The buckling pain that bites down your side when you twist too suddenly to get a better look at him is a painful reminder of that. You force it down in order to run a gentle touch over his cheekbone as he too begins to stir awake, as if the bond you have forged has demanded that he too be pulled from his slumber to meet the morning air alongside you. Two violet rings of exhaustion circle under his eyes as they flutter open to meet your own. Your fingers glide to brush against the one decorating his left socket on impulse. It takes a moment for him to swallow down his disorientation before his vision focuses completely. You note the spark of confusion that flashes across his expression before it dawns on him that no, this isn’t a dream and yes - you are settled in his arms in the same position you had been the previous night when he had curled into your chest until his tears had ceased soaking your shirt’s fabric.

There's a hint of shame that trickles into those tired eyes then and you smile openly in the hope that it will quash any guilt squirming in his gut before it forces him to voice it. 

“Good morning, my love.” The sound of your voice is soft and still swaddled with drowsiness. It still manages to pull the corners of his own lips into a sleepy smile, and there's a twinkle in his honey-coloured gaze as his eyes open wider now. The sight of it settles oddly in your stomach, it's the first time he’s looked like himself in a while, the realisation of that fact hurts a little, but you try to focus on the happiness that bubbles alongside it instead.

You’re both alive and you’re together - you’re lucky in so many ways to be squashed into this tiny GAR-issued cot with the man you love. It’s a privilege so many others would kill for, and right now all you want to do is sink into him and forget all about your injury and the God-forsaken war that has caused it.

You lean forward to press a kiss against his forehead, right where the crease of his frown usually sits - thankfully, it's absent this morning, replaced by a honeyed mixture of amusement and adoration as his eyes drift over the sleepy bliss that dances upon your face.

“Good morning yourself.” He waits until you pull away to speak, words tumbling out in a deep purr. They catch in his throat before he clears it of any remaining evidence that indicates he had spent the previous evening crying in both relief and frustration at your situation.

You thread your fingers around the back of his skull to stoke across the seam where his hairline meets his nape. The action is meant to be comforting, but it appears to stoke something deeper in his eyes as he sighs into the contact, tilting his head back in such a way that makes the rumble that echoes through his throat all the more prominent. Kix attempts to keep the lazy smirk on his face as he peers at you through heavy, dark eyelashes, but there's a hazy lust swimming beneath them now. It pairs itself beautifully with the spread of blush peppering his cheeks and the tips of his ears. The whole combination taints his attempt at playing off his bravado with an unmistakable bashfulness that has you smiling even wider against the pace of your own quickening heartbeat.

Your fingers continue to wind teasing little circles down his neck as you still to watch his reaction, lying in wait and thinly veiled curiosity to see what his next move would be. Kix watches you with just as much intensity, tongue jutting out to wet his lips for a moment as his blush grows darker under your touch. His grip around your middle flexes with uncertainty as he cocks an eyebrow when you drag your hand down to rest on his shoulder, digits drumming against the muscle in silent anticipation.

The air between you has shrugged away it's quiet serenity now, what has sunk in to replace it is much more charged, but still apprehensive of crossing the final line with the fear that the other was not completely open to the idea of embracing it, considering all that had unfurled the night before.

He kisses you then, shattering it. The press of his lips is hungry, and carries a hint of the same desperation they had tasted of the previous evening when he’d told you he loved you between the salty bite of tears and yearning. But even so, this is different, because he’s yours and the pain attached to his confession feels long spilled now. By the second time your lips meet, you’re openly sighing into his mouth and you catch the hitch in his own breath as you do so. The fire is all but blazing in his brown eyes when you finally part, though you only get the chance to stare completely into its flames for a moment before he’s pushing himself up to loom over you, fastening you down against the mattress with little more than the press of his hand against your own beside your head.

“How about I help you wake up properly, hmm?” Gone is the tiredness in his tone. His voice reaches you in a husky, thickened wave that wraps down your spine in a shiver. A quiet giggle of delight leaves you as you stare upwards at him, and his smile cracks wider to reach his eyes at your reaction. It sings of the old Kix, the real Kix, and that knowledge warms your heart even deeper than where mere lust could ever hope to reach it. There's still a nagging hint of concern tugging at the corner of your soul however, even despite the heat licking between your thighs at the thought of having him completely. It reminds you that you’re still concerned about his well being considering everything he had endured as of late, as well as the fact you were very much still sore from your own physical injury. Kix seems to read your thoughts because in the second of silence that separates the two of you, his expression softens in time with his voice.

