Work Text:
Reath wasn’t sure where he was.
He also couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten there, or why his head hurt so badly, which was probably a bigger problem.
He groaned, the sound making his skull ring unpleasantly, and tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t see anything, and tried again.
When he tried to lift a hand to rub at his eyes, in the hope that maybe that would help him open them, there was a scraping of stone and a sharp, shooting pain in his shoulder. He stopped with a pained whine, his breath hitching.
“Easy, Padawan,” a voice said, soothing and very quiet, and a face leaned into his vision–apparently, his eyes were open, there’d just been nothing to see.
“Mas’er?” Reath slurred, the word ending up slurred and mangled as it tripped out of his throat. “Wha…”
“Don’t try to move,” Master Cohmac cautioned, one hand resting ever-so-carefully just below Reath’s shoulder, the other gentling along his hairline and down his cheek. Reath tilted his head into the touch and breathed through his teeth.
“Where?” he managed.
“In the dungeons beneath the second prince’s base, which are now mostly collapsed,” Cohmac said grimly. “You, my padawan, appear to have gotten yourself caught in the middle of this.”
Slowly, the details of their mission started to come back. A succession crisis, a civil war that threatened centuries’ worth of art and history, a desperate plea to find and save the last remaining copy of an ancient epic poem before it was destroyed by the fighting. He and Master Cohmac had found the poem just fine, but their transport had been destroyed and then they’d gotten separated and then… something, and now they were here.
“Was… kids, I think,” Reath mumbled, frowning. He could vaguely remember the feel of a small hand clutching his, blood-sticky, the weight of a tiny body slumped against his back. “There were… I had to…”
“I know,” Cohmac soothed, thumb smoothing absently over Reath’s brow. “It’s alright, Reath. It’ll be alright.”
There was a thin tremor in his voice when he said it. That felt wrong, but Reath didn’t know why.
“Y’got th’book?” Reath asked. It was hard to make the words do what he wanted them to–his tongue felt thick in his mouth, unresponsive.
Cohmac huffed something that could have almost been a laugh. “Yes, I have the damned book.”
“Oh,” Reath said. He squinted up at his master, whose face was fuzzy and wavery in his vision. “Y’kay? Wh’s wrong?”
Cohmac made a strange choking sound and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m alright, Reath, don’t worry about me. Just stay still.”
Reath hummed, trying to get his thoughts in order. There was something wrong here, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what. He kept losing track of his thoughts, drowned out by the thudding in his skull.
There was a dark smudge against his master’s cheekbone, and he tried to lift his hand to point to it. “Y’re… bleeding.”
Master Cohmac touched his fingertips to it, looking vaguely startled, but his fingertips were wet with it, too, and it only made it worse. “Oh, I–no, I’m not bleeding. It’s…” His face twisted into something that could almost be called a smile, if not for the terrible look in his eyes and the way it crumpled bare moments later. “It’s not mine.”
“Master,” Reath said, helplessly, a little pleadingly.
“It’s alright,” Cohmac said again, and this time Reath could hear the lie in it. “It’s alright, Reath, you’re going to be fine, you just need to stay calm and don’t move.”
The fingertips of the hand Master Cohmac had resting near his collarbone pressed a little harder, and for the first time Reath realized that just above it, he could feel–
He could feel something. It wasn’t a sensation he knew, nothing he could name. It was nothing so specific or comprehensible as pain. Just… a sensation, so foreign or perhaps so alarming that his brain just refused to identify it. He stared up at Cohmac, breaths slipping mechanically through his lungs, raspy and shallow.
He tried to turn his head to look at his shoulder. Cohmac caught his face, tipping it away, and for the first time Reath identified the hot feeling of blood on his own skin.
“Don’t look,” Cohmac said softly. “Just stay still, okay?”
“Am I dying?” Reath asked hoarsely.
“No,” Master Cohmac said sharply. “You’re not dying. I’m going to get you out of here, you’re not going to die, it’s going to be fine.”
Reath stared up at him, his dark eyes burning in the dim, a wretched, broken look on his face. Something like fear, or exhaustion, or some kind of awful grief.
“Meditate with me,” Reath said, or tried to.
Cohmac made a sound that was maybe a hysterical laugh and maybe a strangled sob. “Really, Padawan?”
Achingly slowly, Reath lifted up his good hand, shivery and unsteady. Cohmac took it, and held it tightly despite the blood.
“Alright,” Cohmac said, sweeping Reath’s damp hair back from his face. “Let’s meditate.”
Reath let his eyes drift half-closed and breathed as deeply as he could manage, and felt, more than heard, Cohmac sync his breathing to Reath’s. Reath tightened his grip on Cohmac’s hand as much as he could manage with his waning strength and then let himself sink.
They stayed there, breathing together in the dark, and Reath could feel his master’s mind, the bitter bite of his fear and stinging helpless shame. He didn’t have the strength left to truly try to smooth out his master’s emotions, but he offered his own paradoxical serenity, a soft enveloping quiet. Cohmac exhaled, shaky, and set his brow against Reath’s.
