Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If you were a street kid on Lothal, nothing was for free, especially food. Since the Empire came and took over the planet, the markets weren’t as plentifully stocked as they once were, and the stall owners watched their wares with edgehawk eyes. They couldn’t afford to lose any of their merchandise to hungry street rats with sticky fingers any more than the kids could afford to go hungry.

But the street kids couldn’t just pay for their wares because no one wanted to hire them. Often, they were dirty, uneducated, and unreliable since they didn’t have a stable home or parents—their reputation of stealing also didn’t do them any favours. The empire's doctrine of survival of the strongest only encouraged the planet's population to abandon them, which kept the kids on the streets and forced them to continue stealing. This in turn benefited the Empire's recruitment strategy, which consisted of picking up kids from the streets and turning them into troopers.

It had been years since a kid had been lucky enough to get taken in by a friendly couple, who had just lost their own to sickness. It was a one-in-a-million chance with more risks than benefits. Who could say if the "nice couple" didn't just want to make some quick cash by selling you to the highest bidder? So the only true way off the streets was to get caught by a patrol of stormtroopers or to die, which was basically the same since kids that got picked up were never seen again.

There existed rumours of what they would do to you if they caught you. Still, they were unconfirmed and pure speculation because no one had ever come back after getting arrested. Some of the older kids liked to tell the little ones horror stories about kids that got arrested and tortured to death or mind-washed and turned into unfeeling puppets for the Empire. The leading theory on the streets was that they sent you to the academy for trooper training, it made the most sense; the Empire probably assumed they would be grateful for the food and shelter and wouldn't question why they were there in the first place.

Some kids were desperate enough to purposefully get snatched up. They hoped the theories of getting sent to the academy were true, that they would get a warm place to sleep and a steady source of food. The kids knew that they would at least lose their rights and personhood, but in Ezra's opinion, if you were stupid enough to sacrifice your freedom and devote your life to an Empire that was the cause of all your problems in the first place, you wouldn’t have made it on the streets anyway.

If Ezra was given the choice to die on the streets of starvation or to lay down his life for the Empire, he would always choose the streets. He swore to himself he would never join the people who murdered his parents; he would rather kill himself than accept their generosity .

Another alternative was to join a gang that was prominent and powerful enough to own food. But the gangs of Lothal were ruthless and treacherous, even to their own members — particularly to their own members. No one trusted each other, and you were as likely to get butchered by a member of your own gang as by a member of a rival gang. There was a lot of infighting about things like clothes, water, and food. The larger a gang was, the more of the property they had, and the more likely you were to get killed over it — an easy concept a lot of people didn’t seem to be able to understand. But Ezra wasn’t most people; he was intelligent enough to stay as far away from them as possible.

Meals weren’t even a guaranteed outcome of joining a gang. The leaders controlled the food everyone under them was allotted, and it would only spell trouble for you to pocket food for yourself instead of handing it over. The lower your standing was, the less likely you were to get any food at all, and if you did get some, you wouldn’t until everyone else had already eaten. There also weren’t any guarantees that someone wouldn’t just steal your food; if you couldn’t defend it, you couldn’t eat it, and a malnourished kid was pretty likely to lose a fight against any adult who wanted their share. Most of the kids who joined gangs had to survive off of scraps or squirrelled-away stolen food and pray not to get caught with it.

Stealing food and working alone was the only choice — Ezra’s only option — if you wanted to keep your life and your freedom.

✦

Ezra didn’t know how this whole crew thing worked, but the picture he got appeared pretty comparable to the street gangs on Lothal. Those Ezra understood. Hera was the leader and Kanan was her second in command. Sabine, Zeb, and Chopper were the seasoned members and Ezra was the new kid and thus at the bottom of the food chain. Easy.

Typically, every rank in the gang got allocated rations by a higher-ranking member upon joining. But no one had told him anything as of yet. He just had to assume that he wouldn’t get any. Maybe he would have to prove himself useful first; you didn’t just give anyone your food after all.

His train of thought was interrupted by the person in front of him — Sabine, if he remembered correctly — suddenly stopping and turning. "This is your room… or, well, Zeb’s room, but he’ll have to share with you.” Without warning she pushed him into the room. Ezra stumbled over his own feet and barely managed to catch himself on the bottom bunk of the bed.

“Wha-?” Ezra tried to ask, but she was already on her way out.

“Communal dinner is in an hour, don’t be late or there won’t be anything left!” Sabine offhandedly commented over her shoulder and left.

