fic: No Exit (Star Wars; Darth Vader/Ahsoka Tano; adult)
No Exit
Star Wars; Darth Vader/Ahsoka Tano; adult; 2,525 words
Ahsoka promised not to leave him again and Vader was going to hold her to it.
Contains nonconsensual and highly dubiously consensual sex, inappropriate uses of the Force, and nonconsensual breathplay (i.e., Force choking). Written for the West Wing title project. Thanks to
silveronthetree for handholding.
Or read it at the AO3.
~*~
No Exit
i.
Darth Vader sat in silence as medical droids buzzed around him, repairing his life support system and replacing his damaged helmet.
I won't leave you. Not this time.
Ahsoka's words rang in his memory, tearing open scars he'd thought long since healed over. She was dead, or she would be soon. It should have been pleasing. Her loss would be a devastating blow to the growing Rebel Alliance, and her death yet more proof to his master that Anakin Skywalker lay dead and buried beneath the monstrous skin of Darth Vader.
And yet.
The frayed, faded bond that once existed between them had sparked to life again on Malachor, and he imagined--not a word he'd used much at all over the last seventeen years--he could feel her still, faint but present in the back of his mind.
If she truly meant that vow--and the Force told him that she did--if she could be turned, she would be a powerful ally, not just against the rabble attempting to rebel, but (and the thought felt like its own form of rebellion) against his master, when the time came. He hadn't considered it since Mustafar, had judged himself best suited to being his master's durasteel fist, but with Ahsoka at his side, what could he not accomplish?
Vader sat silently while repairs were completed, and then took his shuttle out once again, to Malachor.
*
ii.
It was not difficult to find her amid the rubble of the Sith Temple. She shone with a shaky but brilliant light, even injured and unconscious. He would know her anywhere, at any time, so familiar was her presence in the Force.
She'd grown tall and strong and beautiful in the years they'd been apart, and once again, he let his imagination, so long unused, envision a future where she ruled at his side, as powerful and canny as she'd ever been.
With the fervor of the dark side burning in him--and the strength of his prosthetics--he lifted her free of the Temple's detritus and carried her carefully back to the shuttle. No one would question his absence on the bridge when he said he was meditating, and there was an empty stateroom attached to his life support pod to which no one but his droids was ever granted access.
The droids whirred quietly as they sponged her clean and bathed her injuries in bacta. The dark side was not useful for healing, so Vader left them to it, letting the noise lull him into a meditative state. The Force hummed with anticipation when he sank into it. He felt more alive than he had in years.
When the droids were done, it was just a matter of time until she woke, and he waited with remarkable patience at her side.
*
iii.
Ahsoka woke to the gentle caress of the Force on her lekku, and the touch made her shiver. She let herself luxuriate in it for a long moment, before reality intruded. There was no one left who would touch her like that; Barriss had been too much the proper Jedi to use the Force in their tentative explorations, and anyone else familiar enough to take such liberties was dead.
Perhaps she was also dead. Her last memory, of the Sith Temple collapsing while she and Vader fought, seemed to point in that direction. She didn't feel dead, though. She felt achy and tired, though better than she had in those last moments on Malachor. Perhaps she'd been rescued? But there was no one among the Rebels who would do this.
That thought chilled her.
Perhaps she hadn't been rescued and Maul had found yet one more way to make her life difficult. She kept her eyes closed but reached out with the Force and found--
She gasped and opened her eyes to see Vader looming over her.
"Good," he said. "You're awake."
The deep bass of his voice made her montrals ache, and once again she felt the Force slip over her skin, soothing that ache away. Their bond, silent for so many years, flared to life in the back of her mind, and her gaze flew to meet his, even through the red lenses of his mask. She remembered the golden eye revealed when she'd broken the mask, and her name spoken in Anakin's voice, and steeled herself.
"What do you want?" Her voice was rough, hoarse, and he offered her a glass of water, which she eyed skeptically.