“I’ll be gentle with you, I want this too, so much.”

Another kiss, this one soft and prolonged, whispering adoration and assurance into the very heart of you.

“I love you.”

You seize the forbidden fruit and completely melt into his embrace.

The next thing you know, you’re stripped bare and writhing beneath him as he kisses his way down between your thighs. He’s attentive to each catch of your breath and the buck of your hips when one of his hands ghosts over a particularly sensitive patch of skin in the dip of your hip bone. You have to remind yourself to breathe each time his lips edge further down your torso, the muscles of your abdomen rippling beneath his teasing caresses and the fan of his breath as he chuckles to himself at how you squirm at the slightest indication of him travelling lower, towards where you crave him most. Kix is as naked as you are, having wasted little time tearing off his blacks alongside each article of clothing he stripped away from your own body. His hand was quick to recapture your own in its grasp once he had you exposed to his satisfaction. Your fingers remain caged amidst his own, held hostage while his other hand continues to grope and explore the expanse of your flesh, only breaking their journey to bat away your own free hand each time you reach out to attempt to grasp at him.

“Ah, ah, ah, nope,” His voice is playfully frustrating as he reprimands you, another chuckle slipping through it when you finally relent and flop down in exasperation at his refusal to let you touch him in return, “this is about you, lay back and let me take care of you, cyare.”

You’re about to clap back at him with a sarcastic rebuttal when the sensation of his breath over your core rips any remaining shred of coherency from you. You briefly register him mutter something about ‘thanking you for everything’ and the feeling of him hauling one of your thighs over his shoulder before the sound of your own moaning echoes in your ears. It forces you to clamp your trembling free hand over your mouth in an attempt to keep your noises of delight secret from the rest of the base. It’s counterpart remains laced with his own as he pulls it down to rest near your hip and squeezes it reassuringly to ground you both from floating away with the clouds of lust permeating the room.

Kix groans against your folds as he drags his tongue over your clit in long, drawn out stripes, clearly revelling in the taste and slickness coating his lips. You can feel the scratch of his stubble brush against your inner thigh with each movement of his jaw and it only heightens the fire spreading across your nerves further. It takes a good minute before you can find the strength to push yourself up to lock eyes with him from where he’s stationed between your legs, the heavy-lidded expression decorating his face only pushing you further towards your peak. He looks positively love-struck as he lathes his tongue against your cunt, relentlessly switching between circling your clit and teasing the tip of the slick muscle inside of your entrance in such a way that has you seeing stars once your head tilts back once more, never quite letting you adjust to one pattern before catching you off guard with another. You lift your hips and grind against the pressure his tongue lavishes on you, chest heaving with the threat of a quickly approaching climax, one that’s only spurred on further when Kix’s chest rumbles with a shuddering moan as your slick runs down his chin and onto the sheets below.

It's dizzying almost, and he has you sobbing and babbling sweet nonsense into the pillows when your first orgasm hits you with a shock that threatens your vision white. Kix remains between your legs even as you begin to come down from your high, rubbing soothing circles into the twitching flesh of your thigh as you take in heavy gasps of warm air to steady your breathing.

“You ok there, cyare?” The warmth bubbles upwards to your chest once you register the care cradled in his words.

“-Mmhmm,” You’re more than ok, despite the tremble in your legs you feel fucking elated after his display of ‘gratitude’, but the intensity of your orgasm has left you feeling so dazed it takes a substantial deal of effort to simply nod your head as you remain slumped against the pillows and crumpled sheets. 

Kix waits patiently for you to regain composure, his fingers dancing over your hip now as he admires you in your afterglow. You suddenly feel a little shy, spread out, spent and wet beneath where he cranes over you, but the feeling quickly fades as fast as it surfaces because it's Kix and he makes you feel safer than anyone else in the universe.

