#starqueenswrittenworks

“Thank the Maker,” he exclaimed as he attempted to swallow the panic that had taken up residence in the back of his throat. 

His feet took him urgently toward you, stowing his pistol in it’s holster with a deftness that his trembling hands should not have possessed, and the now-redundant flashlight fell with a thud to the floor, spinning away to uselessly brighten a forgotten corner as he closed the space between you and flung his arms around your shoulders.  

The startled gasp that escaped your lips at the unexpected movement went ignored. He spared no consideration for the way your arms balked against the restriction of his unexpected embrace; your choked and stuttered demands for distance and clarification registered even less in his mind than your obvious sense of alarm. He would explain after… He’d offer a million apologies in just a minute… What mattered most to him in this second was that you were safe— you were there in front of him unailed, injury free and not bludgeoned to death by the bloodied hammer still imprinted in his mind's eye. 

“T— Tech?!” you stammered, the futile attempts at tugging your arms free creating barely enough leverage to tip your head back and peer upward at your captor. “Is that you? What— what are you doing here?” 

“You are alive,” he spoke, seizing the brief opportunity that your acknowledgement presented and retightening his grip around your shoulders.

“Of— of course I am?” you answered, the snort of incredulity almost completely muffled by the power of his embrace as you slowly reciprocated his affection by encircling his narrow waist. “How did you get in here?”

But your behest for an explanation once again failed to pull even a fragment of reasoning from his lips, that brilliant mind utterly failing in its feat to process the emotional undulation of your perceived murder, and he hung his head silently into the gap above your shoulder, greedily breathing in the same scent he’d spent countless mornings trying to imagine were in the bunk next to him.

“This doesn’t look like any ‘perilous and life-threatening event’ that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Hunter’s amusement, while somewhat muffled by the modulator in his helmet, was entirely apparent in the small chuckle that followed his quip. Tech snapped his head toward the door, the intrusion he’d utterly forgotten was on its way taking quick advantage of the adrenaline still doping his blood and setting every inch of his akin aprickle. Yet… having your form pressed against his in that quiet moment of long-anticipated reacquaintance had embedded him with a need for you equally as powerful, and releasing you from his clutches felt oddly like he was willingly permitting a limb to depart his body.

“Who— who are you?” you voiced as you turned toward the door, shielding your eyes with the same hand that had last been the recipient of Tech’s converged affection.  

“Hunter,” the sergeant chirruped, boots treading thoughtlessly atop that trail of morbid, red breadcrumbs as he crossed the room and extended a hand. “Glad to see you’re not dead.” 

“Why would I be dead?” you asked as you shook his hand, a very potent confusion still swaddling every word that left those lips.

“Good question,” Hunter chuckled, tipping his head forward slightly to pull that painted plastoid bucket from his head. “Can’t say I have an answer. Tech was losing his marbles about a limp fickle tree or someth—?” 

“Ficus,” Tech interrupted, feeling a fresh surge of embarrassment rise to his already heated cheeks. Those frenzied emotions… the atypical and unbridled panic from mere minutes ago was being quickly usurped by a coursing regret for the composure he’d altogether abandoned the minute your safety was in question. 

He cleared his throat and shifted his goggles on his nose, shying away from your inquiring gaze as it returned to him. “My apologies for the infiltration,” he continued, readjusting his helmet needlessly under his arm. “My brother and I returned with every intention of completing the required electrical repairs, only to find the premises looking uncharacteristically derelict. Regrettably, I had no means of contacting you, so I permitted myself entry hoping to affirm your safety, or collect clues to identify the assailant.”

He chanced a glance in your direction; the way your wide eyes darted intently yet curiously back and forth between his instantly threatened to steal the justification still poised on his tongue, and watching your lip disappear between your teeth saw the battle against that  implacable itch to reach for your hand vigorously resurrected. 

“There was undeniable evidence that harm may have come to you,” he offered, reaching instead for his datapad and tipping the screen toward you. “My scanners indicated blood of a human origin splattered in several places, with a significant percentage of it congealing atop the handle of a hammer still perched in the sink. Objectively, all access points to the establishment appeared to have been boarded to prevent any external supposition, eliminating any obvious need for an investigation. Your beloved flora was presenting with several signs of neglect, and I noted a discarded caf beside the computer that my scanners confirm has been sitting undisturbed for nearly two dozen rotations.”