"It is not drugged."
She drank it greedily, washing the dusty taste of Malachor away. She held onto the glass, though, the smooth curve of it in her palm grounding her in the moment.
"You said you would not leave."
She didn't hesitate. "I meant it."
"I am ensuring that you are not made a liar."
"I see." That gave her pause, but being Vader's prisoner had to be a step up from being dead. Anakin was still there inside him. Dormant and buried deep down beneath years of hatred and atrocity, but there. She was sure of it.
She did another quick inventory and discovered that most of her injuries had been treated. "Thank you."
His vocoder hummed, as if he'd made some sort of dismissive noise it couldn't translate.
"So what now?"
"That, my former apprentice, is up to you." He rose, towering over her like a figure out of nightmare. "I have duties to attend to. The droids will see to any needs you have."
He swept out, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
*
iv.
True to her word, Ahsoka didn't try to escape. She could have--she should have--but her injuries were still healing and so far, Vader hadn't tortured her. He hadn't even interrogated her. He'd simply locked her up and occasionally barked half-baked dark side philosophy at her while she ate the bland nutrient paste he provided her at mealtimes.
He had to know she wouldn't turn, yet the strength of his effort made it easy to determine how badly he wanted her to. Which meant that she was right--Anakin was in there somewhere, and he was desperately lonely. She knew better than to say that so directly, but she occasionally disputed his arguments with her own less than orthodox beliefs about the Force, and he allowed it.
She wasn't sure how long this state of affairs could continue--they were neither of them the most patient people, though time had taught them both some measure of restraint--but then the nightmares began and they changed everything.
She woke from feeling as if she were being burned alive, and that what skin she had left was being flensed from her bones without anesthetic. Without conscious thought, she sent what soothing energy she could along the newly reformed bond between her and Vader. She could feel his startled and reluctant acceptance of her comfort before his shields slammed down and her sense of him returned to that of a thundercloud on the horizon, threatening but distant.
Several nights later it was her dream that caused them both to wake in a cold sweat; she remembered being alone and untrusted as troops moved into capture her for crimes she hadn't committed.
This time, the comfort emanated from his direction with an unexpected warmth and strength. She encouraged the connection and fell back to sleep cradled in the embrace of the Force in a way she hadn't felt since she'd walked away from Temple all those years ago.
Perhaps she was making more progress than she thought.
*
v.
Vader knew he shouldn't let the connection between them grow in such a way, that she would take it for a softening of his stance, a willingness to entertain her foolish ideas that he would somehow return to the light (that he even could make such a return, that that avenue hadn't been closed to him the moment he'd ignited his lightsaber on the steps of the Temple), but to one who had lived with pain as long as he had, the sensations were seductive. He had felt nothing but anger, hate, and pain for many long years, had wanted nothing else, but her warmth and comfort kindled something inside him that had been banked and smothered since his fall.
Over those same long years, he had not once spared a thought for the pain of others, but for her he wanted to soothe away the nightmares, much as she had done for him so recently, as they had once done for each other on battlefields and starships from the Core to the Outer Rim.
That warmth and comfort should so easily transmute into something darker, more fervent, was not the surprise it might once have been, though it had been years since he'd had that experience--since he had wanted it--as well.
Once again, he let the Force play over her skin, bare and warm while she lay awake in the room outside his pod. Her body responded to his touches. The Force swelled with her confused desire, and he teased and stoked it, seeking out sensitive places that would make her catch her breath.
He could hear her breathing grow ragged, sense her pleasure building as he used the Force to touch her in ways that once would have been forbidden, and perhaps that too brought her pleasure, which she shared with him over the bond between them.
He imagined using his hands, the hands given to him by his master, on her in ways that had surely never been intended, and the Force made those phantom touches felt on the sensitive lengths of her lekku and the tight peaks of her breasts, in the slick heat at the apex of her thighs, until she lost herself in the bliss of climax.