“I’m great, actually,” Your voice is somewhat raspy from the strain of your moaning, but Kix still grins at you like you’ve just serenaded him instead. The sight of it flusters your words all over again, “‘wanna - want to make you feel good too though, want you, Kix.”

His blush deepens further as the air appears to leave his lungs through his nose at your blunt confession. He swallows thickly, and you can see the remnants of your wetness glistening around his mouth in the dim light.

Now it's your turn to smirk.

He’s lost for words for a moment before he can bring himself to crash down and kiss you again. This time you can taste yourself on his lips and the knowledge of what you’ve shared only makes you groan louder and buck your hips against him, finally released from the cage of his bicep around your thigh. You can feel the length of his cock, hot and heavy and desperate as it skims against your stomach and smears a trail of precum across your skin. His hands remain planted at either side of your head, holding his weight up on his forearms so as not to crush you or potentially aggravate your injury any further. The care he takes in handling you softens your heart, but you note the hesitation stiffening his muscles.

“...Hey,” your tone is as soft as your eyes as you reach up to cup his cheek and force his gaze to yours, marvelling in the way the heat of his body so quickly envelops your own, “I’m not going to break. It’s already healing thanks to the bacta so you don’t need to worry. Please.”

“...Ok.” He keens into your touch as you once again rake your fingernails over the seam of where his tattoo meets his hairline, you make a mental note to remember the reaction such a mindless gesture draws from him. When his eyes reopen to lock with yours, they’re practically swimming with a gilded stream of desire. “I love you.”

You don’t have a chance to repeat the declaration back to him before the words are stolen from you and replaced by a stuttering moan as he pushes into you. Your head hits the pillow the same moment he bites a mark into the curve of your throat and stills his hips against yours, completely submerged within your cunt until his pelvis kisses your own. You both moan in tandem as you flutter around him, split open and stretched in the most delicious way with his pubic bone grazing your clit. 

You’re sure you hear him bite down on a whimper as you give an experimental buck of your hips, his eyes closing the moment you wrap your legs around his middle to force him impossibly closer still. Kix’s hands fist the sheets beside your head, and you’re confident you’ve never seen a man look more beautiful than he does in this moment. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth and you crane your neck upwards to press a kiss to his chin, a silent plea for him to move and drag another wave of pleasure from your body. Broad hands fly to cup your face the moment he begins a slow pace inside you, the weight of his body falling to his elbows as his eyes snap open to watch for your reactions. He feels incredible, pulling out nearly all the way before snapping his hips back to meet your own each time in long, deep thrusts that have you moaning obscenely each time he comes to the end of you. He steals each sound from your lips with a series of sloppy open mouthed kisses, showering you in stumbled words of praise in a mixture of basic and mando’a. 

The bed creaks beneath the force of your bodies, and at this point you’ve all but abandoned your attempts to keep quiet in favour of whispering just how much you love him and how good he makes you feel. You cling to his shoulders as he fucks you deeper into the mattress, holding onto him just as tightly as he does to you - it's a wordless promise that you aren’t going to disappear and abandon him, that you’re his as much as he’s yours.

“-Feel so good, so good to me cyare, always been so good to me-”  his gritted-out praise tightens the coil in your stomach and all too soon you feel the familiar creep of another orgasm approaching you. His hands skim over your chest, stomach, face, before settling themselves with one cradling the back of your head whilst the other snakes downward to rub at your clit in tight little circles that have your eyes rolling back into your skull.

His praises fall off into a string of hurried curses as his hips begin to stutter to an erratic pace, however, his eyes never leave your own all the while. His jaw is clenched tightly, pulled taunt like the muscles in his arms as he angles his thrusts to drag against something delicious within your walls that has you mewling in delight. Despite the intensity of his actions, he’s still so gentle, so attentive in how he handles you. Ever vigilant to note each reaction you make to his touches and taking care not to jostle your still-healing body too violently.

“Fuuuck… Fuck! I love you - look so pretty like this, so perfect - just wanna stay like this forever.” His words are borderline incoherent now as he resigns to losing himself inside you, punctuated by rattling groans and a sigh that gets knotted in his throat as the emotion of the moment washes over him time and time again with each thrust. 