“Ew, what?!” you exclaimed as your expression shifted abruptly from concern to disgust, nose scrunching as you peered over your shoulder toward the counter.

“Is that what that smell is?” Hunter queried under his breath, his throat bobbing heavily as if trying to steel himself against the cresting heave in his stomach.  

But the notion of the abandoned dish and its putrid contents didn’t befuddle you as it had Tech, instead he watched your eyes soften and roll before an incredulous scoff huffed from your nose. 

“Figures,” you groused with a small shake of the head. “He has the wherewithal to put a bloody hammer in the sink but not the dirty mug.” 

Tech paused, your grumbled words failing to establish even a scrap of sound reasoning in his already overladen mind, and the slight cock in Hunter’s brow as he turned to glance inquisitively at his brother clearly indicated he was equally as confused by your insufficiently explanatory grievance.  

“Who’s ‘he’?” the sergeant asked on their behalf.   

“My father,” you answered with another disgruntled roll of the eyes. “I asked him to come here and seal the place up for me.” 

“Your father left this carnage?” Tech posed, unable to keep the bewilderment from his voice. “How peculiar.” 

“But… why?” Hunter added.   

“It’s a long story,” you replied, failing to conceal a large yawn with the back of one hand as the other stretched high above your head. “And I’ll happily tell you the whole thing once I get some caf in me. Give me a few minutes to turn the power back on and then we can catch up.” 

The first twinge of an adoring smile tugged at Tech’s lips as he watched you first heave a preparatory sigh before squaring your shoulders and reaching for the handle of that soiled mug. With your nose pinched tightly between your fingers, and your cheeks  expanded to their full capacity under the strain of a held breath, you carried the dish at arms length and retreated to the back door. Tech watched you go without even really seeing you… eyes unfocussed, mind spinning tirelessly. It seemed wholly impossible that attempting to ascertain his feelings for you during their trek along that sunlit pathway had rendered him so uneasy that he nearly faceplanted; then mere seconds later, he’d hurled headfirst into a panic so foreign and inexplicable that even Hunter, his most astute brother and the person who likely understood him most in this galaxy, had difficulty navigating Tech’s discombobulated fears. Now here he stood, the ravaging tornado of emotions spanning the last half an hour, only a thing of the past. His mind, instead, brimming with nothing but absolute certainty of his affection for you, and it wasn’t until (“...oof!”) you tripped over the long-abandoned spools of wire and nearly slooped that rancid liquid all over the floor, that a distant glimmer of reality returned to him, and he hastened to retrieve the discarded flashlight and hand it over to you. 

“Was that a hug I just saw?” Hunter jeered, knocking his fist against the dome of Tech’s shoulder the second your figure vanished into the enshadowed hallway.   

The genius soldier did not answer, offering his brother a mildly embarrassed, reproachful glance before shifting his attention to the device in his hands. 

“You know Tech,” the sergeant persisted, keeping his voice tactfully low. “You’ve pulled some really impressive tricks out of your arsenal over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more impressed by you than I am now.”  

Tech let his brother's indirect praise wash over him, turning his response over in his mind several times. “It is most peculiar,” he uttered quietly to the screen as the lights flickered into life overhead, “That simply the notion of this companionship can trigger such dichotomous sentiments.” 

“What do you mean?” Hunter queried as he stepped toward the front door and pushed it closed. 

“Well… it seems implausible that one individual could initiate both anxiety and comfort in another, as they are contradictory emotional responses that otherwise do not theoretically coincide.” Tech kept his eyes pointedly downward to the illuminated device in his hands as he spoke. “How is it that my fear for the safety of another is rendered so paramount, that the notion of having lost said person clouds the judgement in which I hold in such high regard, particularly so when the person in question is one of whom I hardly know? Yet, the moment I deem their safety established, I am overcome with a protective urge so robust that I would unquestioningly forfeit the use of my limbs if encircling them promised a shield from any potential harm?” 