“ Maybe stealing that crate of weapons was enough to prove myself, even if I kind of swiped it from them. I should just be glad they aren’t still pissed about it. And I did help rescue some of their crew members, even if I had to get saved myself after. ”

✦

Ezra should probably stop staring at the food, but it had been a long time since he had seen that much of it for just a single meal. Food on Lothal had been even scarcer the last few months after the Empire increased its presence on the planet, and everyone had suffered for it. The shopkeepers were a lot more likely to be out of food and were a lot more vigilant over the wares they did possess, which made it even tougher for street kids like Ezra, who depended on stealing from them to eat. And it was such an incomprehensible variety too; there was fruit and meat and some kind of grain Ezra had never seen in his life.

It was baffling to see, which made it even harder to restrain himself from taking some.

No one had told Ezra he could eat with them; Sabine had told him to be present and implied he would get to eat when she left him in that room, but she wasn’t the leader or even the second in command. Ezra didn’t know how much sway she had, she could be leading him into a trap. He had heard that some people enjoy causing others trouble just for the sake of it; maybe she was just of that type? But she had seemed nice, if a bit brash and distant. And he had only eaten those jogans he took in exchange for helping that guy at the market in the last few days. If he waited until everyone was busy with their food and only took a little bit, no one would notice, right?

He quickly piled some of the meat and some of the grain onto his plate. If he was going to take it without permission and risk punishment, he should at least make it count. But nobody said anything. Maybe they didn’t see; maybe they didn’t care.

The food tasted divine; it had been too long since he had consumed a properly cooked meal. Probably not since his parents died, there was no way for him to cook something himself, and charity hadn’t been a thing on Lothal. Feeling daring, Ezra planned how to get some more without anyone noticing while he waited for everyone to be finished and to leave the table. No one had waited for Hera to dismiss them, which was a little strange, but that might have been a difference between a crew and a gang he was unfamiliar with.

Even more peculiar, Hera started clearing the table of the plates and bowls. Feeling that it was the right time to act, Ezra spoke up. ”I can help you with that,” Ezra offered and picked up the plates that the food had been served on, which still had enough leftovers so it hopefully wouldn’t be noted if he took some. He followed Hera to the kitchen and took out the little plastic bag from his pocket that he owned for exactly the purpose of stealing cooked food on the way. After Hera walked into a room he presumed to be the kitchen, Ezra stopped and hastily shovelled food from the plate into his bag. He even risked taking some of the fruit as a treat for a job well done.

As he strolled into the kitchen and put the plates next to where Hera had stacked the ones she carried, he was a little anxious that he hadn’t been as stealthy as he thought and the theft had been noticed.

“Thanks for helping. I can’t usually get the others to put the dishes away; they’re always already off doing who knows what as soon as they finish eating.” Hera chuckled fondly and reached out to ruffle his hair but aborted the movement at Ezra’s poorly concealed flinch. “Good night, Ezra. You’ve earned a good night's sleep after the day you’ve had.”

Ezra quickly left the room after that, feeling a little awkward and a lot ashamed. He shouldn’t have stolen from them; they were a lot nicer than he would have thought. This whole situation he had foolishly gotten himself into was a lot nicer than he would have thought. “ What’s done is done. I can’t put it back now, but I won’t steal from them in the future. They’re already giving me food and I shouldn’t be greedy, ” Ezra resolved, determinedly nodding to himself.

Still, as soon as he entered “his” room, he guiltily ate the food he had stolen before his roommate returned. It wouldn’t do to waste perfectly good food, and it also wouldn’t do to leave evidence behind.

✦

The next day, no one offered him any food until it was time for “communal dinner” again. He saw the others eat during the day, but it seemed like eating more than one meal was an earned privilege or depended on your rank within the gang. Maybe it was some kind of “first come, first serve” principle, but Ezra didn’t know where they got the food, just that they had it. He also wasn’t stupid enough to fight them for it; every one of them was probably stronger than him and he didn’t even want to fight them; they had been so kind to him, which was already way more than he had expected. It didn’t matter anyway; one guaranteed meal was way better than Ezra had on the streets, and he wouldn’t disrespect his new crew by causing trouble for them.

Despite everything, Ezra liked this “communal dinner” thing; eating together with others was pleasant, even if he had to sneak food instead of openly enjoying it.

Maybe he was even beginning to like this whole “crew” thing.

Chapter Text

Ezra sat in “his” room when he was suddenly startled by loud noises — or, to be precise, agitated shouting — coming from the hallway. He shifted closer to the door to hear better but was regardless scarcely able to make out what was being spoken.