“It’s okay,” Reath breathed, barely loud enough to hear. “It’s okay.”
“You’ll make it out of this,” Cohmac said just as quietly, though Reath couldn’t tell who he was trying to convince. “I’ll find a way.”
Reath squeezed his hand and didn’t try to convince him of what they both already knew.
He didn’t know how long it was before something far above them shuddered, sending dust fluttering down to them. Reath coughed and immediately regretted it as it jarred his shoulder. Cohmac shushed him softly.
Reath swallowed back a sudden terror as the distant sounds continued, and the minute movements with them. Cohmac leaned over him, eyes fixed on his face, expression steady, and thumbed circles on his temple.
“Easy,” Cohmac murmured. “Just breathe.”
“You should go,” Reath rasped.
“Absolutely not,” Cohmac replied. Reath didn’t argue.
He didn’t know how long it was before there was a grinding of stone, and a voice called out, “Hello?”
Cohmac jolted upright, eyes wide, and turned towards it. “Down here!” he shouted, deafeningly loud in the small space.
“We’re almost there, hold on!” the stranger called back.
Cohmac smiled, genuine relief widening it into a brighter grin than usual. “Almost there,” he echoed, squeezing Reath’s hand. Reath just blinked up at him, sluggish.
The stone shifted again. Cohmac called, “Be careful!”
“Calm down, we know,” a second voice replied–familiar, this time. Cohmac’s breath rushed out in a shocked exhale as Orla Jareni dropped through the new gap with catlike grace, her robes shining like liquid moonlight.
“Orla,” Cohmac breathed, and she shot him a quick sliver of a half-smile before she crouched beside them and turned her attention to Reath.
“Hey, Reath,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Bad,” he croaked, trying for humor. She grinned.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she said, and looked to Cohmac. “Can we move him?”
“I don’t know,” Cohmac admitted. “He’s definitely concussed, and his shoulder–but–”
Orla looked back at Reath. “Can you wiggle your toes for me, kiddo?”
He made a face at her, but he twitched his feet, and his fingertips for good measure.
“Good job,” she said. “Congrats, your spine works.”
“Yay,” Reath said tiredly.
“How are you here?” Cohmac asked.
“Felt like you needed me,” she said simply, and stood, padding back to where she’d come in. There was some exchange of words, more shifting of stone, and Reath lost track of things again, focusing only on Cohmac’s bloody palm pressed against his. At some point, a lightsaber–white, so Orla’s–came hovering over his shoulder and sheared through what Reath belatedly realized was a length of metal pipe pinning him like a bug. He twisted his face away, not sure if he was avoiding the light or just the image, and Cohmac’s hand came to rest over his eyes.
“You got him?” Orla murmured, and then the gentle press of the Force was lifting him off the ground. Cohmac’s arms came under him, though he could tell he was still using telekinesis as much as physical strength.
“We made it,” Reath slurred, and then passed out.
“Okay, spill,” Orla said as she dropped into the chair beside him. Cohmac sighed, turning his cup idly in his hands, watching as the liquid sloshed from side to side. If Reath were awake, he’d be making a face at the smell of black caf and trying to convince him to drink tea instead.
By the Force, Cohmac wished Reath was pestering him about tea.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked eventually.
“I don’t care what you say, so long as it’s honest, and it gets you out of your head,” Orla replied, and stole a swig of his caf, though she hated caf as much as Reath did. They’d bonded over it, in the months after he took Reath on.
“My padawan almost died, Orla,” he said, more roughly than he’d intended. “Am I supposed to be happy about it?”
“Of course not,” she said, with the familiar and particular tone that said she thought he was being deliberately obtuse. “But he didn’t die, Cohmac. He’s going to be fine, whether you’re sitting here at his bedside sulking or not.”
“I am not–” Cohmac cut the words off, because they were exactly the reaction Orla was hoping for, and he was too damn old to be falling for that.
“He’s fine,” Orla repeated, more gently, when he didn’t speak. “He’ll need recovery time, but he’ll be okay.”
“He almost wasn’t,” Cohmac said, and the words felt like they cut him on the way out. “He was dying, Orla. If you hadn’t been there–”
He stopped, and shook his head, staring at the floor. The idea was too terrible to contemplate.
“I know,” Orla said. “I heard the medics, too. But you knew he’d be in danger when you took him on.”
“I thought I could keep him safe,” Cohmac said, something dark and ashamed curdling in his gut. His damned arrogance, thinking he could keep a padawan safe–thinking he could keep anyone safe–
“No, you didn’t,” Orla said knowingly. “You’re not stupid, Cohmac.”
“I didn’t realize–”
“We saw him nearly space himself before you ever thought about taking him as a padawan,” Orla interrupted. “If he wanted to be kept safe, he wouldn’t be a Jedi.”
