Chapter Title: Sliver of Hope
Series Title: Unlikely Brothers
Ages in this chapter: Tanner (9) Dashen (15)
POV: Dashen
Chapter Summary: Colton questions Dashen to make certain he understands the dangers and risks of taking a young Jedi into his care.
"It's a responsibly, kid. Taking him in. Looking after him. I can give you a home. I can keep you working. Keep him in school. But I can't offer you or him complete safety every second of every day. The target he has on his back is as big as a imperial battlecruiser. He may as well have a flashing red sign trailing behind him. You'll be a target as well. Know exactly what you're getting yourself into."
"Yeah, I get it, Colt. He's a Jedi and they're worth a hell of a lot right now, but damn it, he's a kid. He's a nine year old boy. Jedi or not, he has the right to live a life and not be snuffed out by the Empire. At least be given a chance. And... well, there is the fact that he actually doesn't hate me. How many people in this town can I say that about? One? Hey, just made it two, see that?"
"People don't hate you, Dash. They simply don't understand you or don't want to."
"Uh huh. Two days ago, that little old hobbled woman that runs the weapons depot near the spaceport threw a dead swamp rat at my head."
"Well, okay. So, you're not the favorite person in Kaolin. All the more reason that you need to consider every aspect of what taking this kid on actually means. Don't let your past control your future. You're barely beginning to battle your way out of your depression and suicidal thoughts. If you're only helping this kid because he reminds you of your brother, that's a path you shouldn't travel. They can and will go after this kid. Bounty Hunters. Troopers. Hell, just random thugs. The wrong person finds out what he is..."
This was Colton and me. Sitting in the back of his ground car. Sight proof. Sound proof. Impenetrable to blaster fire. His newest toy. It was a conversation that had been waiting to happen since Tannerlin and I had moved into his estate a couple of weeks ago. A new life begun, time to set our new routine and time enough for me to know that this Tannerlin kid was worth helping. He had nothing. I had nothing. We were a pair.
There was also this impossible-to-shake feeling telling me that this was meant to be. Destiny or whatever the term of the day. There was a reason it was me who'd found him after the Jedi slaughter that had wiped out their entire kind. There was a reason it was me that he'd latched onto. And at times, as much as he reminded of the baby brother I'd lost, Kossi's death was not the reason behind me caring about Tannerlin. At least I was pretty confident that wasn't the main reason. And as I'd told Colton, he was just a little kid. He really did deserve to have a life.
Hell, maybe I deserved to have a life too; a thought I'd not had since Kossi died.
"I get it, Colt." I finally said. "Tanner gets it. He's seen the news reports. Has heard the Emperor's propaganda. He knows what happens if... yeah, he gets it. But he wants to try and he wants to learn and... on a selfish note, I actually think I may need this kid. You know that? I've got nothing, Colt. I've got nothing and I've had nothing since I lost Kossi."
Colton nodded and I stopped my thought before the emotion took over. Too much thinking about Kossi and I'd gone almost a week without bawling over past memories. Holding it together, even two years later, was still a mostly impossible chore. Colton knew that as much as I did, even though until these past weeks, I'd only worked for him and not lived in his house.
But yeah, he knew. "Dash, you're not wrong. You do need this kid. You've been lost for a long time. He gives you purpose. Focus. He gives you someone to care about again and he sure as hell attached himself to you. So, I understand, but don't let the emotion cloud your judgement or sight. Take him under your wing, look after him, but make sure you know the risks. And don't get lost in them. It's a high stakes game you're dealing into. You win or you lose, black and white. There is no gray. And if you lose - well, you know that horror all too well. But, if this is right, then it's right and it's not my job to question."
I sat back against the cushioned backseat of the ground care and sighed. Soft. Plush. Colton never did anything halfway. "I'm listening. I swear it. It's just, I have this nagging in my gut telling me I need him and I don't know why and I can't explain it or make sense of it. So, galaxian-sized risk or not, Tanner and I are gonna try and make new lives for ourselves and see what happens. I never thought I deserved life after Kossi. Maybe... maybe I do."
Colton patted my knee and ignored the stupid rogue tears. I'd known I could only stop them for so long thinking about my lost baby brother.
"Galaxian is not a word, you idiot, and all right. I will do what I can to help you both find and live those new lives. Always be on alert though. Always. Same with the boy. You'll get training too; on what to be looking for. What to be most wary of. A few hand-to-hand combat sessions with my security isn't a bad idea either. The kid's a little small, but there's probably some quickness there we've not seen yet since he's not a hundred percent healthy. Oh and it wouldn't hurt to carry a blaster with you."