The moment he dips down to moan into your open mouth as he sheathes himself completely to the hilt once more, you let go. You topple over the edge into a second orgasm that's so strong that it tears a silent scream from your lungs and forces fresh, hot tears of relief to gather in the corner of your eyes, body and mind wrecked in unison from the over stimulation of it all.

Kix follows you into climax straight after, succumbing to the way you tighten and flutter around him as he attempts to fuck you through your orgasm until your toes are curling against where they rest on his lower back. His hips falter and he all but whines as he stills inside you abruptly, eyes finally screwing themselves shut as he pulses within you and paints your insides in thick, hot ropes. He keeps your lower body close against him even after his breathing begins to even out and his cum has long since began to drip out of you from around his softening cock.

You feel thoroughly spent now, limbs heavy and head spinning with the force of the orgasm that had just claimed you. Kix is the first to shift properly, withdrawing from you slowly with a kiss and a low groan that you feel more than you hear. The medic takes a moment to give you a quick visual once over, but you swat at his shoulder in mock annoyance despite the fatigue clinging to your joints. He relents, flopping down beside you and taking up an embrace the mirrors the one you had awoken tangled within that same morning. 

“I love you.” You swallow thickly around the words as you gaze at him, despite the lull of your afterglow, they come easily to you and you relish in how normal it feels to say them, to be held in his arms as if you were the only two souls awake in some private little galaxy you had created together. “I love you and I want to stay like this forever with you, Kix.”

His eyes hold a different tiredness now, this one is satisfied and soulful and free from worry - at least for a little while. You hope that this happiness lasts for him, he deserves it more than anyone else you know.

“I love you more, mesh’la.” His fingers reach up to brush against your cheek before pulling you in for a tender kiss, humming in contentment before parting slightly to mutter against your lips, “m’just sorry I don’t have much more to offer you than my charming looks, taste in brandy and my unofficial record for being the fastest at stitching up an incision in the whole GAR.”

You snort into his neck in response to the ridiculous quip before nuzzling your nose against his pulse. He squirms a little at the tickle of your breath against him and you make another point to remember the location of the sensitive spot for a later date.

“But honestly,” his tone drops to something more serious and your eyes wander back to lock with his own, a ghost of a frown pulling at your brow at the change, “you’ve always had to put up with a lot when it comes to me… you’re only going to have to deal with more where loving me is involved-”

“Kix, stop.” You’re firm as you catch his hand in your own, squeezing it to stress the finality of your statement before gracing his knuckles with another light kiss, “Nothing is easy at the moment and loving you is the one thing that's come so naturally to me. I don’t want anyone else because simple or not, they aren’t you.”

He smiles, wide and true before he begins to slowly encroach towards you to steal another kiss-

Until the shrill beep of your comlink shocks you both apart. 

You shoot the device a glare, grumbling in annoyance as you untangle yourself from Kix to fish the offending item out from where your clothes lay in a crumpled pile on the floor. He chuckles into his fist and you give him a sideways glance in warning before raising the comlink closer to your face, winching slightly at the brightness flashing from the thin strip of its display. 

“Hello?” The annoyance bleeds into your voice before you can think to stop it, a cold pang of panic shoots through you at the realisation that you forgot to check who it was contacting you before accepting the transmission.

“Good morning, am I right to assume that Kix is with you currently? It’s just that he was supposed to be present in the medical bay this morning to relieve me from my shift and yet here I am still - and I happened to bump into a trooper that claimed he saw you bundle him into your room yesterday evening.” It’s Officer Eir, and judging by the dryness coating his tone, he’s in a foul mood and more than aware of why Kix is late to tend to his duties despite the concern he had shown towards your lover the evening prior. You suppose the lack of sleep would do that to anyone.

Your cheeks automatically swelter with heat, quickly beginning to regret trusting the Medical Officer with the closeness of your bond with Kix. The man in question looks mortified at the circumstances he’s found himself in, but he still cockily mentions for you to tell Eir ‘hi’ despite fully knowing that the irritated clone could easily hear him over the line. You can envision Eir’s deadpan blink from all the way over in the medical ward.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I even wasted my time thinking about calling Kix first. I’m glad that you made sure he wasn’t alone last night, but need I remind him that stimshots are too important to waste on a hangover… or any other activity related fatigue that doesn't benefit the Republic.” You hear a sigh from over the comlink, the digital rendering making it sound crackled and disjointed - but it still makes you feel as though you’ve been singled out for committing a heinous crime all the same. “...I’ve taken the liberty of finding him a spare pair of scrubs, because I know he won’t want to risk returning to his bunk late while there are Jedi milling around.”