“I know,” Cohmac finally admitted. “I just didn’t think… I didn’t know it’d be so–that it would feel–”
He lost the words. Orla considered him for a long moment, then suggested, “Meditate with me.”
“No,” Cohmac said, more vehemently than he’d intended. Orla drew back, eyebrows raising as she looked at him with genuine concern, but–all he could think of was Reath, looking up at him with eyes that wouldn’t focus, covered in his own blood, that terrifying calm acceptance at the prospect of his own death–
“Not yet,” he said to Orla, more quietly. “I… can’t. Soon, just–not yet.”
“After he wakes up, then,” Orla said slowly. Cohmac dipped his head in silent agreement.
“I need to stay with him,” he said. “I do know he’ll be fine, but…”
“Then we’ll stay until he wakes,” Orla agreed without argument, and settled a little more comfortably into her chair. Cohmac exhaled, and gave her a grateful look.
They’d been sitting in silence for a while when Orla said quietly, “You know, you do need to be able to let him be in danger.”
“I know,” Cohmac admitted with a sigh, and pressed his fingers to his temple. “I do know that. I can, mostly, just–”
He didn’t know how to describe the feeling of it, the horrible realization that Reath was gone, or the dread that had flooded him when he recognized the overwhelming scent of blood. There was no way to describe those long minutes or hours spent holding his padawan’s hand in the dark, knowing he was powerless to help him, left unable to do anything except stroke his hair and listen to his breathing.
“You can,” Orla acknowledged. “I’ve seen you do it. You chose that risk when you chose him, but you need to remember to keep choosing it, every time.”
“It’s… hard,” Cohmac confessed. “Seeing him hurt.”
Orla arched a single dark eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, did someone try to tell you teaching a padawan would be easy?”
Cohmac barked a startled laugh. “I know, I know.”
“Of course it’s hard,” Orla said, turning in her chair so that she could poke his knee with the tip of her boot. “He’s your padawan. He isn’t any less yours just because he was Jora’s first.”
“I didn’t realize it would be so… all-encompassing,” Cohmac admitted. “I imagined it would be… train him for a couple years, just to get him the rest of the way, and I knew it would be a big commitment but–”
He had thought–foolishly, he realized now–that he could keep Reath at a safe distance, and perhaps, if worst came to worst, spare him the pain Cohmac himself had felt. But Reath had already felt that pain, and had chosen Cohmac anyway. It wasn’t Reath he was trying to protect.
And regardless, it clearly hadn’t worked, because when he looked at the boy in the bed he couldn’t just see a brave, studious, dutiful padawan–only his brave, studious, dutiful padawan, who still hung on every word Cohmac said about the historical evolution of Outer Rim languages but looked at him askance if his desk was too untidy, who treated sleep like an optional luxury, who had asked to meditate as he bled out because he could feel Cohmac’s distress. It was Reath, whom he had always liked but now couldn’t imagine his life without.
“He’s a good kid,” Orla said. “And he’s good for you.”
“He,” Cohmac said, “is a wonder.”
Orla chuckled, and propped her feet up on his knee. He didn’t bother to push her off.
It wasn’t much longer before Reath started to stir, fingertips twitching and eyelids flickering. Cohmac leaned forwards until he could brush back his forever-messy hair, and watched as Reath’s eyes opened.
It took a few moments for him to actually focus, even in the dimmed lights–that concussion had clearly not been kind to him–but finally he blinked up at Cohmac and rasped, “Master?”
“Hello, Padawan,” Cohmac said. “How are you feeling?”
Reath blinked, and considered it for a while before he decided on, “...Heavy.”
“Yeah, don’t try to sit up,” Orla added, propping her elbows on her knees. “You gave us a scare, kid.”
Reath, of course, attempted to do just that, but gave up quickly when Cohmac put a hand on his chest to keep him still. He squinted at them and asked, bewildered, “Master Orla?”
“Good morning,” she said, although it was closer to sundown than sunrise. “The good news is you’ve gotten yourself away from field missions for a while.”
Cohmac sighed. Reath wrinkled his nose, and then clearly decided he didn’t have the brain power to decide how he felt about that.
He turned his gaze instead to Cohmac, and studied him intently for a while. Finally, he asked, “Are you okay?”
Cohmac sighed, and silently reminded himself he could’ve predicted that.
“I’m alright, Padawan,” he said with a rueful smile. “No need to worry about me, I promise. Just rest.”
“‘S always a need to worry about you,” Reath muttered, his mental filter clearly not having returned with consciousness. He looked to Orla for confirmation, who was trying valiantly to withhold a giggle.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” she promised solemnly.
“Traitor,” Cohmac muttered under his breath. She smirked at him, unapologetic.
Reath, though, was apparently satisfied, because he settled again with no further argument. Cohmac smoothed down his hair in the way that always made him go limp and soft with contentment, glad it was no longer matted with blood.
“Rest, Padawan,” he murmured. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Okay, Master,” Reath said, and fell quietly back asleep.