His ruined body was incapable of that on its own, but through their bond, through the Force, his nerves lit with sensations so unfamiliar and so pleasurable that they edged into the more customary territory of pain.
Only later, when he replayed the interlude in his mind, did he realize that she'd whispered his name as he'd touched her--not the name he bore now, but the one by which she had first known him. His anger returned. How could she not see that this gift had come from him as he was now, and not the foolish young man he'd once been, who never would have touched her at all?
He would make her acknowledge it. If he had to redouble his efforts, if he had to be physically present in the room to make her recognize the truth, then so be it. The reward when she fell would be worth the awkwardness.
*
vi.
Ahsoka trembled in the aftermath of the sensations he'd evoked in her, doubled and redoubled as they moved back and forth over the bond between them, and tried to sort out her feelings and her options. It couldn't happen again, that much was clear. It made her too vulnerable, made her feel weak and ashamed that she could so easily be manipulated, that she had missed him so much that she'd allowed things that neither of them would have wanted in their old lives. And it made her feel guilty that she was alive to receive such attentions from him while Padmé was dead, and likely at his own hands.
Still, the cannier, more calculating part of her realized this was a way in, a crack in Vader's façade that revealed Anakin still lived beneath the mask and the heavy terror of the dark side. And though they'd been taught that passion was the province of the dark side, surely the joy flowing between them had to be of the light. The dark side couldn't contain such blissful exultation.
She'd been willing to sacrifice her life and her soul for him on Malachor. Was sacrificing her body in this way any different? She sought answers in the Force, but any sense of rightness eluded her.
*
vii.
The next time Vader reached out for her across their bond, she opened herself to it more consciously, and met him eagerly in the middle. They traded the feelings between them, letting the tension build and then break in cascading waves of sensation that startled both of them.
It became yet another competition between them, and as ever, they drove each other to new heights. They had always been more successful when they worked together.
Though Ahsoka couldn't imagine those massive gloved hands on her body, she touched herself and let him see it. Let him feel it. She revealed secrets she'd once withheld from him as a teenager, embarrassed by the needs of her body when Jedi were meant to be creatures of the Force, above such base desires, and the intimacy of the act was shocking every time.
It was worth it, though; she thought she'd unearthed more of the man she sought, that Anakin was slowly returning to her in these most intimate of moments.
Until one night, on the edge of orgasm, she once again called him out to him by name. It was thoughtless, careless, and he responded with an overwhelming surge of rage. The Force tightened around her throat like a noose, and her climax hit with the stunning intensity of a white hot supernova.
He felt it too, his rage drowned beneath it. He released her abruptly to breathe the sweetest air she'd ever tasted, if only because it had seemed as if she would never breathe again.
The Force was skittish, unsettled between them, and once she had recovered from the shock, Ahsoka wondered if she'd undone weeks of work in her unwitting haste to have her master back.
*
viii.
Had his breathing not been strictly regulated by machinery, Vader would have gasped, and, hours later in thinking about it, had still been gasping. What had that been? He had killed many that way--and it was easy, in this scattered, weakened state, to think of her, whom he had also killed that way, and from whom his thoughts still retreated in guilty haste (some pains were too agonizing to contemplate even for him)--but he'd never seen anyone respond with pleasure.
It shook him, and in the shaking, he understood.
He had been weak, had once again let sentiment delude him and let his attachments cloud his mind, leaving him confused and vulnerable to Ahsoka's manipulations. For that was what they were--he could see that clearly now. She had thought to run the same game on him that he was playing on her, and if some small part of him admired her for it, and yearned achingly for a mind that ran so closely parallel to his, he silenced that part of himself ruthlessly, as he had done for years.
The game was over, and there was only one way to ensure he was the victor. He had been remiss--it was well past time and he was weary of her distractions and dissembling. When he returned to Ahsoka's cell, he would have to kill her.
end
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/902975.html.
people have commented there.
