BISEXUAL'S FOLLY

Phae stares for a long time at the pair of small gloves that he holds in his hands.

They're far too small for his own hands to wear, he eclipses them in comparison, and they're barely worn — almost new if not for the break in the artificial leathris denoting that they'd been donned only once since a few months ago. Frilled around the wrists, just as he'd figured their owner would like because they felt feminine in a way that he hadn't quite thought she'd been able to indulge in recently. They're a basic brown, nothing too fancy because he figured they'd be grown out of too soon to invest into a pair that would last a long time, but they were more meant to protect than to be of great value.

Meant to protect delicate hands against scars and tears, as well as calluses that would come in too early while working on small projects here and there. They weren't exactly fortified for the work that Phae himself was doing — they didn't need to hold up against power tools or blaster fire, but it was one more barrier between their wearer and the world. They were soft and insulated on the inside, furthering the fact that even if they weren't quite the luxury item, they were practical.

Not that she ever really wanted to wear them. Refusing at every single turn because they felt unnecessary and entirely unfashionable because they went with nothing that she owned (as if she wore anything other than Fiero's oversized jacket).They made her hands sweaty and gross. The material was all wrong. She couldn't move her fingers right when she had to wear them all during a job. They made her itchy sometimes and caused a terrible noise whenever she was using the touchscreen of her datapad. An absolute miss in the gift department apparently but it wasn't like Phae was exactly the man of the year there. She needed them, he went to find the least offensive pair that seemed to also somehow be the reminder that he was vastly out of touch with the things she needed and wanted.

He tried though. Had spent ages deciding between styles with the little money he had left over and surprised her with them because she wanted to help him more around the ship. Even if she disliked it, it was a show of effort on his part. When even that reasoning didn't work, he went further. Put them on her himself a few times while she whined out of annoyance about the necessity of them on a colder planet or when they were doing maintenenace on the Songstress. Then frowned at him for the rest of the time she was forced to wear them. And then slipped them off not ten minutes later, tucked into the waistband of her pants.

It was all he ever did when it came to her. Trying. New things and old things and everything in between. This was just one of those trying things that kept him on his toes, and he had to admit that it was a failure, even if he really didn't want to. Phae hated admitting to himself that he didn't know his daughter as well as he thought he did —and with her only growing older and more independent, this felt like a grand showing of writing on the wall. After quite a few attempts to get her to keep them on during speeder rides and whenever he was showing her how to work the innards of the Songstress, he'd mostly given up on keeping them on her. If she didn't want to wear them, then he couldn't force her to, even if he felt he was right.

Phae couldn't keep the galaxy from her even if he really wanted to. And he did. He very much did. Every single minute of his life he wanted to shelter and protect her from it. Her gloves, a gift for her birthday among other things, were just one of those mini shields that put his mind at ease. Or, eased it as much as it could be.

He rubs his thumb against the embroided aurebesh on the inside wrist of the left glove. Originally meant to be there so she wouldn't lose the pair while she was out and about, and get them returned if they fell somewhere at the school he'd picked out for the upcoming semester … and now it just dries his eyes out and makes his chest hurt.

They were meant to keep her safe when he couldn't.

Where was she now? Somewhere that she would need them? Somewhere where, hopefully, she wouldn't?

Gianna, his daughter, had argued up down and center that she refused to wear them today when she had nowhere to go on Ord Mantell. There was no reason to, and she didn't want to get off the ship anyway. She didn't want to help with the shipments, she didn't want to talk to anyone and she certainly didn't want to be seen around with him right then. So, she'd stay aboard the Songstress and park herself right in the captain's chair while she waited for him to come back. Some invisible slight against her had been dealt, and Phae didn't understand what had caused it. He'd already been running late, and with their hot entry to the wartorn planet, he didn't have time to argue with her.

He'd been upset that morning, perhaps more upset and irritable than he usually was because of the circumstances. Had found that she hadn't been attending the digital classes that she said she was, and was falling behind in school. Her grades had slipped clearly, which he thought the threat of a physical boarding school back on Coruscant would alleviate. If she wanted to stay on the Songstress with him and not her grandparents, then she would have to do the work. Now she wasn't.

It'd slipped out before he could take it back, that he didn't know why he put so much effort into her freedom as a child if she wasn't willing to work with him. That Fiero might've had more patience with her. That she was constantly testing his boundaries and wasn't going to be happy until there were actual consequences — as well as the fact that he'd already put down the payment for a semester at the prepatory academy. Her cerulean eyes had gone wide, and then narrowed into anger. They'd yelled back and forth about things that mattered and the ones that didn't. Why was he so overbearing? Why did she refuse to listen? Why couldn't he just be normal about this? Why couldn't she show some initiative? Why did he have to drag her everywhere? Why couldn't she just be less argumentative all the time?

Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

Phae squeezes the gloves like he would her hand. Her smaller hand, tinier hand in his when she was younger and would thread her fingers through his while they were walking around towns and markets.

It doesn't do anything to calm the storm in his head because she isn't there to fill them.

He had left her alone.

