"You don't think we're just gonna let you walk out of here with it without one of you proving you are not Imperial agents do you?" The Toydarian drug peddler snorted, staring at them with his men holding onto their guns with smirks on their faces. "If you do, you're stupider then the usual Vizago sends."
Kanan crossed his arms over his chest. "If you're suggesting we're testing one of those, you're more crazy then reputation suggests." He said sternly, glaring a bit. Of all the jobs the Ghost crew accepted, this was one of the ones they hated the most, which would be why Vizago hadn't specified what would be in the crates they were being asked to fetch.
Death stick.
Drugs.
If Kanan or Hera had known they would have refused the mission. Now that they were already there it was to late. They didn't do drug smuggles if they could help it.
"Ah well then we won't be making any deals today and you can explain to Vizago why the crates stay here."
"Oh for Force sake." Ezra grumbled, moving around Zeb and grabbing one of luminescent sticks from a open crate. "Ezra don't!" Before the others could stop him Ezra had popped the lid and stuck half the tub down his mouth, letting the liquid glide past his tongue and down his throat as he tipped his head back.
Pulling the empty stick out he glared at the drug peddler, throwing the empty in front of him. "There, happy?"
The Toydarian smirked. "Someone has experience. Fine, the crates go with you." He nodded to his men who got of the crates so Zeb and Sabine could fetch the trolly with them. "Pleasure doing business with ya." He laughed.
Kanan grabbed his padawan by the shoulders in the meantime. "Ezra! Go on the ship now. Medbay."
"I'm fine, it won't kick in for a few more minutes." He tried to wave it of only for Kanan to give him a slight shake. "Ship, medbay, NOW." The older man said in uncompromising tone.
"Geeze, fine." Ezra huffed, wrapping his arms around himself while moving towards the Ghost ramp, grumbling a bit.
()()()()()
"What do you mean he swallowed a whole death stick?" Hera asked sharply, letting Chopper take autopilot as she hurried out of the cockpit and towards the medbay, talking with Kanan over the coms.
"Just what I said. Peddler wasn't about to let us go without one of us doing it and Ezra...ah, that kid is gonna be the death of me." Kanan growled angerly. He was more then tempted to throw the crates out the airlock and skewer Vizago with his lightsaber.
"Did he throw any of it up yet? First timers usually can't handle whole tubes." Hera asked concernedly. That froze Kanan in his tracks, staring down the hall as Sabine almost crashed into his back. "Kanan?"
"...First timers don't know how to swallow a whole tube at once either without letting it touch the tongue Hera. Ezra knew how to swallow that thing. Its not his first time." Kanan finally said, not seeing the Lasat behind him as Zeb's ears twitched at the revelation.
"Ezra's done this before?" Sabine asked, sounding for all her armor and battle prowess like the sixteen year old she was.
"Yes." Kanan moved again, his long steps taking him to the medbay before anyone could say more, the door opening with a hiss.
Ezra gave a meeping noise and fell of the medbad he'd been sitting on landing on his rear as he blinked up at Kanan, his pupils dilated to a point where the blue of the teens eyes were hard to spot. "Uh..."
"Ezra." Kanan gave a quiet curse and knelt down in front of him. "You have no idea how much I want to yell at you right now. But I don't think you'll remember it if I do." The teens shoulders hunched a bit.
"I'm 'orry?" He slurred, sounding so very young to everyone there. The jedi sighed then shifted until he could sit beside him, wrapping his arm around his padawan instead. "I'm not going to say its fine kid, Death sticks are dangerous, it shortens your life span, it takes chunks out of it and your life is worth so much more then that."
"Done it before. Hadda eat somehow. Blankies aren't cheap." Ezra slurred, the drugs lowering his defenses as he snuggled against Kanan's side. "Drug testies paid well..." He closed his eyes.
"..." Kanan looked to the medbay doors where the rest of the crew was. "One of you get me a blanket...and some water." Kanan finally settled, Sabine nodding and quickly leaving. Hera stepped in and sat on the other side of Ezra, the human opening his eyes to look at her in surprise, making a little questioning noise before closing them as she started petting his hair instead.
He leaned into the touch almost greedily, all defenses lowered as Kanan carefully wrapped the blanket around him and settled with his arm around the youth, Hera gently running her fingers through his dark hair.
In those hazy moments, Ezra could almost believe that the last eight years had been a hallucination, that his parents had never been taken from him, that they weren't gone and he was right there, between them.
"He's so spacy I don't think he realizes where he even is." A growly voice said over his head.
"You might be right." A voice to his left sighed out. "Zeb, can you help me get him out of his coveralls in a bit? Once we coaxed some water into him that is when Sabine returns."
"Yeah sure. Why though?"
"Change him into something more comfortable so he can sleep as long as he needs."
Something tugged in Ezra's consciousness, telling him that he didn't want them to undress him but for the life of him he couldn't quite grasp why. Why was that important right now?
"Ezra?" A careful hand shook him and he blinked hazy blue eyes open, staring at a glass of water behind held in front of him by a gloved hand. The hand in his hair stopped stroking and Ezra let a small whine escape his throat.
