and mind so completely that there was almost nothing left of him in soul. Metal encased what little organic flesh left to him, his voice rendered harsh and ragged from the damage of the crash you had assumed killed him mere days, weeks, months beforehand. In hindsight, you would have called it a miracle, a blessing, a work of whatever gods that existed in the heavens to bring back one of the only people you trusted with your entire existence.

But at the first moment of seeing him, the only emotion that flooded your veins was utter terror.

Your wrists were bound. Your shoulders were in the clutches of droids, held still as if they still felt a worry that you would attempt to turn and run (as if there was anywhere to run to, since the ship itself had long since left the surface of the planet). The pressure hurt, but it had soon become nothing more than a dull, pulsing ache. Something that would leave bruises the next day.

He entered the empty, darkened room with an air of muddled regality. A wounded, but very deadly predator, movements as sleek and fluid as a river as it crashed down the side of a mountain. Even slouched and across the room, his height was obvious and tremendous over your own-plenty to make you feel intimidated with your first, sharp gasp upon sight of him.

He was a shadow. He was a beast. But you didn't truly realize the extend of the rumors for the creature's aura of strength until he stood before you.

To call him a droid was not only offensive in later hindsight, but outright incorrect. Even though his cape surrounded most of his shoulders, there were still slight, but pulsing organs within his chest, protected with durasteel plates. His face was covered in a skeletal-like mask, but what struck you with the most awe and terror weren't any of the former items, but his eyes.

They were sharp, like a predator. Gold and sleek, they were not the eyes of any sort of droid you had ever seen. They were organic. They were powerful. They were the eyes of a skilled warrior and expert tactician.

But there was something more about those sharp, golden eyes that stared down at you, unyeilding and silent. They were familiar eyes. You had seen them before. A year before, to be exact.

To say you couldn't breathe was an understatement.

You couldn't even think.

"Sir," One of the droids beeped behind you, half-forcing you out of your terrified eye-lock. "This is the villager you requested to be brought on-board."

The general didn't reply at first. His stare held on you, so harsh and striking that all you could do in feeble response was glance down at the ground, body shaking like a leaf in the wind. The air was suddenly so cold, even though you were wearing layers of heavy cloth that was originally supposed to compensate for far, far colder weather. You had grown far too used to the heat of another planet before they had sent you away.

Luckily, the silence wasn't prolonged for more than half a minute. However, it was punctuated with a question that you didn't expect to get from the most feared general of the droid armies of the Separatists. It was simple. It was concise. It was...gentle.

"Tell me your full name." It wasn't exactly something you expected from him, and the confusion must have been obvious on your face when you finally glanced up at him. But the motion, the confusion, maybe even the assumed hesitation angered the general, because he took a sudden step forward and loomed even more heavily over your body.

You cowered back and stuttered out your full name, barely able to get it out of your mouth without catching on half of the syllables.

More silence.

"Do you know the name…," General Grievous began, slowly, heavily. He sounded as though he was trying to weigh his words. "...Qymaen jai Sheelal?"

The name did plenty to perk your attention. You hadn't heard it for so many months. After you had left your home, nobody had known about the warlord; the savior and demigod of the Kaleesh.

Your dead lover.

You stare at him for a moment, trying to figure out in silence what he could know of that name or the person it belonged to. But for some reason, despite the situation, you felt a well of anger start to bubble up in your chest at his question.

"The Separatists have done plenty already to know him," you spat, venom seething in your voice. "You liars-you devils-you have already killed him a year ago!" You must have started tensing up or moving forward with the anger in your answer, because the grip on your shoulders suddenly got a lot stronger. It made you wince in pain.

But the general said nothing. So you continued, brain and mind stewing in your own repressed anger that you thought had fizzled out with your grief months ago.

"Whatever you want with him, forget it! His memory is already written! He has….he has no more debts to pay...you've...gotten what you wanted from Kalee already." Anger quickly fizzled into grief, grief into sadness, and with sadness came tears. They started to roll down your eyes as raw, unkempt memories felt the need to flicker behind your eyes again.

The crash. The mourning. The bodiless ceremony. First one lover, and then the other. Being sent away when you had nobody to care for you anymore.

When your eyes started to sting too much from the tears, you finally had to close them tight. It didn't much help to dispel the memories; they were supposed to have been buried long ago, forced down into what would later be fuel for countless nightmares instead.

You expected a harsh retort from the general for your outburst. Perhaps a strike to your cheek, a kick to your stomach. Hell, even a verbal harassment was the least of what you expected him to do after such a show of disrespect. But all you got was silence.

The darkness behind your eyelids was the only solace you had, until his voice spoke again.

