into the garbage chute, flyboy!

[ lorenzo space cowboy AU! ]

A cold 3 BBY --

"WOOHOOOOO!"

Dust bites like confetti with the impact of Lorenzo's feet on the fighter dash. The bedazzled blaster falls to the ground and they slap their palm to their stomach in the way they laugh; it's a desperate kind of laughter. The one sourced by the boil of your blood, and Lorenzo can't even feel his toes. They're just coughing on the film, coughing and laughing and in every fucking sense of it they are alive with a trumpet-like laugh. 

They called him Little Ego, mostly due to the last name. Egorov printed in the leather licks of boots, they kept a pair of sneakers under a scarf in their satchel. Humble beginnings for a kid with no destiny and they never dreamed of anything in the stars. Most other kids in the Syndicate do, but it never fails to just be big talk. If there's one thing about Little Ego -- they always come through with that under dog's bite. 

Corrupt adults shaped that eager mind into such a convoluted sense of an identity. A kid born for simple tasks -- like drug runs. Like undercover stow aways, they were storks in the way that they never truly knew how to fly. Lorenzo Egorov would just hide another bit of that story away under Nar Shaddaa bandanas, stashes of spice and death sticks bundled in baggies a twelve year old should never touch. 

Calloused seemed to always find their way in peculiar situations. 

They grew up tall and lanky, sense of identity nothing more than a gun to the back of the head and that goofy smile. Inconspicuous, a kid criminal and the ball and chains around both ankles. They would smile and take the pats on the head, but they learned with every threat what life was: survival. It was never about the idea of freedom, or space, or whatever existed off a shit rock of a moon; so many of them came from elsewhere. 

Lorenzo would scribble down the different names they heard on a diner napkins- memorize them, you can't take something like that home. Those names existed on the precipice of every ideology. They never considered it a possibility, of course not, but it was something other than the rooftop runs and meeting adults in sewers. Something than the monotony if that's the word to describe it -- they only needed a story. 

To pretend that life was real. 

To pretend they walked a moon and not a grave. 

There's something about being a child that's nearly prison-like, that fear embedded into a number that burned into your skin -- twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Lorenzo would age and the concept of adult hood would always seem one step away, one leap away; as long as they were under eighteen they would be employed, but what came next? They would try not to think about it, the way they would pretend that the entire universe weren't above their head and yet they seemed to chase the star dust. 

The first blaster they ever held was a dead man's. The first set up, Lorenzo should have ran on that day but something in their feet caught in the mud and perhaps it was that same ball and chain. Clinging childhood, a curse in and of itself- 

"IT'S A TRAP," 

"THAT CAN FUCKING HAPPEN?"

Lorenzo had, in a way, been privileged to the consistency. Simple runs, just being the middle kid in a larger scheme, Karmichael bit his words in that lead. Rogue had left them before hand, maybe she had tipped something off- they never saw her again when she left. A dark, cramped alley and slime coated the brick walls, 'you two go ahead, I'll be up."

"If you don't get paid bitch, don't blame us." 

Clenching those small hands around the straps of their back packs, Lorenzo getting to ever trust was the testament of a lucky life. Trust is a thing only seen between a last word and the promise of death; their last words would have been holy fuck in another life. One with less luck, had they been the one holding the bag that day in their left hand. Karmichael was the last partner Lorenzo had, a roommate and a brother in a way, they matched calf muscles and wit and they saw his brain pulled into the concrete. 

The first shot was a test, just to see the will in Karmichael's eyes -- he fell and yelled and the blaster fell out of his hand towards Lorenzo's shoes. 

Lorenzo learned to be on the fence since picking up that blaster. Rogue had vanished off from that alley and the ooze never washed from between their fingers; a left hand permanently stained in phantom touch. They would continue to see the threads, the people vanishing, the close calls, and the best they could do was continue to run. 