“Why do I have to share my room? I’m not the one who dragged him along! Kanan should have to share!” A deep, growling voice, which Ezra assumed belonged to the Lasat, complained. They were obviously talking about him, which was not a good sign if they were supposed to share a room for any amount of time. Ezra would have to be on his best behaviour for the foreseeable future.

“Quit complaining, Zeb. Your room is the largest on the ship, it only makes sense for you to share. Ezra’s a nice guy, he even helped me put the dishes away when it wasn’t his turn to do them,” Hera explained calmly, but Ezra could practically hear the eye-roll in her tone, this didn't seem to be the first time they talked about this.

“It’s my space and I won’t share it with some street rat Kanan picked up! Who knows where he’s been! He can sleep in the hold for all I care!” Zeb huffed and stomped down the hallway, his heavy steps echoing off the walls. Ezra usually couldn’t care less for the opinion of strangers, but Zeb was right; he was just some street kid — who had just stolen from them too — and he shouldn’t be an inconvenience to them; they deserved better than that.

Zeb’s stomping was getting louder and as soon as Ezra realized he was getting nearer by the second, he dashed back to the bunk and sat down on it, determinedly acting as if he hadn't heard a thing.

The door slid open and the enormous being's frame cast a deep shadow into the room. “You're sitting on my bed. Move,” Zeb growled and prowled closer. In that moment he reminded Ezra of Lothal’s police officers, scanning for the slightest misstep to have a justification to hurt.

“Yeah, I'll just leave!” Ezra squeaked and fumbled to grab his bag. He made a wide arc around the Lasat, never taking his eyes off him, and dashed out of the room. In his haste, he never noticed that he almost ran into Hera, whose eyes worriedly followed him down the hallway.

Sleeping in the common room would be absolutely fine if he could avoid enraging the stronger being that way.

✦

Ezra never wanted to set foot into the Lasat's room again. The other being was bigger, stronger, and more respected in the crew than he was, it would be incredibly suicidal to even consider it. The other crew members didn’t seem to get that.

He didn’t know how, but his Master had somehow gotten wind of his idea to sleep in the common room and decided to intervene.

Ezra had gotten comfortable on the couch, using his jacket as a blanket and his arm as a pillow, and was about to fall asleep when the whooshing of the door alerted him to someone entering the room.

“Ezra, what are you doing? Why aren’t you in bed?” His Master raised an eyebrow and sat down on the couch with him.

“He hates me.” Ezra buried his face in the crook of his arm, embarrassed. Why was it Kanan who had to see him like this — too weak to assert himself and fleeing from the situation like a coward?

“Who does?” Kanan asked, rubbing slow circles over Ezra’s back.

“Zeb,” Ezra mumbled.

“He doesn’t hate you. He was the same when Sabine joined the crew; he'll warm up to you in no time, I promise,” Kanan reassured, nudging Ezra’s troubled force presence with his calm one.

“He'll kill me in my sleep.” Ezra sat up to look his Master in the eye, needing him to understand .

“No, he won't. Trust me, he's secretly a big softy.” Kanan wrapped his apprentice in a tight hug, physically and in the Force. The gesture made Ezra feel warm and settled the nervousness churning in his gut. He trusted Kanan, he was the one to recruit him and would be the one to teach him to survive in the unforgiving galaxy they lived in. Kanan wouldn't lead him astray.

“Come on, I’ll talk to him.” Kanan had led him back to the Lasat’s room, but when they arrived Zeb was already dozing in the lower bunk. “Guess it’ll have to wait until morning. I’ll be in the common room doing inventory for at least an hour, don’t hesitate to come to me if something’s wrong, okay? And in case I’m not there just come to my room, don’t be hesitant to wake me if I’m already asleep.”

“Okay,” Ezra affirmed in a small voice. He had no intention of waking Kanan anytime soon, he wanted to stay in his good graces after all. But the option alone bolstered his confidence, Ezra gripped the straps of his bag tighter, took one last deep breath, and stepped through the doorway of the Lasat's room.

The other hopefully wouldn't wake up until the ship's day cycle began and Kanan could talk to him, Ezra didn’t want to know what would happen if he found out Ezra had encroached on his territory while he was asleep. The boy carefully threw his pack onto the upper bunk before climbing up himself. The arrangement could probably work out if he was unobtrusive enough.

Suddenly, the bunk creaked ominously and Ezra’s instincts — the Force , apparently — screamed at him to move , but he wasn’t fast enough, unused to such direct warnings instead of the bad feelings he usually got, and the bunk fell on the sleeping Lasat, with Ezra still on top.