The momentary silence that ensued post-confession was undoubtedly amplified by the recent extermination of fracas from the outside world, yet nothing reverberated louder amongst the walls of that dusty shop than the proud pause that proceeded Hunter’s answer, the smile doming his inked cheek as he stepped back toward his brother entirely missed by the genius still staring deliberately downward.  

“I don’t know,” the sergeant answered slowly, placing a discerning hand on the top of Tech’s shoulder. “Feelings are powerful things… I guess we don’t give ‘em enough credit.” 

“Indeed,” Tech agreed as he finally lifted his gaze, eyes flashing as he peered at the space where you were due to appear at any moment… 

“Hunter?” he added quietly as a thoughtful silence reemerged.  

“Yeah, ‘vod?” 

“I do not think I will ever tire of this ‘feeling’.”

Hunter’s response was stolen off his tongue by the squeak of old hinges as you pried that back door open with the toe of your shoe,  reappearing moments later in the doorway with a green mug held carefully in one hand and a clear glass of water in the other; the way your lips pursed and hitched to one side as you focussed on maneuvering toward the counter without spilling either liquid, rearousing the tingle under Tech’s skin. 

“What’d’ya say we pull these boards down?” Hunter spoke loudly, clapping his brother on the arm before turning to face the obstructed windows.  

“That would be fantastic,” you said, carefully depositing your steaming mug beside the computer. “I’m handy enough in my own right, but I don’t trust myself not to pull a  ‘Dad’ and take a finger off trying to get them down.” 

“It’s not a problem,” Hunter answered, dismissing your comment with a wave of his hand as he crossed the room and debated which of the wood panels to dismantle first. “Tech, let's start with the one on the right—”

But Tech heard none of his summons, too enraptured with the charming crease between your brows as your concentration shifted toward your drooping plants, hands lovingly tipping that glass of water into the clay pot housing your limp, little tree. 

“—and then we’ll just go along the front and rip 'em down one by one. We can stack them in the corner out of the way for now. Ready? Tech…? Tech.”

“Coming.” Tech wrenched his gaze from you and hurried to meet his brother next to the furthest of the boarded windows.    

“I’m a little alarmed at how easily you broke in,” you admitted with a smirk as the duo trod past the counter moments later, carrying the first the half-dozen bulky boards between them.  

“It was quite simple,” Tech offered, lowering his end of the board to the dusty floor in the corner and keeping it stable while Hunter tipped it against the wall. “With the correct tool and the appropriate leverage, one can deactivate such an unsophisticated deadbolt system with relative ease. If the security of your store is of utmost concern to you, I would recommend installing a mechanical upgrade; one that permits only those who carry an individually coded microchip to ent—”

“What’s with the boards anyway?” Hunter interrupted, leading his rambling brother back toward the windows. 

“I, uh… I was on Ryloth.”    

The soldiers froze, hands stalling in their feat of tugging the next of the boards down while they exchanged fleeting, dark looks. “Ryloth?” Hunter repeated. “In the middle of a war? Hmm… that’s kinda—” 

“Kinda risky. I know,” you agreed, looking somewhat crestfallen as you perched your chin in your palm and gazed listlessly out the now transparent window. “In my defense, the war hadn’t really reached Ryloth when I bought my ticket. Though, admittedly, I would have gone anyway with the situation being so dire. Those poor kids… Maker, I feel for them. And it’s only going to get worse as access to medical supplies gets increasingly challenging…”

Hunter looked back at Tech and raised his eyebrows, confusion etched into every superficial line of that tattooed face as he readjusted his grip around the edge of the wood panel and tugged it free of its shoddy adhesion. 

“Are you being intentionally vague?” Tech voiced innocently while shifting his goggles on his nose. “Or have I simply overlooked a myriad of implied details?”  

“No,” you snorted, glancing at him with an unexpected affection and igniting a blush to his cheeks potent enough to force his gaze away from you again. “Sorry, I’ll backtrack a little…” As you picked your head out of your palm and perched yourself, instead, in the desk chair behind the computer, Tech reached for his end of the nearest board and gave it an assertive tug. “About a month or so ago, an impoverished family came in here looking for some help. There were these three kids– cute as a button, but losing their eyesight pretty rapidly. Their mom has a degenerative visual disease that the kids ended up unknowingly inheriting, and Dad was at-a-loss for what to do. There’s no cure for the condition itself, but I told them I’d make some glasses for them that would help preserve the vision they had left. I tried to expedite the process as much as possible, but they fled the planet before I could finish.”  