Ever so quickly, run one second faster than whatever was behind them; each day there seemed to be more fucking things. Perhaps it was the life style or perhaps it was the people, the shield of self preservation, that stupid fucking smile. They called him Little Ego from the way they always made themselves the least capable person in the room- the most important one would be the one to die first. The smartest would be the first to leave, the dumbest would be the last to die; that's all they fucking needed. 

Just that last hope, to see the streets around them filled with bodies, but at least getting to be the one to live to see it happened. To watch the whole world fall apart and die the same fucking kid they had always been, but can't that be good enough? Just to live to nineteen, to see what the blaster would look like in their face and feel the blood drip off their lip and just die the way they lived. 

With that goofy smile. 

---

There comes a day where Lorenzo sees twenty on the horizon, a second decade on an ego that never seemed to die even as each minute ticked against it. They run that risk across the building tops, boots stomping on the hotel roofs in the same way that doors seemed to slam. It was a clock on the heart -- eventually, somebody bigger than Little Ego would take care of a last loose end, one last choked breath and the dying will to survive. 

That would come as a bag over their head; "can't say I didn't see this coming guys-"

"Shut the fuck up." 

The rope is tight against their lips, coarse wisps burning white on the corners and filling the space in their back molars. It's a tweed thing, "ihhuh hisss chreeely chessessa cherries," can't we all just get along? It's my birthday! Their feet bounce along the concrete and it aches in already sore soles- they've been running for too long, but the blaster finally catches up. The way star dust feels like freckles on the night sky, Lorenzo always tries to see the bright side. 

It's a stun blaster. 

It fuckin' hurts too, they scream in the way the hoops lasso the nerves of their skin, digging through their veins and into that nineteen year old soul -- "MAHUH FUCKKKAH" -- veins begging against the skin of their neck. 

"Mother of Moons, does he ever shut the fuck up?!" is the last they hear before they are in that void. Blacking out and the sub conscience imagines gravity lets out and they only just float into the space above. Always overhead, blonde hair in the black and there's no panic, there's no blasters - there's no air. 

For the first time, they are comfortable knowing there is no reason to breathe. 

The ropes chain them down in a way they're all too familiar to, the will to survive embedded in an old dog too stubborn to let it go. It's something only human, something too human to be stripped away through every thing they're forced to do and Lorenzo tugs their wrists at the rope that tugs back. Some way more alive than they were, their head forced against something hard and a crick in their neck -- the ceiling tiles are monochromatic, evenly spaced out and it's what they can see without the ridges scrapping into their neck. 

It's gotta be a fuckin' screw, man. They turn only to the right, feeling the press in the neck and the way the skin tends to burn when Lorenzo is all too vulnerable. Every wound is deeper when there's fear under the skin - "whaa uh FUUCK" - it's a warehouse. They see the conveyor belt loop around snake-like and flow through to the next room over; it's where the pew pew pew's of distant blasters shoot and it's almost as if they're calling their name. Little Ego, small enough to fit on a trigger. 

The echoes are enough to drive them crazy, chewing into the rope around their mouth and they'd bite their way through the metal beams too if it meant living to tomorrow. The ferocity of a kid in a corner with their back turned, if they just get through this first rope- if they just get through this, if they just get that one more day. A repeating event, like the way they'd follow the same route to make ends meet -- you stay greedy for that next step. 

You stay alive. 

"Holy Mother of Moons, what the hell!?"

Lorenzo feels the beat in their lungs, they pretended to never feel afraid of dying today. That the thought of how easy it would be to let it go and let it be it -- to cut the losses and let this run of life be what it is. They had pictured dying with a martini in their left hand, the sun burning over a red sea and being the last one standing. Fire would split from the cracks of Nar Shaddaa and they'd be sipping in their tastes as they shot at an abomination with eighty legs and four eyes and it'd eat both their legs before they would give up running. 

"You alive there?"

"C'yuh," garbled language for yuh. 

"Hhyu gg'ckuh khill chme ouh wah," garbled language for you gonna kill me or what? 