Shit.

Ezra froze, hoping against all hope that the bigger being had somehow slept through the crash and wouldn’t notice if he carefully put everything back. It was soon crushed when he heard muffled growling from underneath him. Before he could stop himself, he let out a forlorn whimper.

“Brat! If I catch you, you better pick a god and pray!” Zeb barked and struggled to throw the bunk off of himself.

Fuck!

Without care, Ezra threw himself in the direction of the door, caught himself against it, and spammed the button to open it in hopes it would somehow open faster that way. As soon as he could squeeze through, he pushed the button to close it again and took off like a Loth-cat with a burning tail. Ezra stormed through the ship like a patrol of stormtroopers was after him. His panic blinded him and made it impossible to think of a place to hide, so he just ran. Any place would be good as long as the Lasat couldn’t reach him.

Ezra came to an abrupt stop when he collided with a wall. A furry, musky-smelling wall. The boy was yanked up by the back of his shirt and came face to face with his pursuer. He lashed out wildly, desperate to free himself, but the Lasat just held him at arm's length and proceeded to carry him away, unbothered by his thrashing.

In the blink of an eye, he switched tactics, going from flight to fawn like he had many times before — not that it had ever saved him much pain. The boy went completely limp in the stronger being's grip.

“I swear I didn’t mean to, Sir! I- I’ll-” Ezra tried to placate, but the Lasat cut him off.

“I don’t wanna hear a word! Just shut up and stop annoying me!” Zeb growled and shook the boy, making his mouth snap shut to avoid biting his tongue. Ezra shuddered, making the being angrier was the last thing he wanted. He balled his hands into thigh fists to conceal their shaking and resolved to just bear the punishment and avoid the room — and the Lasat — in the future.

As he was carried past the common room, he caught a glimpse of his Master out of the corner of his eye, and hope filled him. Surely Kanan wouldn’t want his property to get damaged. He’d also told Ezra to come to him if there was trouble and Ezra was fairly sure this counted.

“Kanan! Master, help!” Either Ezra’s panicked cry or his suddenly renewed struggle seemed to surprise the Lasat enough to loosen his grip on the boy, allowing him to wiggle free of the previously iron grip and get out of grabbing distance.

Ezra’s desperation-fueled sprint brought him to his Master faster than he could anticipate. He tripped over the man’s sprawled legs and landed squarely in his lap, the datapad he had been typing on painfully digging into his back.

“Ezra? What happ-,” Kanan cut himself off, barely holding back a surprised gasp, as Ezra promptly started crying when he felt his Master’s worry through their freshly formed bond. 

Humiliated, Ezra turned to hide his face in Kanan’s shoulder. He was such a failure —  embarrassing himself in front of his Master two times in the same hour. But the more he tried, the more he couldn’t stop crying, his relief was too overwhelming. Kanan hurriedly put the datapad aside and slowly wound his arms around Ezra, holding him protectively against his chest, which only worsened Ezra’s emotional state. Kanan just held him and murmured reassurances into his hair, patiently waiting until choked-back sobs tapered off into sporadically hitched breaths.

“‘M sorry,” Ezra slurred, emotionally and physically exhausted. ”I didn’t mean to be weak… I’ll do better next time, I swear.”

“Oh kid, you will never have to apologize for needing my help. It’s my job to take care of you now.”

Ezra buried his face back into Kanan’s shoulder, too exhausted to deal with all the emotions swirling around in his head. And with his Master’s hand rhythmically carding through his hair, the boy was powerless in his fight against his drooping eyelids.

✦

After Ezra woke up puffy-eyed and with a crick in his neck from sleeping on the couch, he vowed to never step foot into that room again. After the ordeal with the bunk, he only snuck back into the room once in the middle of the ship’s night cycle to grab his bag. Since then he had spent most of his time crawling through the ship’s ventilation system, just watching the rest of the crew do their chores and trying to get a feel for their personalities from afar.

And if there was an exit directly above the top bunk in Kanan’s room that he just so happened to use every night, no one had to know. He was already gone when the ship's day cycle started anyway.

Chapter Text

With his head bowed and slumped shoulders, Zeb shuffled into the cockpit of the Ghost. “Hera, I think I messed up.” The Lasat sighed defeatedly.