Kix raises his eyebrows thoughtfully, clearly touched that his fellow medic took the time to cover for him despite no doubt being desperate to lay down his head and rest.

“Um, yeah ok Eir I’ll… pass on that information to him - goodbye.”

You’ve never hung up on a call so quickly, and you hope to the Maker that no one had somehow managed to intercept your communication line. Kix still carries a bashful flush of his own, but it doesn’t stop him from grinning boyishly before another quip leaves his lips.

“Should’ve told him that I’ve already eaten breakfast too, bet that would have flustered him even more than you.”

The comment earns him a sweaty pillow to the face.

You still send him on his way with a ration bar all the same, taking a silent delight in how unsteady his initial movements are when he rushes to slip out of your door and down the hallway. He flashes you a wink and the hint of a loving gaze before slipping back into the role of a disciplined soldier once more as his long legs carry him away.

After he’s gone, you take a moment of private reflection to delight in how your spirit seems lighter and your heart feels fuller than it did yesterday.

Cyare.

Your stomach protests against your heart’s demand the moment you are hit with the first wave of disinfectant-heavy air, forcing your arm to shoot out and brace your heaving body against the medbay’s entrance. Almost instantly, your knees buckle in response to the flare of pain that shoots over your entire right side. Bile begins to stretch and rise from the hollowness of your stomach, equal parts a reaction to not only the smell and memory of your injury, but also to the agony currently rippling across your hunched form. The force of it makes your heart feel as though it is swelling and threatening to drag itself out of your throat with each breath you take, it takes a good few seconds to recollect yourself and refocus your vision as it stutters. 

There's a quiet sense of mourning draped across the wing. Considering what whispered condolences and murmurings had floated past the lips of the surviving soldiers released the same time as you, you’re not surprised. Through the pain poisoning your thoughts, you theorise that the bulk of the medical staff on duty are no doubt stretched between filing out piles of casualty reports and treating what unfortunate souls were not as lucky as you were. Yet despite all this, it's mere moments before you raise your head to find yourself flanked by a small crowd of medical droids. They hobble around you on weighted, gray tinted limbs with a speed that seemed uncanny to the robotic creatures, a concerned droning manifesting through the air as their vocal modulators begin to speak in unison.

Get away from me, I don’t have time for this! 

The words lock themselves behind your gritted teeth as you inwardly curse your body for collapsing in on itself before your mission was complete. Thinking only in frustration, you fight past the tremor threatening your wrist to shove at the closest droid’s metallic face-plate, silently urging your senses to adapt to the sterile atmosphere so you could continue to force your tired legs towards their goal.

Yet instead of the chill of durasteel or the sharp prickle of a sedative agent penetrating your flesh, all you feel beneath your fingers is….nothing. You flex them around the air as you force your breathing to return to normal once more, the frantic panic slowly uncaging the rest of your senses until you can reach focus. There's a heavy, latex warmth clamped around your outstretched wrist and a symmetrical weight steadying the hunch of your shoulder. You follow the path they offer until your eyes meet with the concerned gaze serving as the final stitch that keeps you frozen in place - pinning you with a tired glare that makes you feel remorseful and relieved all at once.

“...Eir.”

The clone medic continues to stare down at you long after you regard him and shift your weight backwards. The purple tattoos rimming his eyes bleed almost seamlessly into the dark circles bruising the hollow of their sockets. His hair doesn't look like it's been washed properly in days and he's still donning a set of surgical scrubs atop his uniform. He looks every bit as broken as you feel, yet he's still on duty with no sign of rest in sight. Your heart falls at the thought of how many others have been injured as badly as you in the last attack to warrant him being assigned additional duties within the 501st.

A sigh stretches over Eir’s chest as his dark eyes inspect the state of you.

“You should be resting. I had hoped you would have had the sense to stay away from the medbay for a while longer at least. I’ve got my hands full here as it is without you working yourself to the point of reinstatement straight after being discharged.”