Had the budget been higher, there would be subtitles on this film. Lorenzo tried to stare normally at the man, beads of sweat coming from their burrows in their hairline and clumped bangs stung sweetly in their eyes. "Here," there was a hesitation in the way the man cut the rope, knife an inch from Lorenzo's face and they had seen it closer. 

This ain't shit -- they rammed their head forehead when the ropes finally gave loose, far enough for the shock to run down the spine they lay on, "FUCK- that shit burned, fucking hell," the corners of their mouth raw from the rope's forgiveness. 

"You haven't felt shit yet, I'll be honest."

"How in the fuck d'you know that?" the twang in Lorenzo's voice ever more apparent. 

The man looked up at him from four feet away, working on cutting the rope around their legs. 

"Show me your blast wounds."

"I'd have to take my pants off."

"I'll take your word for it." 

Lorenzo's neck ached as they kept it above the screw, popping their mouth when they weren't talking to ignore the pain just a little, to focus on something else. "Where... are we." 

"Uhh, nowhere you want to be."

"Reckon that means we're duckin' and runnin'?"

For as long as they could keep up, they felt a bit more confident in it. The world fell apart on the day, it would rotate and they could see the life off in the distance and realize how far it truly was to exist something free, "like a race, yeah?"

"You're. 

Fucking stupid, man."

Lorenzo grinned as the rope on their wrists and chest snapped, building themself up and over until their head was in their lap and every inch of their spine cracked as if it broke so damn good. They grinned at the pain, the relief, "yeah, I get that a lot."

"And you're still alive? I'm impressed."

"Yeah, I'm Lorenzo."

"I didn't ask."

The fire outside continued to amaze a thrilled mind -- the promise of death, or at least a few holes in the body. It prepares you more than anything, that noise, like a rush in the calves and lungs and Lorenzo followed the man as he walked, rubbing the corners of their mouth. "Check those lockers, when we leave we sure as hell aren't coming back." A lanky finger pointing to the wall that seemed to shake with each shot, the constant reverberate of a changing reality. "And what if I don't know how,"

"then you're useless and not worth my time - get to pretending." 

Lorenzo always blamed the fact that they had no father or the conditioning of the last nineteen years, but they loved a man with some clear directions. They felt the sincerity of what seemed fifty feet away, how many shots must have missed to keep open fire up that long; they hoped that's the reality of it. Either that, or there were so many arms that it never truly died out. 

You can only dodge so much, Lorenzo ignored the locker with slime coming from its creases. Oil or gel or something even less willing for them to touch, they slammed a work hammer into the face of the lockers until they were able to take stock. Contents on top of contents, they found a nice bracelet with the name Mace on it, along with other trash. It seemed like worker's collection- Lorenzo didn't have the focus to come up with an alternative idea. Replacement shoes and lose credits; who the fuck keeps physical chips these days. 

It was a fuzzy pink locker that had anything, the name Quinn plastered in bubble font and a holographic mirror projected in the center. There was fur glued to the sides and they grimaced as the feathers fell into the sky and danced around it, but there was a blaster. And when there's a blaster, people fuckin' died, which was great! Hot pink in their gaze and all the same saturated as they admired it out of the locker and into the grey set of the warehouse, bedazzled in its own form. 

Lorenzo saw their own face in the gems, and the words good vibes on the other side.  

"AYE-"

They heard the guy crashing over loose factory gear, collateral white noise, "YEAH, WHAT'S UP-?"

Lorenzo fell flat faced,  "Blaster!" 

"Nice! Not what we're here for, but we're out of time."

"Huh-?" barely enough time for a thought before the man points at the window behind them, large ashy stained planes and there they see it: the lasers and wounds and the skin on the ground. They weren't dead, they weren't bodies -- just skin, it was just the after math, just discharge. 

"We gotta fuckin go." 

"Now?"

The man begins running, Lorenzo does too before they can even question why, 

"NOW?"

"NOW."

---

There's something rhythmic in the way the bodies fall. 

