Inspired by the Rebels season two finale (of course) and FlyHalf16's lovely AniSoka fic, Death Can't Part Us (if you have time definitely check her out, her stories are wonderful).
In my head-canon, Rebels never happened… except for Anakin and Ahsoka because they make me squee :3
His world is painted in drab red and cloying mauve, and the monotonous labor of breathing. He goes places, sees things… or so they tell him. Ice-wracked dales and wind-wracked deserts are indistinguishable; friend from foe delineated by a little flashing dot on his visor.
Sometimes, when he is tired or when the screams become a little too real (he's killed her a thousand times over already, will she not sleep?), the little flashing dot can be hard to see; then he just kills so that he can go back down the empty halls to a little metal box where he can sit in darkness with no red or mauve or once-betrothed (then-married, a secret, now forever-dying); just him and the monotonous labor of breathing.
Which is not to say it is all bad, of course. In particularly-vicious firefights, the superheated bolts light up his visor with splashes of ochre; and they are mesmerizing, so much so that he sometimes forgets to block. He likes the colors, for no reason at all—and he is to supervise my Jedi training— apart from the fact that they are bright and tiny and they snip away at the fringes of his sanity—no, I'm the one with enthusiasm, you're the one with—
—a blinding headache, surely, and those rebel yells and whoops aren't helping, so in a sudden blaze of fury he throws down his lightsaber and breaks them all in one motion, their bodies shattered where they stand; in blessed silence.
And now he can go back to his little metal box of a room; to sit and wait until they call him again.
Life has been good to her.
The first few months were the worst; she shuffled from planet to planet, place to place, every night old tears soaking new sheets. The jobs were seedy, the people shady, and for the first time in her life she was lost; no mission, no purpose, no training for a higher cause.
Not that she didn't try, at first; she ran through old katas on greasy floors, meditated as much as gurgling pipes and screaming neighbors would allow, and listened for any news of the war on her dying holoprojector.
But lightsaber training wasn't the same without someone to spar with; most days she came home so exhausted that "meditation" consisted of passing out on dirty sheets; and any news that came through was heavily-censored and amounted to little more than propaganda.
So she stopped trying; her lightsabers she swapped out for a small blaster, and any Force-training she might have attempted was lost into the grind of waking up to a sickening hangover (courtesy of a late night out), swallowing a dozen assorted painkillers and antidepressants, blotting on some semblance of makeup (the men loved the "exotic" Togruta facepaint), and choking down some colorless food substitute (with a side of ground-up drugs… for taste) before heading out into the city suitably-buzzed. Night would find her shaking her ass in some sleazy establishment or another—completely intoxicated at this point with her lingerie stuffed full of credits by the onlooking males—before stumbling into bed (whether her own or a stranger's hardly mattered) just as the sun was peeking over the tops of grimy spacescrapers, ready to do it all over again.
And it was fine, it kept her from remembering, and most days she was too numb and wasted to even cry.
That was the state she was in when Lux Bonteri found her: stripping on the deck of some interstellar party cruiser that had made port at Iziz, Onderon. There were more than a few jeers and wolf-whistles when she threw herself, still scantily-clad, into the arms of the flabbergasted Onderon senator, but she didn't care. She broke down right then and there, tears flowing freely onto his chest. Just the sight of a familiar face had brought it all crashing back: memories of the time when she was Ahsoka Tano, commander of the five-hundred-and-first legion and Jedi Padawan… now, a stripper named "Ashla" on the party cruiser The Titillation.
It was so absurd she almost giggled despite herself.
He brought her to his quarters in the palace of Iziz, away from the grunge and the grime and her shame; and for the first time in a long time, she slept with no tears dotting her pillow.
The palace gardens of Iziz were beautiful… just like the time she met Lux on Raxus. A beautiful memory.
"What were you doing on a party cruiser, senator Bonteri?" she teased.
He flushed a bright red at her suggestion, and she suddenly realized how much innocence she'd lost. "It's not like I wanted to! My friends all dragged me there for a bachelor party."
Bachelor party…?
His face broke into a beatific grin. "I forgot to tell you… I'm engaged, Ahsoka!"
"…Oh." For some reason, her heart had sunk into her stomach. "I mean, congratulations!"
"Thank you," he said, grasping her hands with genuine emotion, "for all that you have done for me, old friend. I would never have made it without you."
She smiled past her pain. Had he forgotten her so easily?
The next few weeks passed in bliss. It was as if they had never been parted, and she fell easily into the old rhythm of banter.
"Brianna's away in Coruscant at the moment on diplomatic business," he said; his stormy-grey eyes—be still, my heart—never failing to light up at the mention of his fiancée. "I can't wait for you to meet her, Ahsoka!"
She looked away. "… Tell me about this party we're going to. What is it, anyway?"
He grinned from ear to ear. "Onderon independence day!"
It was late into the night when they staggered back to the palace arm-in-arm, he yodeling out some drunken rendition of an Onderon fight song, she giggling uncontrollably as she tried to keep him from falling into the palace lake—the poor boy couldn't handle his liquor. She tucked him into bed, but as she turned to leave, he grabbed her arm.
"It's good to have you back, Ahsoka," he said, and his eyes were lucid in the dark. "I've missed you."
Her heart melted. She pressed her lips to his smooth, warm cheek before stumbling back to her room just as the alcohol caught up with her.
She woke with a gasp, sometime in the middle of the night; her mind clear, her heart pounding, her body aching and burning up. Lux…
She crept into his room, heart hammering out of her chest. Outside, a storm raged; rain lashed against the windows, but he was awake, sitting up against the headboard. "Ahsoka…?"
Their lips crashed, and it was everything that she remembered: his hair so soft on fingers, his breath so sweet on her tongue, and his arms wrapped tight around her waist…
She fell back onto satin sheets with a moan as he attacked her slender neck greedily, lips and teeth leaving marks on silky skin while his hands massaged her breasts. Her breath came in short gasps.
Oh, how she'd missed this. How she had missed him.
He froze, panting heavily against her collarbone, while his hips ground up against hers… a question.
She kissed him softly in answer. He thrust into her with all the impatience of a man dying of thirst, and she came with a small, shuddering cry drowned out by his quiet groans, the rumble of thunder, and the tumult in her heart.
The morning after, and she was broken.
Lux stood helplessly next to her as she gathered up her meager belongings. "Ahsoka, please…"
But she wouldn't look at him, lest he see the unshed tears in her sapphire-blue eyes.
"Ahsoka, it was my fault, you don't have to leave—"
"I do," she said. Please don't make this any harder. "I do, Lux. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…"
He pulled her in gently for a hug, and she broke down for the second time in weeks, sobbing against him; he was wonderful and good and the best of friends, and she didn't deserve him.
"Try to visit every now and then, okay?" he whispered against her cold montrals.
She nodded slightly with her face buried in his chest.
By sunset, she'd left Onderon on a commercial freighter.
Alone, again.
Some LuxSoka creeping in. I don't dislike this pairing, especially since I usually write Lux as a total sweetheart. ::kissy kissy::