Star Wars; Darth Vader/Ahsoka Tano; adult; 2,525 words
Ahsoka promised not to leave him again and Vader was going to hold her to it.
Contains nonconsensual and highly dubiously consensual sex, inappropriate uses of the Force, and nonconsensual breathplay (i.e., Force choking). Written for the West Wing title project. Thanks to
silveronthetree for handholding.
Or read it at the AO3.
~*~
No Exit
i.
Darth Vader sat in silence as medical droids buzzed around him, repairing his life support system and replacing his damaged helmet.
I won't leave you. Not this time.
Ahsoka's words rang in his memory, tearing open scars he'd thought long since healed over. She was dead, or she would be soon. It should have been pleasing. Her loss would be a devastating blow to the growing Rebel Alliance, and her death yet more proof to his master that Anakin Skywalker lay dead and buried beneath the monstrous skin of Darth Vader.
And yet.
The frayed, faded bond that once existed between them had sparked to life again on Malachor, and he imagined--not a word he'd used much at all over the last seventeen years--he could feel her still, faint but present in the back of his mind.
If she truly meant that vow--and the Force told him that she did--if she could be turned, she would be a powerful ally, not just against the rabble attempting to rebel, but (and the thought felt like its own form of rebellion) against his master, when the time came. He hadn't considered it since Mustafar, had judged himself best suited to being his master's durasteel fist, but with Ahsoka at his side, what could he not accomplish?
Vader sat silently while repairs were completed, and then took his shuttle out once again, to Malachor.
*
ii.
It was not difficult to find her amid the rubble of the Sith Temple. She shone with a shaky but brilliant light, even injured and unconscious. He would know her anywhere, at any time, so familiar was her presence in the Force.
She'd grown tall and strong and beautiful in the years they'd been apart, and once again, he let his imagination, so long unused, envision a future where she ruled at his side, as powerful and canny as she'd ever been.
With the fervor of the dark side burning in him--and the strength of his prosthetics--he lifted her free of the Temple's detritus and carried her carefully back to the shuttle. No one would question his absence on the bridge when he said he was meditating, and there was an empty stateroom attached to his life support pod to which no one but his droids was ever granted access.
The droids whirred quietly as they sponged her clean and bathed her injuries in bacta. The dark side was not useful for healing, so Vader left them to it, letting the noise lull him into a meditative state. The Force hummed with anticipation when he sank into it. He felt more alive than he had in years.
When the droids were done, it was just a matter of time until she woke, and he waited with remarkable patience at her side.
*
iii.
Ahsoka woke to the gentle caress of the Force on her lekku, and the touch made her shiver. She let herself luxuriate in it for a long moment, before reality intruded. There was no one left who would touch her like that; Barriss had been too much the proper Jedi to use the Force in their tentative explorations, and anyone else familiar enough to take such liberties was dead.
Perhaps she was also dead. Her last memory, of the Sith Temple collapsing while she and Vader fought, seemed to point in that direction. She didn't feel dead, though. She felt achy and tired, though better than she had in those last moments on Malachor. Perhaps she'd been rescued? But there was no one among the Rebels who would do this.
That thought chilled her.
Perhaps she hadn't been rescued and Maul had found yet one more way to make her life difficult. She kept her eyes closed but reached out with the Force and found--
She gasped and opened her eyes to see Vader looming over her.
"Good," he said. "You're awake."
The deep bass of his voice made her montrals ache, and once again she felt the Force slip over her skin, soothing that ache away. Their bond, silent for so many years, flared to life in the back of her mind, and her gaze flew to meet his, even through the red lenses of his mask. She remembered the golden eye revealed when she'd broken the mask, and her name spoken in Anakin's voice, and steeled herself.
"What do you want?" Her voice was rough, hoarse, and he offered her a glass of water, which she eyed skeptically.
"It is not drugged."
