#adiik

Aran had a headache.

They had endured many kinds of headaches before. The ache when they didn’t sleep for several days or when they didn’t drink enough. The throbbing ache when they got into a fight that they could barely take care of themselves and their opponents managed to smack them around a bit. The sharp pain when they had to endure the idiocy of fools for too long or see Purse’s dumb face. The sudden flare whenever they saw Yaddle’s speeder and felt a moment of panic that she would run it into them. Again.

No, this headache was different.

This one made Aran want to tear the swaffle house apart piece by piece. The knowledge that not only would Wolffe hunt him down for destroying one of his sources of income but also that it would make Chad sad, ensured that Aran kept a tight leash on their violent impulse. Their hands were curled into tight fists under the table where they sat with Chad, Purse and Kit and their leg was bouncing up and down with all the pent up energy Aran was trying to contain.

The doors of the swaffle house opened and Aran twitched. They scowled underneath their beskar helmet. A group coming in to order their cafs. Not the one Aran was looking for. They didn’t know how much longer they could keep waiting.

“Aran would you pay attention for five seconds and help us?”

Almost reluctantly, they turned their visor away from the door and focused on their friends sitting in the booth with them. Aran sneered at the clone with the purple streak in his hair and they snapped, “What? Already tired of blackmailing the chancellor candidate?”

Purse bristled at the open hostility in Aran’s voice until Chad raised his hands next to his clone brother.

“Easy there, bro,” Chad laughed with an easy smile. “How about another round of waffles and caf?”

Usually, the blonde clones smile and silly square shades could calm Aran down. Chad had the ability to worm himself through their beskar and unravel any tension usually festering inside them. Today though, Aran felt their hackles rise.

They felt their temper flare even more brightly. Easy? How were they supposed to rest easy? Stay calm? Impossible.

Aran didn’t get a chance to snarl at Chad. Beside them, Kit pressed his large green hand against their vambrace. The beskar pressed down against their arm, creaing a familiar pressure that brought their attention to the smiling jedi.

“Peace, Aran. We’re not your enemies,” Kit murmured and slowly eased up on the pressure he had exerted on Aran’s arm. They felt some of the tension bleed out of them as the pressure eased and Aran scowled when they wanted to reach out and push Kit’s hand back down on their vambrace. Keep the pressure there and help them focus. “What is troubling you?”

Aran felt a flash of shame race through them. These were their friends. How did Aran expect them to understand and put up with their temper if they didn’t explain themselves? The shame was quickly replaced by embarrassment and unease. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust these three. They had proven themselves trustworthy many times over. Aran just… couldn’t speak about the majority of their life. Habit and precaution. It was hard to let anyone that close again.

Still, they had to risk that first step if they wanted to keep these three fools close.

They leaned back in their seat with a small shake of their head and muttered, “I hired someone to check on a comm buoy I had placed years ago. My messages weren’t being answered and since it wasn’t on my end, it had to be the buoy.”

“Happens all the time, bucket-head,” Purse grumbled and Aran sneered behind their helmet. Purse had his own underground organization or information network. If one could even describe it as that. Aran didn’t know how he did it, but they knew he managed to blackmail what felt like half of Coruscant while the other half provided Purse with information.

“I don’t hire toadying thugs like you do,” Aran growled and smirked when Purse lurched to his feet, reaching for them. Only for Chad to yank Purse back into his seat. “Don’t confuse my courier with your gallivanting goons.”

Before Chad or Kit could stop him, Purse had picked up the salt shaker and hurled it across the table at Aran. The shaker shattered against their helmet and their head jerked back at the impact. There was a quiet hiss as salt trickled down along the beskar and fell to the floor. The swaffle house had fallen silent as the other occupants watched their booth warily. Aran slowly raised their hands to brush the salt off of themself.

“That could have hurt someone.”

“Your head is too big for me to miss and your beskar is too high grade for anything to seriously hurt you,” Purse snapped back and Aran lunged forward to grab the annoying man. This time Kit and Chad managed to grab both of them and wrestle them back into their seats. Purse glared across the table and Aran curled their hands so tightly, their leather gloves creaked and it hurt.

“Alright, come on guys,” Chad said and he kept a firm grip on Purse’s shoulder. “You’ll get us thrown out of swaffle house again and where else am I going to plan my campaign with you three?”

“Anywhere else except here.”

The four of them looked up to see Wolffe standing next to their booth with a datapad in his hand. Compared to the last time Aran had seen Wolffe, he looked a little more well-rested. Probably helped that the senate was actually starting to improve their treatment of the clones. Aran flinched when Wolffe turned his gray and brown gaze onto them with a raised brow.

“Are you done terrifying my customers now?” he drawled in such a done-with-your-bullshit tone that Aran couldn’t help but think of Fox. They wanted to sink into their seat and disappear. Instead, they gave a silent nod and Wolffe declared, “Good because apparently this little display was bad enough that some dude asked me to give you this.”

Wolffe held out the datapad and Aran stared at it wordlessly. He… Their pilot had… Aran ripped the datapad out of Wolffe’s hand and snarled, “I am going to hunt him down later.”

Wolffe shrugged and walked away as Aran quickly scrolled through the information on the datapad. Kit leaned closer to take a peek over their shoulder and asked, “So, did he fix the buoy?”

Aran stared at the words and numbers on the datapad screen. Their headache throbbed painfully in their temples. That couldn’t be right. It was impossible. Aran’s grip tightened on the pad and they hissed, “The buoy isn’t broken. It’s in perfect working order.”

Across from them, Chad tilted their head with a confused frown.

“Then your messages are getting through, but no one is answering?”

Aran gave a sharp nod as their eyes skimmed the message again and again. Trying to find one mistake. Anything wrong. Anything to prove that the fault lay on Aran’s end or with the buoy. They finally raised their gaze when Purse let out a derisive snort.

“So, someone is leaving you on read. What’s the big deal? Never had someone ghost you before?” Purse mocked them. The three of them jumped when the datapad cracked in Aran’s grip. They dropped it onto the table and tried to ignore the sight of their hand shaking slightly.

Aran’s commlink was working fine. The buoy was working fine. That only left one possible end that might be broken and Aran couldn’t think of a good reason why it would be left broken for so long.

That only left bad reasons.

Bad reasons that Aran wasn’t sure they could face alone.

“Aran? Bro, you alright there?”

They slowly focused on the three sitting around them. All three of them were staring at him in concern. Even Purse’s antagonistic manner had morphed into one of confusion and worry. Aran wasn’t alone anymore. They had friends and allies they could call on.

“Can I ask for your help?”

They almost didn’t recognize their own voice. It sounded so quiet and unsure of itself. So breathy and pained.

Aran hated it.

At the same time all three of them straightened in their seats. Kit reached out and placed his hand on Aran’s vambrace again. They leaned into that touch and Kit declared, “Of course! What can we do for you, bro?”

Chad and Purse let our their own exclamations of support and Aran felt their shoulders slump with relief. They turned their visor onto Chad and asked, “What about your campaign?”

Chad scoffed, waving a hand at them.

“Anything I can’t handle over comms can be taken care of by our awesome support team back here,” he said with a grin and a wink. “I have a lot of brothers I can delegate tasks too.”

Purse let out a bark of laughter.

“Cody and Fives are going to be so upset with you!”

The two bickered lightheartedly while Aran leaned back in their seat. The headache was still there. It just didn’t feel as painful anymore now that they knew they wouldn’t have to shoulder it alone.