In the wall the lasers miss, and Lorenzo ducks in fear and feels nothing but grief, their legs rounding the corner and running to cover and cover and cover again. It's a dead Karmichael and the rope around their mouth, they see the man run in the open as if he's confident there's no way he's in the scopes. Lorenzo is different - cut from different fleece. They're scared and dead and alive all over again and their legs shake as they hold the pink blaster between their knees, arms locked in place and their ankle pops as they slide behind the street block. 

What are they even running to? 

What is Lorenzo running from? 

When does the running end? 

There isn't time for the pondering, not as they make their way against the streets again and neon kisses against their skin. It cracks like thunder in their ear as the blasters become too real again, too prevalent, a head bounces against the concrete and Lorenzo tries not to remember what the body's hair color was. If Rogue is in the crowd, watching them as they continued to run all this time-

"KEEP UP, I CAN'T RUN FOR YOU,"

"WHERE THE FUCK-"

 

"THEY'RE GONNA BEAT US TO 'EM,"

A race, Lorenzo realized. They saw it in the distance, past the lasers that burned itself into the forefront of their mind -- maybe they weren't ready for this, but there isn't much of a choice when you swim against the pull of gravity. It's a cluster of fighters, as if fallen from the rooftops and tied to the grounds in balls and chains, and they fired into the streets as Lorenzo and the man crept on the sidelines. In the corner, with their backs turned, 

"WE GOTTA GO AROUND, 

DIBS ON THE STAR SHIP MY BROTHERS NEED IT." 

Lorenzo let their left hand free of the blaster, sprinting in the primal way they knew how. Bandana pressing into the sweat and blood and raw of their skin and "I don't- I DON'T KNOW HOW," to fly. They never knew how- leaving was worse than dying. Terrifying in the way the unknown presented itself, Lorenzo was never a kid meant to live, to escape, but they see it in every step, every goddamn leap of their boots as the two of them crawl to the fighters, every bit more free than the last. Men coming from the north and abandoning that open thread, 

the rope to jump across the gap. 

To cross that void. Just one more step after the next and the blaster shots itched their skin in the way they gasped for air to keep going, so desperately. It was no longer preservation in this reach, not just clinging to the next day or the one after that; it was something so much more greedy, something worth so much Lorenzo had never imagine getting it -- that freedom. 

In the way the sun calls to the moon, Lorenzo and the man cross a corner street and route something familiar to the fighters, panting and panicking and shaky hands and "hey, hey, 

all you gotta do is get on, and hold your blaster alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I know- I know, I know, I-"

"And just pull the trigger, aim straight and pull, and it's only a few commands after that,"

"And- and pull?!"

"Or don't." 

They struggle to breathe - this was garbled for help me. 

"This is where I leave you." 

And this is where adulthood begins. 

---

 

They held the bandana between their teeth as they slighted towards the fighter, the man pointed out the one and Lorenzo had realized they never got a name. Just instructions, there were only ever instructions; they held the blaster between their knees as they slid by the side of the fighter, and perhaps it's luck that carries Lorenzo through it, that gives them that new life. It's a pink blaster and a red bandana and a steel grey fighter with only enough room for a cockpit, for one pilot. 

The blaster fired to the right - something alien, it wasn't Lorenzo's and the watch dogs move over to the man's distraction. Only in a sort, in Lorenzo's mind it's a blessing and a gift and they scurry to the entrance before there's even a chance for the men to turn around again; if the man makes it or not, there isn't enough space for two pilots. 

Lorenzo isn't prepared for the door to open with the inhale of their own lungs, like a chute and a threat and it's the taser all over again -- they make eye contact for a second. 

Little Ego, with the blaster. 

And the pilot, with a blaster. 

It's a punch to the nose out of reflex and Lorenzo holds their face in the scream, blood in their left palm and- don't drop the gun, don't drop the fucking gun- they take a second to the gut. The fear of freedom an arm's length away, there's an ugly desperation in the need to make it -- visceral, the fear of freedom. It's too damn close to lose and they scream for that life, running to the fray and being knocked on their side. 