I shook my head emphatically no. We weren't the best of friends, but the big man knew my feelings on that subject. My feelings on that made clear the first time he signed me up to run a job for his empire. I had no want to carry that type of weapon on me. I wasn't a killer. Could never be a killer. I didn't want a killer's weapon. I carried a few knives and a stunner and would make sure Tanner did the same. I'd managed to get out of him that he'd had some training with small weapons and blasters as a young Jedi, but most of their focus had been with lightsabers. Training that ended abruptly when his entire people were wiped from the galaxy. He was able and willing though. We both were.
The blaster though... "Can't do it, Colt. You know that. No blaster. Whatever else you require of me to protect myself and the kid, I can do. I can't carry what I can so easily kill with. It's not me and never will be."
"Yeah, I know. It goes against my better judgment, but I understand. However, and this is not optional, you will get training once Tannerlin is capable. He's good with this plan, staying here under your care? I don't know much about the Jedi way other than it's quite structured and focused. He's adapted rather quickly, but as things improve and he starts feeling his independence, maybe he decides to go off on his own?"
I shrugged at the question (one I'd asked myself already) and adjusted further into the impossible softness of the car seat. More comfortable than my own bed. It rivaled the crazy-cushiness of the giant couch in the main room of Colton's house. And yeah, Tanner could leave. There was no loyalty he held to me. I'd saved his life, sure, but it didn't hold him here. Free will and all that, he could up and decide tomorrow that he wanted no part of me or Colton or any of this. If he walked out... I relayed my thoughts to Colton.
"It's possible, Colt, and I've given it thought already. But in the limited time I've been with him - he's a creature of habit, of structure. He wants a schedule and he wants meaning and he wants a reason. He wants - needs - someone to give a crap about him."
"You apparently have that in common." The corners of Colton's mouth inched toward a short grin as he gave me a wink.
I looked off into the distance, the city beyond the darkened car window, and replied simply, "Yeah. Don't we all."
There was quiet then. Moments of it. Colton pressing coded messages into his comlink and me thinking of the reality of this whole situation. Fake big brother to a Jedi kid with a target on his back working for and living under the roof of one of the planet's most powerful criminals - also known as our fake uncle. My life had gone from one extreme to the other. And I still missed Kossi every damn second. Don't think that would ever change.
To be fair, Colton wasn't your typical criminal type. He was fair and honest when he needed to be. He'd only kill you if you'd really earned it. I'd somehow managed to stay off that portion of his radar. He treated his crew with decency and respect - they returned the same. Honestly, there were worst roofs we could have landed under.
Colton had given a crap about me when everyone else had tossed me away of left me to rot on the streets. That alone gave me a hint into this true self. That he cared enough to even have this conversation with me - about this Jedi kid - also meant something. This strange detour my life had taken in just this last month. For the first time in a long time, I'd gotten through a week without contemplating any further suicidal temptations. For me, that was massive. A tiny forward step to counter the barrage of backwards leaps I'd taken since Kossi died. A corner had been turned. That sliver of hope that I sometimes felt in these last two years thinking of what my brother would have wanted for me. Was it possible that I had finally done the impossible and found my reason to keep going?
That corner - that breakthrough - it had all begun when I'd found this kid and pulled him out of the arms of death. I'd felt it as we'd run for our lives through the tunnels and hid in the cubby under my dirty apartment floor. I'd felt it when this kid clung to me - a complete stranger on a planet foreign to him - for life and safety. I'd felt it when he gave me a purpose... a reason to wake up the next morning.
Perhaps I needed meaning and reason as much as he did.
Colton clicked his com closed. "All right, Dash. You're all set."
Set for? Had I missed something during my internal musings? "What exactly am I set for?"
"The kid is yours."
"Well, not mine really, but..."
"For all intensive purposes, he is. Under your care full time. However, you both are under my roof and therefore my control." That sounded worse than it actually was, right?
"Control, um... Colt?"
"In my house, you do what I tell you. You get a break on the blaster thing. Sy will talk to you about training and..."
I cut him off. "Sydenious? He hates me and he's about eight times Tanner's height. We can't possibly train with him."
"I have few who know of the kid's true background. Sy is one of them. True, he is not your biggest fan - he'd have left you to die in the streets a year ago - but I trust him with my life and I trust him with yours. He would never betray me or those under me. And he will figure out a way to make a basic training work. You'll both train and practice once a week until further notice. You start this week, the boy will start once my healer clears him physically. I will not force you to carry a blaster, but you will know how to use one correctly and accurately. There will be work with other weapons of the non-deadly variety, along with other non-weapon training. That other will serve to mostly get you and he a better understanding of the lay of the planet and our neighboring planets. It's where you'll have most jobs, here on Terra and nearby. You've got the skills to be my best runner, Dash, but you've got to be sharp to stay alive. You die and I will kill you. Got it?"
"Ah, um... yes? Wait, how, um..."
"A simple yes will suffice. If you want to help this kid, this is how you do it. You get damn good at your job, you know your stuff and you don't get yourself killed. Anything other than that and you're both screwed."
