***Yes this is my first One Shot. Enjoy! There are more on the way!***
Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk, thunk, thunk thunk
The knock alone was enough to make him groan. Despite his moan of protest carrying through the metal, the door opened. He rolled over, feigning sleep. Footsteps walked into the room, stopping steps away from the foot of the bunk.
"Ezra, it's time to get up. You've overslept. I saved you breakfast, it's cold now but you need to get up and or at least get up."
Ezra replied with another groan, throwing the blanket over his head.
"Are you not feeling well?" Kanan asked.
"Don't wan'a get up." He mumbled.
Kanan chuckled. "I can't help you there."
"Go away Kanan." Ezra burrowed further under his covers.
"I gave you a chance, kid." With that, Kanan Force lifted the blanket from his bed, throwing it over to him. He snatched it from the air as Ezra tried to take it back. As much as he tried, the Force responded better with Kanan, and after a minute of struggling there was only a small strip of it on the bed.
"Hey! Give it!"
"Don't whine, Ezra. You're fifteen years old. It's unbecoming."
"It's unbecoming to drag me out of bed." He muttered.
"Well, since you said so."
Ezra didn't know what he meant until he felt his back lift off the bed. "Whoa!" He yelled, the shock of it chasing all sleep from his mind. "Hey! Put me down! I'm telling Hera on you!"
Kanan lowered his padawan a foot, before letting go of the Force.
There was a loud thunk as Ezra hit the floor. "Kanan I'm going to ki-I'll, I'm gonna…!"
"Try to hurt me in practice this time? That's the spirit!" With a laugh he walked out of the room.
Ezra stood, fuming. "Oh I'll do more than try, Kanan."
Through the Force his master laughed. I can feel your fury at me. And your thoughts of violence. Just don't cut a limb off and I think we'll be even.
I'm telling Hera on you!
I'm not scared, kid. She's in a bad mood today though so you'd better watch out.
As they were speaking Ezra had pulled on his clothes, and he ran a hand through his matted hair as he emerged from the room.
He entered the Force, letting it cut him a path to Kanan. Within a couple of minutes he was next to his master's side. "Before we train, you eat."
Ezra rolled his eyes. "Fine. Where'd you put the food."
"The food is on the counter." Hera said without turning around. "Good morning Ezra by the way."
"G'morning." He replied, scooping that last of the food onto the plate. "This stuff is cold."
"Then maybe you should have come down here faster." Hera's voice was absent as she looked down at the plate she was cleaning, Zeb having decided it was better to deal with her than to wash the 5 plates and forks.
Ezra scooped a heaping fork of egg into his mouth. "Hera?"
"What?"
The boy swallowed before impaling another piece and biting it. "Kanan dropped me on the floor! He Force lifted me and then dropped me, right onto the floor. It hurt!"
Hera turned around, a look of concern breaking through her mood, which Ezra noted was lack of sleep and what was most likely stress. "Are you alright?"
He nodded, putting the fork down and going onto his browned potatoes, a substitute for hash browns. "Yeah."
"Kanan." Hera turned to him with a reprimanding glare.
"He wouldn't get out of bed! I needed him to train! What would you have done."
She only rolled her eyes.
"Wait, he gets away with it!" Ezra guffawed.
Hera turned to him with a look of irritation. "Yes, he does. Because you weren't getting out of bed, you're not hurt, and I don't have the time to reprimand two children on this ship at the moment. So if you two can't behave, I suggest you leave it here or take it somewhere else. You got me?"
Ezra felt his face heat but muttered, "Yes Hera."
"And Ezra, after breakfast I need you to clean the ventilation shafts. After the last battle they clogged and we nearly crashed."
"Can't Chopper do it?" Ezra griped, at the same time Kanan exclaimed, "But he has Jedi practice after breakfast!"
Hera silenced both of them with a look that said Jedi practice could most certainly wait.
"Oh-kay." Ezra sighed. "I'll get the bucket." He stood, turning to walk out of the room.
"Al-ready, there."
"Okay Hera."
"And Ezra." Hera added.
"Yeah?" The boy turned around.
"Push in your chair, I shouldn't have to remind you."
Ezra bit back a reply of, If you're so close why can't you do it. but walked over to it and pushed it in without a word, before walking out of the room again. He walked down the tree steps of the ship that lead to the kitchen, looking at the cockpit that Hera spent so much time in. A couple rooms down and to his left was the control room. He pushed the door open to find the bucket of water and a wash rag along with a metal bristled scrub brush.
He sighed, getting on his hands and knees before dragging the bucket behind him and crawling into the ventilation at its largest point, the grill still off from the last time Ezra had to clean it. "I'm so getting mom back for this. Why can't Sabine do this! She's as tiny as I am! Yeah I'm better at it but come on it's not that important."