That disgusting fear, Lorenzo screams for the chance of future come and slams against the ground, wheezing from the dry crack of their lungs. It's fatigue and it's horror, it's something too necessary to imagine as Lorenzo's mind screams when it sees the Pilot standing over them in the door way. Shaky fingers and the Pilot steadies a taser, "FUCK no, fuck, 

fuck," no, they scramble on the ground and slap palms against arms and frustrate in the way they so sloppily fight for the chance at something- anything. Anything better than goddamn Nar Shaddaa and those gravel rooftops and the death sticks in the forgotten satchel, they weep as they're overwhelmed and their vocal cords strain to pull the blaster trigger. 

Small enough to carry Little Ego. 

The good vibes sticker dazzles under the sound of a child losing its innocence. 

Lorenzo finds the will to shoot the Pilot somewhere close quarters and the heavy bottom on them and still fighting, bleeding and it slips between them. Coats them, binds them, the other guards will be coming soon and Lorenzo can hardly manage the one- a fleeting cause. The taser rattles against the ground and the Pilot's screams are forced down their throat as he claws at their face. It's the weight of two animals in a corner with their backs turned, blood slick like water and neither hold grips: the Pilot clawing the soul out of Lorenzo, and Lorenzo slipping somewhere off of the ground. 

Their neck still had a crick in it, to make matters worse. 

Lorenzo finds room for knees almost, reaching out of desperation to the door trigger and slamming their hand on the buzzer, slapping blood and palms and screams and every hope a kid can have into one automatic close/open switch. The doors slam vertically, crushing a body in a way Lorenzo shut his eyes and still saw through audio, the subtitles tell too much until the Pilot falls limp and there'one last shot. 

The man must have been successful, the star ship next door taking off -- like an announcement. Mutual agreement, Lorenzo succeeded in what ever the fuck just happened and there wouldn't be time for the trauma to settle. 

"Fuck- Mother fucking damn," Lorenzo kicked the body off the ship and slammed the door one last time. 

"Only one pilot, mothafucka," they wasted no time making their way to the control panel. It made no sense, the lay out in front of them and the way the wheel's grip was built for hands bigger than Little Ego's. They thought of the advice handed to them barely five minutes prior- just find a fucking way. They weren't a pilot yesterday, but they sure as hell were one today. 

They slapped everything on the table, in that last ditch effort. Not like the last ditch effort to kill the Pilot, but the real last ditch effort here; they heard the motor begin. The roaring beneath their feet and the desperate thud, thud, thud matching the rhythm known only to the open fire outside, the guards will be back- they'll be back, and so will Rogue and the Pilot and- 

"Fuck, fuck wait- yeah? Just FUCKING GO-"

That was the last desperate cry they made that day, Little Ego and the Grand Luck, they held tight to the stick with both hands and held vomit in their stomach as it left the ground. Boots and bandanas and the might trumpet laugh of "holy shit, holy fuckin' shit," anger lifting to euphoria, that stupid, stupid happiness they would never truly convince themself that they deserved, 

"HELL YEAH- YEEEEEEEEE" they practically danced in the way they slapped their hand against their thigh, jumping and slamming their boots into the cockpit floor as space got ultimately closer. It wasn't just the mile away, that relative distance between here and there -- there was no more here, not like Lorenzo had known it. The stars stretched into needles and lights and bit into eyes as they steered from the shuttle port to the open skies- who knows where the fuck tomorrow would bring them. 

They only knew one good thing and that was that there'd be another one after that. And another one, and another one, and he'd count the days he'd have every step forward to match the stars he embraced. That ball and chain nothing but loose rope; they could finally make that jump to something. anything. 


"To Mother Fucking Tomorrow!" They cheered, palms stinging with the excitement of a new life. 

The first life. 

What had been calling him like the sun calls the moon. 

🌠


"WOOHOOOOO!"