She drank it greedily, washing the dusty taste of Malachor away. She held onto the glass, though, the smooth curve of it in her palm grounding her in the moment.
"You said you would not leave."
She didn't hesitate. "I meant it."
"I am ensuring that you are not made a liar."
"I see." That gave her pause, but being Vader's prisoner had to be a step up from being dead. Anakin was still there inside him. Dormant and buried deep down beneath years of hatred and atrocity, but there. She was sure of it.
She did another quick inventory and discovered that most of her injuries had been treated. "Thank you."
His vocoder hummed, as if he'd made some sort of dismissive noise it couldn't translate.
"So what now?"
"That, my former apprentice, is up to you." He rose, towering over her like a figure out of nightmare. "I have duties to attend to. The droids will see to any needs you have."
He swept out, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
*
iv.
True to her word, Ahsoka didn't try to escape. She could have--she should have--but her injuries were still healing and so far, Vader hadn't tortured her. He hadn't even interrogated her. He'd simply locked her up and occasionally barked half-baked dark side philosophy at her while she ate the bland nutrient paste he provided her at mealtimes.
He had to know she wouldn't turn, yet the strength of his effort made it easy to determine how badly he wanted her to. Which meant that she was right--Anakin was in there somewhere, and he was desperately lonely. She knew better than to say that so directly, but she occasionally disputed his arguments with her own less than orthodox beliefs about the Force, and he allowed it.
She wasn't sure how long this state of affairs could continue--they were neither of them the most patient people, though time had taught them both some measure of restraint--but then the nightmares began and they changed everything.
She woke from feeling as if she were being burned alive, and that what skin she had left was being flensed from her bones without anesthetic. Without conscious thought, she sent what soothing energy she could along the newly reformed bond between her and Vader. She could feel his startled and reluctant acceptance of her comfort before his shields slammed down and her sense of him returned to that of a thundercloud on the horizon, threatening but distant.
Several nights later it was her dream that caused them both to wake in a cold sweat; she remembered being alone and untrusted as troops moved into capture her for crimes she hadn't committed.
This time, the comfort emanated from his direction with an unexpected warmth and strength. She encouraged the connection and fell back to sleep cradled in the embrace of the Force in a way she hadn't felt since she'd walked away from Temple all those years ago.
Perhaps she was making more progress than she thought.
*
v.
Vader knew he shouldn't let the connection between them grow in such a way, that she would take it for a softening of his stance, a willingness to entertain her foolish ideas that he would somehow return to the light (that he even could make such a return, that that avenue hadn't been closed to him the moment he'd ignited his lightsaber on the steps of the Temple), but to one who had lived with pain as long as he had, the sensations were seductive. He had felt nothing but anger, hate, and pain for many long years, had wanted nothing else, but her warmth and comfort kindled something inside him that had been banked and smothered since his fall.
Over those same long years, he had not once spared a thought for the pain of others, but for her he wanted to soothe away the nightmares, much as she had done for him so recently, as they had once done for each other on battlefields and starships from the Core to the Outer Rim.
That warmth and comfort should so easily transmute into something darker, more fervent, was not the surprise it might once have been, though it had been years since he'd had that experience--since he had wanted it--as well.
Once again, he let the Force play over her skin, bare and warm while she lay awake in the room outside his pod. Her body responded to his touches. The Force swelled with her confused desire, and he teased and stoked it, seeking out sensitive places that would make her catch her breath.
He could hear her breathing grow ragged, sense her pleasure building as he used the Force to touch her in ways that once would have been forbidden, and perhaps that too brought her pleasure, which she shared with him over the bond between them.
He imagined using his hands, the hands given to him by his master, on her in ways that had surely never been intended, and the Force made those phantom touches felt on the sensitive lengths of her lekku and the tight peaks of her breasts, in the slick heat at the apex of her thighs, until she lost herself in the bliss of climax.