“They wouldn’t stick around for free glasses?” Hunter asked incredulously, eyes attuned to the floor below him as he walked carefully backward to the corner where they’d stashed the first panel.

“Their situation was pretty destitute,” you answered sadly. “Anyway… once their glasses were done, the only option left was to hand deliver them, as I don’t particularly trust inter-stellar couriers anymore with all the rampant piracy these days, and… well, part of me has always wanted to do some missionary work. Unfortunately, it was barely an hour after my shoes hit the sand outside of Lessu that the blockade was implemented, and all public transports were barred from entering or leaving the system. So I—”

“You’ve been trapped on Ryloth!” Hunter groaned. “For weeks!” 

“That explains the fetid caf,” Tech chimed. 

“Please don’t take this as a complaint,” you continued quickly. “Being on Ryloth and living with that family was an unforgettable experience, and one of which I would never have been granted the opportunity, but… I was more than a little worried about this place; this level of the Undercity is notorious for petty theft and pickpockets thanks to its proximity to the lifts, and the affluent clientele that trickles in from the surface one level above. A few days after I landed, I managed to get a transmission back to my Dad and asked if he’d come and secure the store until I could figure out how to get back, but… I think I might have drastically overestimated his handyman skills. He admitted to me afterward that a poorly-aimed hammer strike had done some damage to both his left thumb and my floor. He conveniently didn’t mention he was growing a mold farm in my favourite mug.”

“Any substantial trauma to the thumb could prove detrimental,” Tech spoke up, tipping the second board on top of the first. “The thumb houses several primary vascular bodies including the Princeps Pollicis, a major artery branching from the deep palmar arch. If the artery itself has sustained enough significant external force to cause a secondary dermal laceration, it has the potential to elicit substantial blood loss, not to mention warrant a possible surgical repairment.”

“And that explains the mess,” Hunter agreed, pointing toward the puniceous trail still adorning the floor beneath their feet.  

“Mess is an understatement now that I’m looking at it,” you chuckled. “I’m still not sure if I want to thank him for helping me or invoice him for all the cleaning I’m going to have to do before I can reopen this place.” 

***

It took just shy of an hour to remove and rehome the barriers your father had inexpertly installed, and the welcome addition of the dazzling sunlight through the now-unobstructed (albeit dusty) windows had the store feeling nearly exactly as Tech remembered. As he and his brother trod back toward the counter, dabbing droplets of sweat from their brow with the backs of their hands, the Ficus Elastica on the counter stood proudly erect in, what appeared to be, its own personal ray of sunlight. 

“Thank you so much,” you sang as they approached, the grin atop your lips challenging that bright celestial body in the sky for its title as the most radiant entity in the galaxy. 

“Not a problem,” Hunter answered as you hopped out of the chair and walked around the counter to meet them. “If the panels are still here the next time we’re planetside, I’ll get Wrecker to come rip up 'em and throw ‘em out back for you.” 

“That’d be great,” you nodded eagerly. “He’s the only one I haven’t met yet.”  

“Actually speaking of…” he continued, “I should check in and make sure Crosshair hasn’t lost his temper and used him for target practice. Gimme a second and then we can start the wirin–”   

“I can manage.”  

His interjection was abrupt, slipping off his tongue nowhere-near as passively or nonchalant as he’d intended when Tech opened his mouth to reassure his sergeant, and the responding look on Hunter’s face readily confirmed that Tech had also failed to conceal that burgeoning need to be alone with you. But he was fighting a losing battle; the trio stood only inches from where he’d first wrapped his arms around you. Despite continuing to dodge each other’s bashful glances, the near-irresistable urge to grab your hand and wreath you with his arms hadn’t left him since releasing you, and he was more determined than ever to swallow that ever-plaguing apprehension and physically communicate how much you’d been on his mind since your last encounter. 

“I am capable of completing the installation without assistance,” he added politely. “And Crosshair was particularly irascible this morning despite having acceded to his demand that I park the ship in an area of complete shadow, so the need for a supervisory presence is likely heightened.”  