This one time, he had left her on the ship by herself. It was something he never did, perhaps out of paranoia, perhaps because the thought scared him too much even if the ship droid was there to watch her. But this time he had. Because the cargo was too important and he couldn't keep the buyer waiting any longer. Because he knew that getting back off the planet would be an endeavour and a half that would just fry his nerves even more than they were now. Because he just needed to duck in and out for barely twenty minutes to sign everything over and finish the job. Because he needed multiple minutes to not be in her presence and explode like he always did.

Phae had shoved the gloves into his pocket after he'd taken her datapad as punishment and left her stewing in the cockpit with her arms crossed over her chest and an I hate you! thrown over her shoulder. He'd muttered a few expletives of his own on his way out, rubbing the bridge of his nose out of frustration. Phae would have to talk to her later, and decipher where exactly she'd picked up all of the attitude to talk to him like that.

Like that, as if she hadn't always been that way since she was old enough to form words. She spoke her mind, if nothing else, and he clearly had never done enough work to curb that instinct. His mother would say they were the exact same way, and he would ignore her again like he always did when she brought up judgement he really didn't need in his life.

Gianna wasn't supposed to be anything like him. He would say that, and then his mother would tsk her tongue at him and say that was what happened when a child was raising a child. Which somehow only made him angrier, at himself, at his mother, at Fiero for leaving him with her. Frustrated, never angry, but frustrated with Gianna not seeing the path in front of her laid out so neatly and forsaking it anyway.

He just couldn't understand it. But he had a job to do, and put on his typical work expression to get down to business with his buyer.

Twenty minutes had turned into two hours, between having to take the aircraft guns down and making it back to the spaceport. The break he so desperately needed started to gnarl itself around him like a branch threatening to suffocate him. Every minute away from her, he'd become more and more stressed. Felt a pit in his stomach he couldn't explain and dread creeping up his spine. He'd chalked it up to the separatists getting into his head, and just how bad things were in the village. Usually, he refused to get involved in local politics because they bogged down delivery times and he generally had no interest in being a hero. The sounds of bombs going off and ships being shot down, surely that was all it was. Not the first time the Songstress had been in rockier waters, but certainly not a place he wanted to be when he had far more precious cargo to look after in the process.

He figured, surely she would've cooled down by the time he got back. And if not, he'd find some of the fruit they'd gotten from Rishi the last time they were there, and leave it for her to snack on until she was. They argued and fought sometimes, but their problems were small in comparison to the ones that he faced out in the field. It felt inconsequential at least. No kid wanted to go to school, stars knew he never did, but he wanted better for her than the cards that he was dealt. The cards he, admittedly, had a hand in choosing, but ones he didn't want to have her pull no matter the cost. Surely she'd see that for what it was eventually, once she was a little older.

Eventually.

The empty spaceport had turned him over on his head. No Skavak. Just droids left behind with the Songstress gone. His stupid, threatening voice over the holocommunicator and his choice not to put Gianna on the frequency. His refusal to, when Phae had asked. When Phae had nearly begged to be able to know that she was still alive. He'd demanded to see his daughter, had cursed the man out in four separate languages only for him to laugh in his face.

To have the audacity to laugh, Phae had quickly decided that he would be putting a bullet directly through his skull when he saw him next. Multiple, perhaps. He'd been so offhanded about his concern, stating that he had no interest in a little girl but if Phae wanted her back so bad that was on him.

On him.

On him.

He can't not blame himself for this. There's no way around it. If he hadn't been so hasty, if he'd sat down to talk to her for a minute instead of losing his temper again, if he'd just dragged her out damning the gloves and the jacket and the schoolwork, if he'd done anything else but walking off the ship without her, things would be different. They may have still been without their home, their ship, but he would have his daughter by his side. He would have Gianna with him, and he would be able to face the road ahead of him without being terrified for her life.

His eyes water staring at those gloves. He'd made such a big deal of them earlier in the day and now they felt so small in the grand scheme of things. Had he sealed her fate because he couldn't get over himself? Because, like always he felt, he was looking at the wrong things and giving them far too much importance?

Phae hadn't tried hard enough, clearly, and now Gianna was paying the price. He had no idea where she was, had no idea where the ship was, and was stuck on a backwater planet with only his blasters and half a mind to find the local kingpin to catch a ride out of town. He rubs hus thumbs against the palm of the gloves, wishing at least she still had them on. Maybe she would've been less scared then. Was she scared? He doesn't know. He hates the thought of thinking of her terrified, and alone, in those big, soft blue eyes filling with tears —

"Hey, captain—" A knock at the door of the tiny cantina room that feels more like a closet and costs him more than a left arm in the Fort, it knocks him out of his thoughts and nearly clean on his ass when he snaps his head up. The boy's voice. Riggs, if he remembers right, "Sounds like Viidu might have us a lead. Says he'll meet us in the morning if we're up to it. Sound good?"

Phae inhales, his breath shaky when he opens his mouth to exhale. He can't do anything from here as long as he's wilting away in a Fort with no answers. He's a Matriti. They weren't built to sit around and do nothing. He wasn't. If he wanted answers, he wasn't going to sit around and wait for them. He gets up from where he was sitting on the edge of a poor excuse for a mattress, and opens the door to a startled farm boy who looks to him with a questioning gaze.