Hera, who had sat in the pilot’s chair and observed hyperspace fly by until Zeb spoke up, turned around to give her crewmate her full attention. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I chased the new brat around the ship yesterday because he crashed his bunk onto me while I was sleeping. I maybe also shouted at him and manhandled him around a little, but just to scare some healthy respect into him! I planned to carry him back to our room and make him fix the bed after I caught him, but I think I overdid it with the scaring…

When I lifted him up, he stopped fighting after a while, and I thought he'd given up, but he started thrashing around again when I carried him past the common room, and it startled me, so I dropped him. He was crying out for Kanan and sounded terrified, so I didn’t follow him to avoid spooking him any more than I already did.” Zeb started pacing the length of the cockpit, his fur agitatedly bristled. Hera continued to silently listen, reserving voicing her opinion until she had heard the whole story.

“Hera, he ran so fast, I didn’t even know humans could be that fast. And then he stumbled into Kanan's arms and immediately started sobbing. Hera, I made the kid cry. I was gonna apologize when we went to bed yesterday, but he never showed up again and I think he’s been avoiding me. I don’t know what to do to make it better, I’ve never really been good with kids…”

“This situation is strange to all of us — he’s acting differently than Sabine when she first joined, more reserved and shy instead of confrontational and angry. But we should have expected it and we’ll figure something out; we always do,” Hera soothed the Lasat. “Give him some time to calm down. After that, you can try to apalogize again. And remember, this isn’t about making you feel better about yourself; this is about creating a safe environment for the kid.”

✦

Chopper slowly rolled into the cockpit of the Ghost . He tried his best to be stealthy, even if Hera was the one to call him into the cockpit to have him scan the Ghost for defects and thus was probably awaiting him and would notice he had entered instantly. But even a little delay would allow him to compute the situation he had gotten himself into last night more thoroughly before someone — Hera, most likely — confronted him about it.

Hera wanted to groan or bang her head against something as soon as she saw Chopper enter the room — he only tried to be sneaky when he messed something up — but exasperatedly said: “Chopper, what did you do?” instead.

Pretending not to have heard, Chopper plugged himself into the Ghost's systems and started his scan.

“ Chopper …” Hera warned.

Grumbling to himself, the droid reluctantly started confessing. “[Chopper] made a mistake. [Chopper] removed the bolts of [Stinky Lasat’s] bunk to prank [Stinky Lasat]. [Chopper] thought it would be funny, but [Stinky Lasat] blamed [Street Rat] and not [Chopper] and now [Street Rat] is behaving weird.” 

“Don’t call him-” She sighed, knowing to pick her battles with the moody droid. “What I hear is that you should apologize to Ezra,” Hera admonished sternly. Chopper started to groan, but she interrupted him before he could work himself up too much. “And don’t even start complaining, you know I’m right. I’ll have you scrubbing off the carbon scorching on the Ghost for the next standard year if you don’t.”

After that, Chopper quickly finished his scan and left. No need to further provoke her.

✦

Every gang on Lothal had their own territory — if you didn’t have any, could you even claim to be a gang? 

Ezra was unsure how it worked on a starship in space, but he knew the ground rules every gang usually had. Not every member is authorized to go everywhere — to prevent theft and sometimes just as a leader’s petty powerplay — and someone tells you where you can go and where not after you join and if they don’t, you better figure it out yourself quickly or you will feel the consequences.

No one had told Ezra which areas were off-limits, so he just assumed every area was off-limits unless told otherwise. Surely it had to be a test to see how trustworthy he was. Ezra was going to prove himself and then none of them could challenge his place within the crew, ever .

And to make really sure he didn’t make a stupid mistake, he made a mental list of the rooms on the ship and his clearance to enter them. No need for a repeat performance of the ordeal he had had with the Lasat the previous day.

The hallways, common room, ‘fresher, and hangar bay were safe to enter; he had been in them before, and no one told him to leave. There also weren't any valuables he could potentially steal, he didn’t want to test his ability to keep himself from doing just that yet.

Personal rooms were difficult to calculate — or at least Sabine's room was. Her room would probably be okay to enter if she invited him in and didn’t leave him alone in it, she had been nice to him so far and there were no attempts to trick him yet. Ezra would have treated Kanan's room the same if it wasn't the only place he felt safe enough to sleep at and thus was forced to sneak into every night. But it should be fine as long as he didn't crash another bunk.

He should avoid the kitchen and medbay, the crew didn’t need to suspect he was planning to steal from them. Gangs often didn’t permit members of lower ranks into those locations, so he would just transfer that knowledge to his situation; they were pretty similar after all.

The area he knew he should steer clear of at all costs were Hera’s quarters. If you were invited into your leader's personal rooms, you were probably in deep shit and getting thrown out at best and punished horrifically at worst. Invading your leader’s privacy also wasn’t the best way to gain their favour, Ezra assumed.