He was thirsty actually. He shakily took the glass, making a discontented noise as a pair of tanned hands covered his, helping him hold it. Ezra tried dragging his hands out of them, he was fully able to drink from a glass of water.
"Kid, look, just drink and accept the help."
Ezra huffed but listened to the voice, slowly drinking the entire contents of the glass before it was taken away by the same hands as before. Beeping made Ezra blink towards the door, looking at the hazy colored shapes he vaguely recognized.
"No Chopper, I don't think zapping him will help at ALL. Don't do it." A stern female voice said to his right and Ezra looked towards it, blinking. "...Hera?" The female Twi'lek focused on him and gave a soft smile if also worried. "Try to sleep Ezra."
Blinking, he flopped his head on her shoulder, feeling a broad hand slowly rub his back and shoulders in a pattern, a smaller hand going stroking his hair. It sent Ezra into the arms of sleep in a way he hadn't for years.
()()()()()()
"I think he's all out for now. Alright Zeb, give me a hand here." Kanan sighed, shifting a bit to pull the blanket of Ezra's light form, regretting it a bit as the teen shivered. Sabine left for her own room so not to invade Ezra's privacy to much, Hera would be doing that too once Zeb was supporting the teen instead of her. She went to fetch spare comfortable clothes for Ezra instead. She was sure Kanan wouldn't mind loaning his padawan a t-shirt and she was sure Ezra had some comfortable soft pants.
Once Zeb had him Kanan shifted to the front, getting the vest Ezra wore of first then he unzipped the coverall and carefully working one arm out first.
Even half undressed Kanan could see the scars. A life on the street was never easy but he hadn't expected this. Some of these he recognized as someone living on the street getting but others he could tell were of a different sort, one of them were caused by a viroblade he was sure or another smooth sharp blade, a star burst scar on his upper shoulder was a blaster wound, some were small and round in one clustered spot by Ezra's ribcage and Kanan hoped he was wrong in thinking they were caused by a cigaret.
There was a perfectly diagonal scar that was to neat to have been made by anything but a scalpel near Ezra's navel. Small syringe scars littered up and down Ezra's arm. Some were perfectly pale and old. Others were pink and made in the year they had meet the young man. And some had a awful purple view to it that told of old infection or being wrongly treated.
"...Karabast." Zeb growled as Kanan got Ezra's other arm out, leaving the teen shirtless.
"Not now Zeb."
"Mate you can't-"
"I can for now. Right now Ezra isn't awake to answer and I get the feeling if he knew we were undressing him, he'd be putting up a fight." The Jedi said seriously, letting the coverall pool around the teens slender waist as he wrapped the blanket around him again while they waited for the spare clothes.
"But he's covered in scars."
"I know. We will talk to him about them. But not now, not while he's doped up on death stick." Kanan gave Zeb a long look. The Lasat ears twitched hard before he grumbled and nodded. "Yer right, yer right...Karabast."
He wrapped his large furry arm around Ezra blanket covered form, holding protectively around him. For all the annoyance Ezra caused, Zeb couldn't imagine the Ghost without the young padawan running around.
Kanan let out a deep sigh and got up when there was a soft knock, getting spare clothes from Hera and not minding that one of those were his t-shirt. "You okay?" Hera stared at Kanan, the jedi glancing back at Ezra and shaking his head.
"Not really. He's covered in scars. Didn't think he'd be this covered in scars."
Hera looked between the two grim looking men and bit her lips. "...Look after him, we can talk about this with him later." She stepped away so they could dress him in peace.
The human returned to the teen and knelt down, removing the blanket to slide the soft worn t-shirt onto him, smiling a bit at how small Ezra looked in his t-shirt.
"...I forget how young he is sometimes."
Kanan looked at Zeb at that, the others green eyes focused on Ezra. "He's barely fourteen. He should be in school really not...here." He grumbled.
"But he is. He is here. If you want to blame anyone..."
"Blame the empire." Zeb finished for the Jedi, grumbling and nodding.
Kanan nodded and got the rest of the coverall of Ezra, finding more scars along Ezra's feet, legs and thighs before he was covered up by the pants. "Carry him to your room? You best put him on the bottom bunk in case he falls out of the bed." Kanan sighed.
Zeb didn't complain about that as he slowly stood with the teen in his arms, nodding. "Course. Rather not end up with the kid more bruised then he usually gets."
"You mean like he must get every mission?" Kanan offered dryly, following as Zeb started climbing the ladder to get to their cabin. "Like all of us get, I swear if I get caught in one of Sabine's blast waves again, I'm gonna..." The Lasat let that trail of.
Kanan snorted softly, smiling ever so softly before glancing at Ezra's slack face. '...No, if we can help it, lets not have him more bruised.'
Author note:Oh wow you won't believe the overwhelming amount of response I had to this fic. Because of all the reviews and everything I managed to crank out another part. This is a two chapter one and I am working on the second one as I write this. I'm so happy everyone loved this so much! Thank you all.
PS!: A very kind soul updated me that my story was very VERY similiar to another persons. I have to say, that's a coincidence. Death stick was the only drug I could find on the wookipedia that was canon enough for me to look up information. That said, I urge you all to go look up Space Opera Singer's story 'Stray' if you liked mine. I'm certain you will enjoy theirs and I will be going to read it myself.