Despite the exasperation sinking across his tone, he releases his hold on your wrist, the hand supporting your shoulder slinking back to join it in shooing away the medical droids as soon as he deems you steady enough to stand to full height again. He clicks his tongue as you absentmindedly ghost a hand over your injured side despite the pain having mostly subsided in its throbbing now. There's another beat where you can't quite bring yourself to look him in the eyes, feeling oddly sheepish at the scene you had just made, and continuing to wither under his knowing gaze. He takes mercy on you then, recognising the determination blazing behind your downtrodden expression and greeting it with a knowing smile so tiny, you don’t even have a chance to notice it before it floats away once he returns his gaze to the rows of medical beds stretching like coffin markers down the hall.

“Come on then if you’re going to find him, I can’t have you pulling at your stitches in the doorway. You know you’ll have to face Faera’s wrath if you ruin her handiwork.”

His voice holds a familiar warmth now as he folds his hands behind him and waits for you to follow his march. A sigh of relief leaves you before you can stop it, the force of it irritates your bruised lungs, but you confine the feeling to the back of your mind and concentrate on pushing your legs to a brisk walk behind the tall clone.

“...You know, he almost fought Faera when she was called in to stitch you up.” The words wring out a fresh admission of guilt from you, if Eir notices the heaviness of your silence, he doesn’t comment on it. You can’t blame him, his mind must be engulfed in a war-zone of its own right now.

“I’ve never seen him-” the surgical room doors seem to spin past each other as you and Eir pass them, each identical to the last. You wonder if the way they seem to blur together into a grey-white smudge makes Eir feel dizzy too, as you wait for him to pick up his sentence where he left it hanging under the pale lights. “-I’ve never seen him so terrified to leave a surgery before…”

Eir comes to a graceful halt at the end of a particularly dark stretch of the medbay corridor. A sigh born from concern hisses across the scar marring his lip and creases his brow. He wrings his gloved hands behind his back as his gaze rests on the final door looming in front of you both.

“...Make sure he’s ok will you? For me too.” Another sigh. Long, dark lashes flutter in contemplation as his fingers continue to twist around the apprehension, the guilt, as it spills away from him in the safety of the dark. “We’ve lost a lot of brothers these past few days… I’ve taken him off duty, but he won’t let me-”

The mess of feelings choke him now and he ducks his body away from you, snapping at the bunched corner of his gloves to steel his mind and breathing. Your voice finally finds itself once more as your fingers move to the door’s switch.

“I promise, Eir. Look after yourself too, okay?”

You stand in the doorway just long enough to see the back of his head tip forwards in a nod before you leave him to confront the very man you had set out to locate.

The moment the blast door closes behind you, all the air slips from your throat once more. The echo of hospital equipment set up across the wards finally numbs, and you’re left with little more than the harsh lighting crawling across the room to distract yourself from the sight in front of you. Your heart keeps on rising until you can taste it: nervous and bloody and wretched.

Kix sits with his back to you atop the surgical table in his blacks - no scrubs, no armour and armed only with a bottle of brandy hanging from his deft surgeon’s fingers. The room itself is heavily sanitised and free from gore and death, not unlike the one you had woken up in that same morning, yet it still manages to conjure a feeling that's downright insidious as the atmosphere crawls over your skin.

The entire base stinks of death today, the sickly pallor of Kix’s skin under the lights appears to indicate that he's danced beside its path far too many times now.

The clack of your boots against the floor is soon smothered by the neon as you edge yourself closer to where he sits, motionless in place. Had the arch of his shoulders not been gently rising with each breath he took, you would have been convinced that death had claimed him too.

“Smuggling in alcohol to the medbay, Kix? I would have expected better from a medic.”

You try to keep your tone light as it always is when you greet each other, but the words tumble out sour and tired, scratching your throat and flooding the gashes they leave with guilt the moment that they’re free. They trip forward and tie themselves around your feet, begging you to turn back around and leave. You ignore them, stepping closer into the room. You find yourself tracing the wedding of tattoos and patterns shaved into the back of his skull to calm yourself in the silence. The bottle remains suspended at his side, an all too familiar barrier for you both.