Satisfied with his plan, Ezra nodded to himself and crawled back into the vents. They were a bit of a grey area in his mind, he wasn’t entering any rooms after all and his chances of getting caught in them were pretty low since he was the only one on the ship who could comfortably fit into them — Sabine probably could if she wanted, but he didn’t think she would ever have enough reason to do so, she would have to take her armour off for that and he had gathered that it was very culturally significant for her to wear it. The vents also gave him the advantages of being able to observe the others without being noticed himself and a safe place to store his meagre belongings.

✦

“Ezra! Where are you? Come out! I gotta show you something!” Sabine shouted, her yells echoing through the Ghost’s empty hallways. The rest of the crew had left them alone on the ship to go on a supply run. Sabine had apparently done something before he joined to warrant house arrest, and they wanted to give Ezra a chance to get to know his age mate better, so they left him behind, too.

Ezra hastily climbed out of the vent he had been dozing in until her shouting startled him awake. He quickly screwed the cover back on and finished just as Sabine rounded the corner. 

“What are you doing on the floo-? Doesn’t matter, hurry up!” Sabine grabbed his hand and excitedly half pulled half dragged him to her room. Before Ezra had the chance to voice any protests, they stopped in front of her door. 

“It’s a surprise, you gotta close your eyes!” The Mandalorian demanded. Ezra was hesitant to oblige — what if it was a trap and she jumped him while he was vulnerable? But there was no warning in the Force, only peace. And Sabine was insistent. Not wanting her to get any more agitated, he let her put her hands over his eyes and led him into the room.

“Tada!” Sabine proclaimed with a flourish and uncovered his eyes. 

Ezra came face to face with a giant painted mural on her wall. It depicted a group of five animals and a droid. After looking at it for even a short while, it was obvious that each animal represented a member of the crew.

The droid was easily identified as Chopper — who probably didn’t want to be depicted as an organic. A giant brown wolf prowled protectively in the back — Kanan —, proudly at its side stood a green fox — Hera —, a purple tiger-like creature laid curled up around them — Zeb — and perched on his head was some kind of multicoloured hawk — Sabine. There was another animal, a dark blue loth cat with bright blue eyes, the paint still wet. It confused Ezra a little — was there a member of the crew he hadn’t met yet?

Suddenly, realization struck him; with wide eyes he tentatively whispered: “Is that… me ?”

“Yeah, you're officially part of the crew now.” Sabine grinned excitedly. She looked at the ground and bashfully scuffed at it with her boots. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Ezra whispered, a shy smile ghosting over his face. Her eyes rose to meet his and she timidly matched his expression.

✦

When the Ghost crew came back from their supply run — exhausted from an impromptu chase with a patrol of stormtroopers — they returned to the sound of the teenagers laughing together. They quietly followed the sound and found their youngest members sitting together in the common room.

“And then he tried to flip off the transport, but everything was wet because of the rain and he slipped. He even hit his head on the way down for good measure. Had to stay in the madbay for a few days; he couldn't even walk straight because of his concussion. It was all for nothing anyway, Hera was helping with the evacuation on the other end of the city,“ Sabine finished her story with a smirk and mischievously glinting eyes.

“He did all that just to impress Hera… and she didn’t even see!” Ezra’s laugh seemed to light up the room. Kanan wasn’t even mad at Sabine for sharing the embarrassing story — he didn’t even need to hear it completely to know exactly which, it was her favourite and she used every chance she got to tell it — if it made his apprentice smile like that.

Ezra, still distracted by the story, didn't notice the crew fondly watching from the doorway. At least until Chopper made their arrival known by loudly and furiously complaining about them leaving him behind as a distraction to escape the patrol of stormtroopers. The boy startled violently, his eyes snapping up and making contact with each of the crew's as he fought against gravity to save himself from falling off the couch and to regain his balance. The boy ultimately failed and sprawled out on the floor, but was quick to stumble back onto his feet.

“OkayI'mgonnagodothethingnowbye!” Ezra rushed out of the room without waiting for a response. The others were too stunned to stop him, which he was especially glad about. Sabine and him had come to an understanding, but that didn't include the rest of the crew. Dealing with just one unknown was already stressful, but coming face to face with the whole crew had almost paralyzed him with fright.

The boy quickly crawled into the vents — back to safety — through the nearest opening. 

✦

Since Ezra had already fled, the remaining crew didn't see any reason to stay in the hallway and joined Sabine in the common room.

