63. “What do you mean? It’s exciting!”
Muzzle/Knol?
“I'm checking you over for brain damage,” Alpha-17 tells him flatly.
Muzzle blinks, lowering his beer, and finally manages to drag his gaze away from where Knol is sprawled out by a table in the corner, her back against the wall and her boots in Jon's lap. She’s grinning, and in the low light her fur has an undertone of scarlet, her mane a shimmer of gold. It’s hard to stop looking.
The stare Alpha-17 gives him says he can see exactly where Muzzle’s attention is, and he’s judging him for it.
“Brain damage,” he says threateningly. “You. I'm checking. You got involved with a Jedi?”
Muzzle, who’s seen exactly how Jon looks at Alpha-17, closes his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose in despair. He won't say anything. He promised.
“We’re not soldiers anymore, 17,” he says, and Alpha pulls a face, waving for a refill.
“We’re always going to be soldiers,” he says flatly. “And you're taking up with a Jedi? That Jedi?”
“That Jedi is one of the people who killed the Sith Lord,” Muzzle says mildly. He glances across the bar, to where Ghriawraaki and the rest of his crew is, and she tips her head back and rumbles something he can't quite catch over the sound of the bar. If Ghria isn't looking alarmed, though, Muzzle isn't about to be; he trusts Wookie instincts more than his own at this point, and three Wookies together aren’t exactly easy targets.
“She got you arrested,” Alpha-17 snaps. “On Zeltron. She’s a bad kriffing influence.”
“What do you mean? It’s exciting.” Muzzle takes another long sip of his drink, and can't help the way his eyes slide back to Knol when her laugh rings out. She has her head tipped back, grinning as she pokes fun at Nico, and the light shimmers on her fur like the fire she can twist around her fingers just as easily as she does Muzzle. If it means getting to stick close to her, Muzzle would gladly get arrested on Zeltron every day for the rest of his life.
“Kriffing brain damage,” Alpha-17 despairs, and pours them both some shots.