The seconds feel heavier than ever before he finally shrugs them away, throwing you a backwards half-glance over his shoulder, wordlessly beckoning you closer despite the hesitation that clenches across the muscles in his arms. Your attempt at lightheartedness is all a facade and you both know it. The fact that your hands have begun their crawl up the sides of his biceps to massage the knotted stress out of his shoulder blades is revealing enough of your true intentions.

You don’t waste energy with empty inquiries into if he's ok - none of the GAR medical staff are, after all, statistics and corpses cannot lie.

He leans back into your touch appreciatively, taking the utmost care to keep the brunt of his weight off of you. Kix’s gaze is locked on the swirling golden contents of the bottle in his fist now, the expression branded across them reminds you of the one Eir’s face had mirrored minutes prior. Another lump curdles in your throat as you spread your palms a little wider across his back and lean into the warmth of his body from behind him. The table bites into your thighs.

“I wish I could tell you it matters if I drink on the job or not. I’ve lost every one of the boys I’ve touched in the last ten surgeries.”

The world pauses at his words.

He takes another heavy swig of the bottle, hissing at the sting of the liquid against his tongue. The smell of it between you turns in your stomach, but you press your face into the slope of his neck all the same, urging him to continue with a gentle press of your lips.

“... and then when they brought you in from the field, all bloody and unconscious - a little part of me started screaming to run away.” Kix pulls forward, gently separating you both so he can twist to finally look at you from the edge of his table-top perch. His eyes are painted with remorse, but beneath it they’re as warm as they always are when it comes to you. “I was so scared of killing you too.”

His eyes glass over the moment his fingers can’t fight their shiver long enough to hold the bottle anymore. The emotion in them shatters the same time it hits the table with a resounding thunk. 

You rush to gather him up in your arms before the first tears begin to fall, pulling his head to your chest in the hope that your heartbeat could soothe him where your words could not. His fingers are bitten and washed raw, but no amount of scrubbing could ever cleanse his memories of what he had seen, what he was yet to see. They’re blistered around the cuticles, and you press each knuckle against your mouth to try and kiss away the guilt and the pain they carry, anything to ease his burden even a little. You’re not naive, you know nothing short of a miracle would make things better as they currently stood, but you would sooner drop dead than let him be dragged down alone by the weight of it all.

“You did everything you could, you all did.” You whisper the words against the heat of his skin, moving away the bottle so you could coax him closer and away from the table. “You didn’t kill any of them, none of this is your fault. I know it, Eir knows it and so does every single one of the boys in this whole damn army”

He’s carved from solid muscle, yet he’s so beaten down that the defeat aches across his posture and sinks its teeth into his bones as he struggles to find his feet. He breathes in deeply, head lolling heavily in the crook of your neck to ground himself from breaking down and sobbing into you. Each breath is steady, counted, but his heart flutters erratically next to yours as his fingers twitch over where they know your injury lies, too terrified to touch near it in case they somehow unhook each of the stitches and spill your blood across the white room. You dance your own down his spine in drawn-out, fluid movements. Your mind is aflame with the knowledge that though his body may gradually begin to unfurl, as long as he remains planted in this place his mind will be primed to snap again and again, until there is little left for you to reach.

He’s torturing himself by remaining here long after his shift has ended, you note. The realisation punctures something deep and threatens to drag forward fresh tears of your own. You pull back then despite the reluctance of both your limbs and the man tangled between them, gently patting his shoulder once before lacing your fingers against his clammy palm.

“Come on.” It's not a request as much as it's an instruction, one that leaves no room for argument despite the dull pain that throbs across your tone.

Eir is nowhere to be seen when you finally succeed in leading Kix by the hand out of the surgical room, you don't know whether to be relieved or concerned at the fact. The air across the ward still tastes of sickness and fear, it clips you as you push past it and out towards where your quarters are located.

Your room is small and most certainly not designed to house two people, but it's a better place to grieve than on a cold slab of operating table. Perhaps you think, that you’re also a little selfish enough to want him next to you tonight. Just so that you can ensure he isn't falling to pieces in that cold, aseptic cage of a surgical room if nothing else.