“I'm glad he's starting to open up, but did you have to tell him that story?” Kanan questioned wryly.

“Well, I'm glad they weren't gossiping about me. Kid doesn't need any more reasons to dislike me,” Zeb butted in and threw himself onto the cushions with force, making Sabine bounce in her seat.

Sabine just crossed her arms across her chest and threw them an unimpressed look.

Chapter Text

In a gang, if you failed to complete a mission — especially if it was assigned to you by your leader — there were severe consequences. Ezra didn’t know how his gang handled failure, had never even witnessed a real punishment — Sabine’s grounding didn’t count and it probably wasn’t the only punishment she had received. His mind was running wild and churning up the worst possible outcomes.

He had seen enough during his time on the streets to supply his brain with an ample amount of horrible conclusions to come to.

Ezra had heard of a gang on Lothal who would cut off a finger for every time you made a mistake. If you had none left for them to take, they would simply move on to bigger things like arms or legs. In the end, there wasn’t a lot that was left of the failures. But the loss of limbs wasn’t the only drawback of failure, it was also a sign to other gangs that you were incapable and a coward — the loss of even one finger was a mark of great shame.

He’d also heard of one who would punish their members by tying their hands behind their back and stringing them up by them. The awkward angle pretty much guaranteed an agonizing dislocation of the shoulders, which you better hoped it would because if it didn’t, they often would add weights to encourage the process — or just for fun, to see you suffer. Sometimes they would let the poor members just hang there for hours, days, and on one special occasion, even months. This wasn’t in the top ten most lethal punishments Ezra had seen, but it was a lot more memorable than them because it was one of the most painful ones.

Those were only the ones he could come up with on the top of his head, he had probably seen enough to have forgotten more than others would ever witness.

The single commonality between all of them was always that they were as public as possible. To demonstrate strength, a scare tactic to ward off enemies, or as a warning to the gang's own members to stay in their lanes. It unsettled Ezra greatly that there hadn’t been a single public punishment since he joined, were they cruel enough that publicizing them would scare off possible members?

Ezra trusted his Master not to hurt him, but his Master wasn’t the one assigning the missions and his Master also wasn’t the leader of the crew.

✦

The missions themselves weren’t even the worst part — Ezra could handle himself, most of the time at least — the worst part was the debrief after everything was said and done.

It would be so easy for one of the others to just make something up to see him punished — to make sure the new guy knew his place. Every time they came back from a mission, he tried to stay as close to Kanan as possible. If they saw he was under Kanan’s protection, they would hopefully be discouraged to openly act against him.

But still, he feared to hear those dreaded words.

Ezra didn’t get a single crate, we had to do everything ourselves.

Ezra was too slow, we had to help him.

Ezra was too weak, we had to save him.

Ezra was captured and couldn’t escape on his own, we had to go back to get him.

Ezra is useless.

And they wouldn’t even have to lie, Ezra seemed to mess up all the time during assignments. On one mission Ezra couldn’t get any of the crates they were supposed to steal since there were only three and the others were faster than him to grab one. Or on another one he was too slow to dodge a stun blast and Kanan had to carry his unconscious body back to the ship.

And the Force , Ezra had learnt, was a lot more trouble than it was worth sometimes. Since he was aware that he had it, it had rapidly evolved from him getting bad feelings and simple intuitions to him feeling every emotion of everyone around him all the time . And as soon as there were multiple people present their emotions got mixed up into a giant storm of fearhappynessangerspitesadnessglee or whatever else they were feeling at the moment. But the most disorienting was if there were a lot of people — especially if they were feeling strong or conflicting emotions — because it easily overwhelmed or distracted Ezra. He and his Master hadn’t really started any lessons in the Force except for simple meditations yet and he was too nervous to bring up his incompetence to his Master — what if Kanan realized what a bad apprentice Ezra made and threw him back onto the streets?

Ezra would have to deal with it on his own and get himself together before any of them understood that he was more of a burden than an asset.

His constant failures to be helpful also worsened the guilt gnawing at him, not only had he stolen from them like a dirty thief , he was also continuing to use up their resources without doing any work to earn them. The crew fed him and gave him a warm place to rest and he repaid them by being fucking useless and wasting precious, hard-earned supplies. 

He should go to Hera himself and tell her about his constant screw-ups. But he wasn’t only a leeching loser , he was also a selfish parasite who couldn’t give up the sense of community and warmth he didn’t deserve.

✦

The Ghost was silent, its halls empty of the usual noise. Only Chopper was still in the cockpit and overseeing the route the ship was taking through hyperspace, the rest of the crew had withdrawn into their rooms a while ago.