“Shadow?” you interrupted questioningly from Tech’s elbow. “What does he have against daylight?” 

“Hurts his eyes in the morning,” Hunter answered offhandedly. “You sure, Tech? We lost time with the whole ‘possible-murder’ thing. Think you can tackle it alone?” 

“I will not be alone.” He glanced fleetingly in your direction before swallowing. 

Hunter hmph’d quietly, mimicking his brother and glancing your way as his lips twitched against the impish smirk he continued to stifle. “Well alright then,” he conceded, returning his brother's mildly guilty look with a rather knowing one of his own. “I'll leave you two to get… reacquainted. Just don’t abandon your comm again; there are no ‘unscheduled breaks’ from war no matter what you say.” 

“Thank you for the help,” you said, extending a hand toward the retreating sergeant. “And for making sure I’m not dead.” 

Hunter offered you a smile and a respectful nod before his face disappeared behind that painted plastoid again, and he made his way toward the front door. Distant, yet raucous laughter filled the shop as he pulled the door open and stepped over the threshold. 

“Oh… and don’t forget, Tech,” he added, the visor of his helmet poking back around the door unexpectedly. “We’re leaving for Felucia at first light tomorrow. Midnight curfew.” 

***

As you locked the door behind the departing sergeant, Tech stooped and collected the coiled wires from the floor, tossing them over his shoulder before following in your wake toward the sanctity of your workshop. Despite your established safety, he couldn't prevent his eyes darting toward that large aluminum basin as the kitchenette passed on the left, the tool that had so-instantly horrified him now scrubbed clean and leaning benignly against the side of the caf maker to dry. The moldy mug, however, was nowhere to be found, though the peculiar addition of a small, tightly tied garbage bag sitting on the floor by the fire exit had Tech near-certain he’d never see that red ceramic again. 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you offered as you veered right into the fabrication lab, the slight chuckle beneath your words recapturing Tech’s attention. “It seems that’s a habit I’ve unintentionally fallen into. First I gave you a heart attack about your goggles… then this. I’m regularly quite the bore, I promise.” 

Tech bit back the retort on his tongue as he stepped through the doorway— you, a bore? Well that seemed even less likely than Crosshair dropping to his knees and begging them to forgive his abhorrent attitude. 

“An apology is not required,” Tech spoke instead. “It would appear that I jumped to an inaccurate conclusion upon arriving here to find you missing. It was a most uncharacteristic overreaction, and one from which I now-suffer a great compunction.”  

“Compunction?” you repeated, brows furrowing at the implications of his confession as you reached gently upward and began to lift those heavy coils from his shoulder. “Why?” 

Tech hesitated for only a breath, watching your nimble fingers blanch under the weight of the wire as you took it from him. “Well… several years of advanced training and exposure therapy have rendered me effectively inured to a multitude of scenarios that others may deem distressing,” he divulged as something near concern wiped the smile from your lips. “Yet, I failed to maintain control of my emotions in the face of your disappearance. I became largely inexorable, making objectively impetuous and questionable decisions.” 

“Tech,” you uttered in little more than a consoling whisper, his stomach lurching as your free hand collected his from somewhere near his hip, those slightly chilled fingers weaving their way in between his before the soft, consoling brush of your thumb nearly weakened his knees.  “There is nothing to regret. Worrying about someone is nothing to be ashamed of, and arguably even less so if that person is someone you care greatly about. In fact, an initial surge of panic followed by attempts to verify their safety is likely the expected psychological response to such concerns. You walked into what looked like a very foreboding situation and had no data to disprove your suspected theory.”

“I suppose that is correct,” Tech shrugged, dropping his gaze to the toe of his oily boot, “Though it has been several years since I last studied the sympathetic subsection of the autonomic nervous system in response to traumatic stimuli.” 

“Sounds like an interesting read,” you mumbled through a sarcastic smile that prompted the return of his gaze. “Tell me– if the same situation presented itself again, would you not react similarly? Would you not do everything within your power to make sure that someone was okay while everything around you was telling you they’re not?” 

“Of course I would.” 