Your hands are endlessly gentle as you bundle him into the narrow bed before placing them on the mattress to carefully ease yourself in next to him. He senses your discomfort immediately, shuffling over to help you climb beneath the sheets in a position that takes the pressure off your wound. The care with which he handles you defrosts a little of the sadness freezing your blood, grateful that even when he was hurting so deeply himself, his adoration for you still continued to dapple like sunlight through every action he undertook. You draw him back into your chest again then, engulfing him in the warmth and safety that you extend to him with your entire being. Kix’s eyes shut themselves tightly, lashes fluttering against your pulse as he listens in for the thrum of your heart against your rib-cage. A tiny part of you hopes that it will be enough to lull him into some much needed slumber, but the cynicism dominates and quashes the thought as soon as it bubbles to the surface - its all wistful thinking once again, neither of you will sleep much at all tonight, that much had been foretold the moment you were discharged from the medbay that same morning.

The smell of brandy is weaker on his breath now as he trails his fingers over your torso, having finally found the strength to touch you now that he had been liberated from his self imprisonment. A shudder kisses down your spine at the sensation. It's as though he’s mapping out every little bit of your body, like you will be taken away from him if he doesn’t.

The same bitter cynicism screams in your ear once more, reminding you that in this war there’s no real guarantee you won’t be pulled apart either way.

You force it down alongside a fresh curtain of tears.

His digits halt once they loop towards the medical dressing plastered to your side, it's as if the newfound obstacle has clashed with his memories of your body enough to shock him to an abrupt stop. Slowly, cautiously, his touch withdraws away from the fabric as if it's dangerous.

“It’s proof that I’m alive.” He doesn’t respond outright, but you can feel his shoulders begin to shake underneath your caress, even though his face remains hidden under your chin. “You saved me, Kix, I’m here because of you.”

“My heart hasn’t stopped pounding from the moment they wheeled you in. It only got worse when they called me away to begin another procedure, all I could think about was what I would do if you didn’t wake up - like all the others before you.”

You curl around him tighter, hooking your legs around his own and cupping under his shoulder blades to draw him in even closer, grounding you both as he spills his heart until it bleeds into the sheets beneath you. Tears stream his face, less reluctant now. They veer down in fat streams and look drunk with how they cling to his cheeks and chin.

“...These boys need you, Kix. You would need to carry on, as we all do-”

“I wouldn't want to.”

You let him say it, let it drip like poison from his lips in the hope that it's at least cathartic to the guilt radiating from within him. You snuff out any words that threaten to follow with a kiss to his forehead, prolonged and firm enough to soothe the lump in your throat as much as it is for him. He cranes his head upwards to capture the second kiss with his own mouth. There's nothing gentle about how his lips mesh with your own this time, his kiss is searing with its passion and it steals away what little breath you have left. A hand threads itself behind your nape to pull you impossibly closer in the tiny bed, the other digging into your hip bone as though you would dissolve into starlight if he failed to hold you in place.

His cheeks feel damp as they scrape against your face, dying the kiss salty with tears. They overpower the bite of the brandy on his tongue in the same way they must do to the alcohol burning in his veins. The sheets twist and threaten to slip from the bed frame as you press to turn him onto his back despite the twinge in your side. His eyes snap back open, wide and alert in protest at your overexertion. You shut down the medic side of him with a single finger to his parted lips, a smile blossoming across your face for the first time that day. The thin sheets pool around your hips, binding both sets of the legs beneath it together. He relents with his unvoiced complaint, frown still reluctant, but eyes swimming with golden waves of emotion as he stares up at you. 

“I love you.”

He’s said it before, a few times now - but back then the words were always seeped in alcohol and playful bravado. This is different, it's raw and choked with affection that runs deeper than any liquor could ever reach. It decorates across his face in such detail that it puts his tattoos to shame, and it drags forth another wave of tears that have been collecting behind your lashes. They drip into your smile as it splits wider.

“I love you too, Kix. More than you’ll ever know.”

You surge forward to kiss across his face and neck, relying on the peppered heat of your lips and passion to communicate what mere words never could - to reassure every part of him that you were real, alive, and hopelessly in love with him, that come morning, he wasn’t going to wake up to your body laying there cold and accusatory with his failure to save you.