Kanan had already changed into his sleepwear but was unable to relax, tossing and turning in his bunk until he had enough and got out of bed. He was doing a light moving meditation to settle his emotions and center himself before trying to go to sleep again when his door unexpectedly hissed open.

“Hera? It’s late, why are you still up?” Kanan continued his meditation, but turned to face the other.

“I could ask you the same, but that’s not important right now. I’m glad you’re awake, I don’t think I could have gone to sleep without talking about this first,” Hera moved smoothly around Kanan and across the room to sit down on his bed. The Jedi just turned to face her again, but refrained from interrupting her. “I’m really worried about Ezra, he’s been talking to you and Sabine, but he is isolating himself from the rest of the crew. We barely see him some days,” Lowering her head to stare at her hands fiddling with the hem of Kanan’s blanket, she added in a whisper, ”Sometimes it feels like he’s afraid of me.”

“I understand, he's nervous whenever he has to go on missions with us and even more anxious during the debriefs after. It gets better if I let him hide behind me, but that isn’t a permanent solution. I just don’t know why he’s so scared…” Kanan gave up on his meditation for the moment and sat down next to Hera, he would try again after she left.

No one said anything for a while, both contemplating the situation they had found themselves in.

Hera put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, drawing small circles on it with her thumb. “You should talk to him. He will listen to you, he trusts you.” 

“You’re right,” Kanan sighed,”but I don’t want to put too much pressure on him, this is all still new… for each of us. I know what it’s like to be only able to depend on yourself. I was a lot older and better trained than him when I was forced into my situation, but it still wasn’t pretty.”

✦

Ezra silently crawled through the vents to get to his Master’s room and get to sleep for a few precious hours when muffled voices echoed up to him through the vent’s grate.

“Promise me you will talk to him, it’s only a question of when and not if this is going to negatively affect his performance on missions, he will get hurt — or hurt someone else — if we don’t do anything.” He had to strain to make out Hera’s words, but he understood enough to know he would be in trouble if he continued to perform poorly on missions.

‘Surely Kanan will defend me… at least a little bit… hopefully? ’

Kanan sighed loud enough for even Ezra to hear. “I will. Just give me — and him — a little more time.”

‘Okay. Okayokayokay. I can work with this. A little time is all I need! No problem, just prove that you are a valuable asset and no danger to the crew, no problem at all!’ Ezra thought a little hysterically, barely restraining a desperate laugh.

He will get a chance tomorrow. They planned to steal some medical supplies from a shipment for the Empire’s main outpost on Lothal for the refugee camp. He will have to find a way to split from the others and do something impressive and noticeable enough to cement his place in the gang.

✦

The mission went completely off the rails and it was Ezra’s fault! Everything was going well, but he just had to try to prove himself as an asset. He failed spectacularly and only further cemented his status at the bottom of the hierarchy.

As soon as they were safely back on the Ghost, Ezra headed for his favourite hiding place in the vents, hoping he could wait out the fallout of his failures. He could at least stay there for a couple hours — maybe even days — until the tempers of the crew had cooled down a little.

He should have known that they wouldn’t let him off the hook this time. Every other time he had caused trouble for the crew added together couldn’t even remotely compare to this particular fuck-up.

A large hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Kanan hissed. Ezra had never realized until now how much taller his Master was than him, but his large form looming over him was the only thing he could focus on now. Kanan was still talking — shouting at him — but Ezra couldn’t hear him. The world around him was muffled and kind of hazy.

His Master’s hand still hadn’t left his shoulder and gave him a hard shake, making his teeth painfully click together and refocusing his attention. “Are you even listening?! Do you have any idea how stupid that was?! You could have died! Zeb or Sabine or I could have died!”

“I-” Ezra tried, but was immediately interrupted.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses! I don’t even want to see you right now!” The Jedi continued to rage. Ezra would have gladly left, but the hand on him was unmovable like a mountain and held him as firmly as a vice.

“Ka- Master, you’re hurting me! Please!” Ezra begged, trying to remove his Master’s bruising grip. As soon as the plea left his mouth, his Master let go as if he had been burned.

“Go.” His Master didn’t even deign to look at him. Ezra could see the barely restrained fury in his shaking, clenched fists and knew better than to overstay his welcome.

He slowly crept in the direction of the nearest vent cover he could enter without someone seeing him, holding back pained whimpers and desperately trying to hide his limp. Now probably wasn’t the best time to mention the lucky shot one of the stormtroopers hit him with.