Story Title: First Days

Series Title: Unlikely Brothers

POV: Dashen (Tanner is 9, Dash is 15)

Chapter Summary: Six days into his new life after the Jedi Purge, Tannerlin and Dashen find the beginnings of their bond.


It was midnight or somewhere thereabouts. The kid was still crying; had been for hours now. It was less, but enough whimpering that I couldn't sleep through it. His usual spot on the left end of the small couch was empty, he'd thumped onto the floor at some point; pillow clutched to his chest and a brown wood-stone object in one hand. He'd kept it close since I'd found him. Some type of comfort I guess. I sat cross-legged across from him – ten or so inches of space between us. This wasn't my game, this whole comforting a stranger thing, but I did my best to not make him feel anymore horrible and confused than he already felt.

"You need help getting back to the couch?"

A head shake as he hugged the pillow; eyes down.

"You want me to sit with you a while? We can watch a holo-vid."

A shrug. Improvement in my book. Not a flat denial of 'get away from me you weirdo creep.' So, maybe I was onto something.

"Here," I reached past him to grab the monitor remote and pressed the power button. I found an old favorite show of mine. Terrible acting and paper-cheap special effects, but it was always fun and made for mindless entertainment. The kid seemed semi-interested. I slid slowly around and toward him, leaning against the couch next to where he was, keeping a few inches of separation in case he didn't want me delving any deeper into his personal space. The show played and we watched quietly. Another episode followed. I'd started getting lost in my own past memories of watching this same vid with my little brother, Kossi. He'd never really understood it, but it always gave him the giggles watching the silly effects. I smiled forlornly at the thought when I felt a weight against my shoulder. Tannerlin had spanned the few inches to lean against me. His eyes were still glued toward the monitor; expression neutral. The position he was in didn't change as the show flickered on and as each patch of minutes passed, I could feel a relaxation taking over. This was a kid that hadn't been relaxed one minute of these first five days. He'd been a tiny ball of tension, and with good reason. But now…

A third episode began. Tanner's eyes fell away from the screen as his head dropped a bit. I took a chance and put an arm around him to keep him from falling forward and as I thought maybe he might close his eyes and find a short period of sleep, he instead let his head fall against my chest and softly he asked me a question.

"Why did this happen?"

Yeah, okay. Sure. That wasn't loaded. He didn't really expect me to answer that, right? I didn't. I couldn't. But I had to say something.

"I wish I knew, kid. I don't. All I know for sure is that it was born of pure evil and hatred."

"Master Ayden was a good person."

"Yeah."

"I don't have anywhere to go."

"Don't worry about that, okay? Not right now. We'll get you healthy again and then figure things out."

The kid's voice broke then. "He didn't deserve to die like that."

"No one does."

"I keep thinking it's just a really bad dream and I'll wake up and he'll be there at the table for breakfast tomorrow morning, waiting for me."

Great. The most this kid has spoken in five days and he was doing his best to take me down into the emotional pit with him.

"You guys believe in that Force stuff, right? So, maybe you'll see him again one day." It was a guess. I had to say something.

"I want to see him now."

Okay, just what I didn't need, a suicidal heartbroken Jedi kid. But hadn't I felt the same when Kossi died?

"No, he wouldn't want that. He saved your life for a reason and it wasn't so you could go leaping off tall buildings. Just…give it some time."

The still calm he'd been clinging to, waned and I could feel tear-driven wetness dripping onto my tunic.

"But I miss him and I need him."

"Yeah, I know."

There was a long night of crying after that. I held myself together, but the kid inched toward dehydration in losing so much moisture through his bloodshot brown eyes. I stuck with him though. I couldn't stop Kossi from dying, but I'd be damned if this kid was going to call it quits on my watch.

His world was broken and there was nothing left. Right now, I was the only one who could help him. I was the only thing he had.

The next morning, I made sure I was there at our tiny kitchen table, waiting for him with breakfast. I didn't know what particulars he enjoyed most in the area of food, but I was confident that it wasn't the actual meal that he looked forward to during breakfast time.

Face, hair and clothes ragged from a troubling night, the boy staggered his way from the couch to the kitchen, legs still struggling with some atrophy from a long period of non use.

"Morning, Tannerlin."

"Hi."

"I made an array of everything I could think of. Figured you'd find something to tempt your palette."

He sat down, a funny bewildered smile crisscrossing his pillow-creased face. "You made this for me?"

"I certainly can't eat it all myself." I stood briefly to grab drinks. "You want juice or milk?"

"Milk. I always had milk when Master…"

The smile faded as the memories returned. I set a glass of milk in front of him.

"It's okay, kid. I've got those painful memories too. Yours are just a lot more prominent right now. You can talk about him."

There came a sniffle and a short nod as he wiped his eyes and reached for the glass. "We always had breakfast together."

I tried to help him along. "That was your thing, wasn't it? Time to relax and talk."

"Yes. It's when our Jedi bond found its greatest strength." He stopped just long enough to take a few sips of milk and then said, "Thank you, Dashen, for this."

"Whatever you need, kid. Now, if I might push you in one direction, the bantha bacon is some of my best work. Mostly because I didn't cook it. Actually I can't claim anything here, except the juice and milk and those, all I did was pour them. The rest came from the diner down the block. I haven't known you long enough to threaten you with my cooking. It's not all that edible."

Tanner snickered into his milk. "Master Ayden couldn't cook either. But I can. I can teach you."

"Out-cooked by a nine year old boy, huh? Well, I guess worse things have happened to me. Here, try this pala-cake before it gets cold. It'll make your stomach do flips of happiness."

It was a good morning for the kid. Now six days into this thing and he and I were finding each other, working everything out. And I had to admit, I was coming around to actually giving a crap about him. That was something that didn't happen to me often and especially not after losing my little brother two years back. I just had no idea what to do with the kid now. What was a future like his worth when there was a giant red target plastered on his head? Hell, for that matter, what was a future like mine worth? All I had was my job and the rat hole of an apartment. I could no longer claim blood family with the deaths of my parents and my brother.

I looked at Tannerlin again. So damned young. So damned scared. Not to mention the whole Jedi thing that I couldn't possibly begin to understand. Still, there was something there. We shared a common bond in the form of loss. Maybe somewhere in there was a reason it was me that found him.

Ultimately, I had no idea and for now at least, I was here to give the boy a roof over his head, a belly full of breakfast and to perhaps help chase a few of the nightmares away.

What his future held…what my future held…well, all that was still to be decided. For now, it was one step at a time. And the small smile on his face as he nibbled on the heavily-sugared pala cake and found it to his liking…was the first of many steps to come.


END