Concise enough and I wasn't about to argue. Besides, I'd lose that battle before it began.
"Got it."
"Good. I may regret bringing you both into my house. In fact, I know I will. Just hasn't yet had a chance to sink in. Though, I will also admit that sometimes those crazy gambles are the best gambles. Now, let's go pick up your brother from school in style."
My brother. It was impossible right now for me to think of Tanner that way. He wasn't my brother. Not really. No one would ever replace Kossi. No one would ever fill those shoes. Tanner was a fake brother. Our story. Our game. A way to try and keep the Empire off his tail and bounty hunters from sniffing too closely. There was something there though. Between us. Tragedy brought us together for a reason. I'd taken him under my wing where it was comfortable and that's when change started happening in me. Everything that was broken - and there was a hell of a lot broken - seemed less so. Less painful. Less horrible. Less everything. Mind you, it was only a sliver of less. Yet I had felt the switch almost like a snap. A sensation of all those broken pieces being snapped back into place and given a chance to be whole again. It was stupid and silly and ridiculous and I kept it to myself. At least I thought I had.
The ground car started moving and Colton tapped my hand. "You do seem better, Dash. For the time I've known you. You are less... broken maybe. Keep moving in that direction. It's a good look on you. The boy will be happy to see it too."
He was. Tannerlin that is. Hurrying to the ground car on legs still struggling to find their old strength, he climbed into the backseat pushing his shoulder against mine so he sat in the crook of my arm. He was small. I was tall. He nuzzled in perfectly. Colton snuck me an I told you so glance and I couldn't contain a soft laugh.
"How was school, Tanner?"
"Really good, Dashen. You want to hear about it?" Ugh. Me? Listening to stories about learning and listening and... damn this kid got the most enjoyment out of the most mundane and boring things.
But... there it was again; that gnawing feeling of hope and things not so broken.
Yeah. Damn right this kid deserved a chance.
I think I did too.
"Yup, I do. Tell me all about it, Mouse. And then I'll tell you what I learned today."
What I had learned - or was starting to learn - that I could have a life after Kossi. I could have a life with purpose and meaning and reason. I could work and train and hope. I could have people that cared about me. Even if they showed it in offbeat ways like offering me training to protect myself or a safe haven under their roof. Or by relaying every tediously tiny detail of the most uninteresting of astro-physics classes.
These things were there. Offered. Accepted. And I knew that out of my own tragedy and a loss that I would never get over - there had come this. Whatever this was. Whatever this ended up being. After this short time, it was beginning to feel like family. A strange-as-hell family, but yeah, family.
All of this, in some screwball way, it was all meant to be.
Tanner and his joyous retelling of school lessons strapped to my left side. Colton and his smug grin to my right.
Me in the middle of this oddball trio.
And I knew. Yes. Now I knew with absolute certainty. The risks, the danger, the potential for very bad things. Empires and troopers and bounty hunters. None of it mattered. Not one damn bit of it mattered.
This was my place now. With this kid. Learning to cope with what I'd lost.
Living this new chapter in my life of way too many chapters. Fifteen and I had lived a lifetime of heartache and pain. Could be it's what prepared me for taking an orphaned Jedi kid into my care. Could be it's what had given me a strength I didn't realize I had. Kossi was there, somewhere. Pushing me forward. Wishing for me to live.
My hand reached up to wipe at my face and I sniffled away a sob. Tanner pushed closer to me. Still going on and on about his boringly exciting day. Random words that made little sense to me. Probably they made no sense to anyone except his sponge-like brain, though I kept listening. It relaxed me. Comforted me.
Colton patted a hand to my knee. "I think you finally found that reason you've been looking for since your brother. It's a pretty damned good reason too. You're gonna be okay, Dash. I see that now, for the first time since I met you, I see a sliver of hope in your eyes."
"Kossi always had hope. About everything. Even me. Probably it's time to live up to what he always thought of me."
I shuffled back another tear as Tanner regained my attention.
"Dash?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear what I said about the difference between dwarf plants and moons?"
"Sorry, I got sidetracked. Can you tell me again?"
Had I just said that? Wow, this kid must have me wrapped already.
"Okay, so there's really not much difference between them, moons can sometimes be considered dwarf planets and dwarf planets can sometimes be considered moons, but let me explain the reasons they aren't exactly the same all of the time...you see, the dwarf planets..."
I smiled down, my chin touching the top of Tanner's head and resting there for a moment as he rambled on. Eyes sliding forward, Colton had that grin plastered on his face again. Less smug this time and more contented.
Dare I say, the man actually seemed happy?
Huh. Now there was something.
Maybe it was possible that all of us, that we'd all found that sliver of hope?
Could be. Maybe.
Yeah, this was it. I knew for certain now.
I knew that I was finally ready to try and live again.
END