Ezra kept muttering to himself as he worked, pausing after he came to the first dead end to take a break. He pushed the bucket into the corridor behind him and then crawled into the one with the dead end. He'd been working for about an hour and a half and his back was exhausted, the muscles shaking whenever he tried to lift himself. He'd been in awkward positions ever since he started. The water was black and he still had five sections left to do. He wasn't surprised they had almost had a fire the last time they'd been in a dog fight.
Resting his head on his folded arms, belly to the ground, Ezra closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of dirt and dust and metal, and something with food. He decided that Hera must be cooking again and smiled at the thought, before catching a whiff of something that was burned and realized that it was Kanan who had probably cooked.
The thought of Kanan in the kitchen with a blackened piece of meat in front of him and Hera making him eat it as punishment for wasting food made brought a chuckle from his lips. The sound of a sigh echoed through the shafts, and his smile shrunk. He knew that sigh.
Hera, stressing about the war, or about their next mission, or people who were in danger that she would most likely select to help next. He realized how much pressure it was and understood her frustration. It was best to keep his distance until she calmed down.
Cramping in such a small space, Ezra crawled backwards before moving on, the smell of paint snatching his nose and making him sneeze. He crawled past Sabine's room as quickly as he could, pushing the bucket and its contents in front of him.
Voices bounced off the metal, gaining a tinny sound as they traveled. Ezra had to strain to make out the words, and crawled forward, following the voices. He got lost and stuck a couple of times, having to back up and change paths more than once.
As he grew closer, he started to make out words.
"-Ezra."
"No wa-"
"-know he's a good-"
A peal of laughter.
Ezra stopped crawling when the voices were right beneath him. He realized that Hera and Kanan had just stepped into the cockpit. Hand on the handle of the bucket, the teen pressed his face against the grill, quickly realizing how badly it had needed a wash.
"He'd be a great Jedi one day."
"Just like you were."
"Just like I am." Kanan corrected with a laugh.
"Of course, love. You just don't get much chance to show your skills."
"Well, with how the Empire's been operating, I think I'll be getting more and more of a chance. I don't know if that's for the better though."
"What do you mean? With every victory we gain we push them back just a little further."
"Yeah and with every victory we gain more reputation. And so does Ezra. The kid is still in training, he's got a long way to go before he's even considered a Jedi. He can protect himself, yeah, but for how long. The Empire knows just how strong he is."
Ezra could hear the worry and strained tone in his master's voice, and could feel in the Force just how much it worried him that something could happen, that he would be unprepared.
"We know how strong you are." Hera soothed. "You'll keep him safe, and you taught him how to hold his own. He's turning into a Jedi that matches your talents."
Kanan gave a half laugh. "Not quite yet, but I do agree, he's growing so fast."
"What is it Kanan?"
"Oh, nothing."
Ezra could hear something in Kanan's tone, and the Force sent out a warning that proved to be a second too late.
Kanan looked directly up at the grill of the vent, Force yanking it off.
Before Ezra could gain purchase on the insides of the vent, he tumbled downward, dragging the bucket with him. It hit the ground with him, sloshing its filth onto Kanan and puddling beneath him.
He landed on his elbow and it nearly popped, a surge of pain running up his arm and into his shoulder. His stomach was the first to hit, meeting the floor with a dull whomp that pressed nearly all the air out of his lungs, half of his face resting in the still spreading puddle of water. The bristle had bounced to the opposite side of the room, the rag sticking to Kanan's pant leg.
After the clatter of the grill and bucket had faded from the room, silence hung for a moment, all three of them too stunned to speak.
Ezra broke it, twisting onto his side and risking a glance at the person he knew would be less mad: Kanan. His master glowered down on him disapprovingly.
"Eh, I'm, uh, just gonna go… vents to clean and all." He said sheepishly.
A strong grip on his arm prevented him from dashing into the hall.
Hera.
Ezra felt his stomach drop like he'd just been thrown out of the vent a second time. Slowly he turned to look at her. She wasn't bothering to hide her fury.
His own face was reflected in her eyes: mouth turned upward in a scared little smile, eyes wide with what he knew was coming, face a patchwork of red and grey where the vent had left its mark.
"Oh, you have much more to do than the vents now young man!"
"What else do I have to do…"
"You're going to clean the entire ship from top to bottom."
"But that's gonna take 'til tomorrow!"
"Then I suggest you get started. And drop the whining until I'm much less inclined to make you clean our room, too."
Ezra nodded.
Hera gave a self satisfied smile.
"I'd much rather be doing Jedi practice." He muttered.
She and Kanan shared a look.
"Okay, now you're doing our bedroom." She snapped.
"Aww!" Ezra titled his head skyward and facepalmed.
"And don't think of complaining or I'll make you clean the outside of the ship, too."
Ezra turned around, to see that now, she was giving him a thin lipped smile.
Hera always knew what to say to keep him in line.
He sighed. It was going to be a long night.