His ruined body was incapable of that on its own, but through their bond, through the Force, his nerves lit with sensations so unfamiliar and so pleasurable that they edged into the more customary territory of pain.
Only later, when he replayed the interlude in his mind, did he realize that she'd whispered his name as he'd touched her--not the name he bore now, but the one by which she had first known him. His anger returned. How could she not see that this gift had come from him as he was now, and not the foolish young man he'd once been, who never would have touched her at all?
He would make her acknowledge it. If he had to redouble his efforts, if he had to be physically present in the room to make her recognize the truth, then so be it. The reward when she fell would be worth the awkwardness.
*
vi.
Ahsoka trembled in the aftermath of the sensations he'd evoked in her, doubled and redoubled as they moved back and forth over the bond between them, and tried to sort out her feelings and her options. It couldn't happen again, that much was clear. It made her too vulnerable, made her feel weak and ashamed that she could so easily be manipulated, that she had missed him so much that she'd allowed things that neither of them would have wanted in their old lives. And it made her feel guilty that she was alive to receive such attentions from him while Padmé was dead, and likely at his own hands.
Still, the cannier, more calculating part of her realized this was a way in, a crack in Vader's façade that revealed Anakin still lived beneath the mask and the heavy terror of the dark side. And though they'd been taught that passion was the province of the dark side, surely the joy flowing between them had to be of the light. The dark side couldn't contain such blissful exultation.
She'd been willing to sacrifice her life and her soul for him on Malachor. Was sacrificing her body in this way any different? She sought answers in the Force, but any sense of rightness eluded her.
*
vii.
The next time Vader reached out for her across their bond, she opened herself to it more consciously, and met him eagerly in the middle. They traded the feelings between them, letting the tension build and then break in cascading waves of sensation that startled both of them.
It became yet another competition between them, and as ever, they drove each other to new heights. They had always been more successful when they worked together.
Though Ahsoka couldn't imagine those massive gloved hands on her body, she touched herself and let him see it. Let him feel it. She revealed secrets she'd once withheld from him as a teenager, embarrassed by the needs of her body when Jedi were meant to be creatures of the Force, above such base desires, and the intimacy of the act was shocking every time.
It was worth it, though; she thought she'd unearthed more of the man she sought, that Anakin was slowly returning to her in these most intimate of moments.
Until one night, on the edge of orgasm, she once again called him out to him by name. It was thoughtless, careless, and he responded with an overwhelming surge of rage. The Force tightened around her throat like a noose, and her climax hit with the stunning intensity of a white hot supernova.
He felt it too, his rage drowned beneath it. He released her abruptly to breathe the sweetest air she'd ever tasted, if only because it had seemed as if she would never breathe again.
The Force was skittish, unsettled between them, and once she had recovered from the shock, Ahsoka wondered if she'd undone weeks of work in her unwitting haste to have her master back.
*
viii.
Had his breathing not been strictly regulated by machinery, Vader would have gasped, and, hours later in thinking about it, had still been gasping. What had that been? He had killed many that way--and it was easy, in this scattered, weakened state, to think of her, whom he had also killed that way, and from whom his thoughts still retreated in guilty haste (some pains were too agonizing to contemplate even for him)--but he'd never seen anyone respond with pleasure.
It shook him, and in the shaking, he understood.
He had been weak, had once again let sentiment delude him and let his attachments cloud his mind, leaving him confused and vulnerable to Ahsoka's manipulations. For that was what they were--he could see that clearly now. She had thought to run the same game on him that he was playing on her, and if some small part of him admired her for it, and yearned achingly for a mind that ran so closely parallel to his, he silenced that part of himself ruthlessly, as he had done for years.
The game was over, and there was only one way to ensure he was the victor. He had been remiss--it was well past time and he was weary of her distractions and dissembling. When he returned to Ahsoka's cell, he would have to kill her.
end
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/902975.html.
people have commented there.