"...release the villager."

The response from the droids came faster than you could comprehend. Their grip released your shoulders without hesitation, leaving your body to wobble with it's own weight and sense of balance (or lack thereof, considering the flash of raging emotions). You weren't sure if the happiness of your release was enough to overcome the grief of your memories or the dread of your punishment.

You still didn't know why they stole you from the little village in the first place. But it was nice to feel your shoulders again, at least.

The strength to open your eyes didn't come for a few more seconds, stinging and painful, but you were still able to look at the general through red-rimmed lids.

He was still looking at you, but the mood of his glare had shifted. Softened. A sharp pang in your chest came when you realized how honestly familiar they looked, but that was probably a painful irony that came from the gods' sick sense of humor. Perhaps it was punishment for something you'd done in life. To see the eyes of your dead lover in someone who would kill you.

Rather poetic, wasn't it?

It almost made you want to cry even more, terror in your body be damned.

"What do you want with me?" You sobbed in question, somehow brave enough with the push of your emotional misery. "I don't know anything about his death."

Grievous stared at you for what felt like a long, long time before speaking.

"...He is not dead."

Somehow, where those words should have thrown your brain and mind for a loop of logic, it rather infuriated you. What was his claim worth against a whole year of pain and suffering at the loss of someone you loved so dearly? Who was he, general or not, to make a claim that completely obliterated mourning and memories that made it false?

You took a brave, wobbly step forward and raised your hand to point a sharp finger in the general's direction.

"Who are you to tell me he' .dead?" Rage simmered in your voice, restrained only by the fact that his claim was so ludicrous, it was hard to understand what he was trying to convince you. "What in the world can you claim to know about the warrior I loved?"

He met your approach with a step of his own; you didn't cower back this time. But it wasn't until he raised one of his clawed hands that you started to realize how much you had fucked up your situation. Prepared for the worst, your eyes shut tight and your fists clenched hard enough to dig your fingernails into your palm.

You expected a strike that might send you into the metal floor, knocking you out cold. But instead, you felt….

Fingers. More accurately, fingertips. You felt them against your cheek, stroking the side of your face in a gesture reminiscent of so many dreams ago. And opening your eyes helped you to realize that it wasn't a dream, nor was it a figment of your imagination.

His hand cradled your cheek, thumb stroking carefully over a scar under your left eye.

"Sha'k djit, me'quijk," Grievous whispered, so low and rough of a voice that it would have been hard to hear as anything other than a growl if you weren't standing so close in front of him, barely a few feet apart from one another.

They were words you hadn't heard in a long, long time.

Be calm, my flower.

What caught you off-guard the most from the whisper of Kaleesh were the specific wording. It wasn't just 'flower' that he called you, but a specific species of flower named for it's fantastic color in the spring, visible only for a few weeks of the year. It was a flower you had grown to love.

It was a flower that your lover always called you by.

The recollection of that fact was like pushing over the first domino in the string of thoughts, growing bigger, harder to understand. It made your heart beat faster and faster as it started to dawn on you what such a simple gesture actually meant.

You started to shake. Tears welled in your eyes. Emotions swelled, so thick and so harsh, all you could manage to do was bring one shaking, fragile hand up to press over the metal one on your cheek.

There wasn't any irony in the recognition of his eyes.

So many questions came as strongly as your tears, rolling down your cheeks like waterfalls of grief and confusion, but also half-numb joy and wonder. It was a dream and yet it wasn't. A nightmare melded with a string of hope that had somehow taken a wrong turn inside your head.

But his touch felt far too real to be anything but reality.

As if to test the truth, you took in a breath and carefully, feebly whispered his name, staring up into those golden, predator-like eyes. It was soft enough that even you barely heard it's utterance. But Grievous-Qymaen?-nodded. In turn, he too whispered your name, in such a beautiful, though rough kaleesh sound that it almost reminded you of the last time he had said it before….

It was hard to tell what he was feeling through it all, so careful had he always been to mask whatever emotions filled him.

Fear looked as assured as confidence. Despair as content as calmness. Even before, never once could you predict the warrior's emotions with much truth.

He closed his eyes and carefully leaned down, just enough to bump his forehead to your own. Like something out of a dream, the gesture of familiar intimacy had you feeling overwhelmed with emotions. So much so that you felt dizzy.

Really dizzy. The world was starting to muddle together, a mishmash of shapes and colors that it made you sick to your stomach.

It was barely a few moments after the initial sensation that you finally blacked out from stress and overwhelming emotions.

But instead of feeling the floor when your legs finally gave out, you felt arms. They were as cold and metallic as the ground, but they were familiar and gentle.