“Then that’s that,” you answered simply. “There’s no reason to regret your actions, just like I don't suffer any contempt for getting myself stuck on Ryloth. Making the trip there was the best and potentially only solution based on the information available to me at the time. Things went awry… and that’s okay, because we should always do what our gut is telling us to do when it comes to things and people that we care greatly about.”   

And there it was: that intemerate benevolence that he wholly adored about you, reemerging to knock him over the head with a validation that he’d never experienced before… and the subsequent moment, as his eyes locked on yours and his grip on your hand tightened, he felt truly seen as himself. Not Tech the highly-skilled soldier… not Tech the ingenious mechanic responsible for keeping the GAR’s most elite squad in the air… not Tech the pilot who loved his datapad above all else and never slept. You saw Tech… accepting and welcoming him as he is; validating his infrequent displays of vulnerability as if humanity was something he could and should experience first hand without fear of persecution or judgement. 

“Oh, and don’t think I didn’t catch that,” you added, brow shifting into a devious arch as a playful smirk tugged at your lips.  

“Catch what, exactly?” 

“The oxymoron you dropped in there: ‘found you missing’. Someone can’t be found and missing, hun. But keep dropping them– I’ll catch ‘em every time.” 

Was it that teasing smile, or the enamoring, little puffs of air that escaped your nose as you snickered in the wake of your own coy intelligence? Or could it be the way your gaze kept darting from his eyes to his lips, that had him feeling as if he were suddenly hovering? The ground had, at some point, simply disappeared from below those smeared and blackened boots– vanishing into nothingness with everything else that had previously encircled them underneath those dim, humming lights. There was simply nothing but your hand interlaced with his. Nothing but the soft flutter of your eyelashes as they danced with every subtle shift in your gaze, and the unobtrusive quiet of an empty building that promised no foreseeable interruption. Every unhurried second ticked into the past by the chrono on the wall saw him pulled toward you by a force presented to him only once previously– when he’d boldly adorned the back of your hand with the same gesture that he longed to press to your smiling lips. 

But… did you want that? Was your heart also hammering heavily in your chest, threatening to send the room spinning more than it already was? Were you as captivated with his eyes as he was with yours, letting that effulgent twinkle dazzle him like the radiance of hyperspace did? Had the last month also seen you seeking out moments of solitude, keen to forgo the mundanity of the present in favour of vanishing into the memory of him? The memory of an utterly ineffable connection? 

Or were you standing there watching his eyes flutter closed, wondering what in Maker’s name you’d done in your past life to warrant having to endure such an awkward encounter? Was your mind frantically trying to find the words to politely reject his bold advance? Were you desperate to yank your hand from the clutches of his clammy gloves, and assert that he simply complete the required electrical repairs and then vanish indefinitely? 

That sabotaging little flitter of doubt was enough to have Tech leaning backward, eyes opening to their full extent and quickly darting toward his boots while he reached for his goggles and shifted them needly atop his nose. 

“Tech?” you whispered as he pulled his hand from yours, stowing his gauntlet comm in the pouch at his thigh before tugging at his gloves.  

“I should initiate the electrical deconstruction,” he muttered as his face burned, pulling his datapad from its holster and bringing it to mere inches from his nose. “Can you please deposit those coils in the corner underneath the panel?” 

“Sure.”

The sigh that preceded your curt answer was near deafening, circling around that quiet room what seemed to be half a dozen times before it dissipated into the now suffocating quiet. And while that soft huff of exasperation had near-tortured him, it was the unbridled disconcertment wholly engulfing your reply that stole his attention back from his device, and he watched with a sense of suppressed horror as your face fell rapidly into, what looked to him, an expression of dispirited chagrin. 

***

Tech spent the next several hours near-furious at himself. Thoroughly incensed that his body never failed to repeatedly fall into the encompassing urge to physically connect with you whilst his mind remained downright incapable of elucidating the veracity of his perception, and infiltrating every modicum of that surging desire was an equally powerful right-hook of uncertainty. 

Chiefly infuriating was your continued, unwavering kindness; he could barely stomach the ever-gracious way you offered to help him at regular intervals. Truthfully, he’d like nothing more than to have you hovering at his elbow for the entirety of the process, handing him whatever tool was required to progress the installation and witnessing him do what he truly did best while he chattered endlessly about the importance of matching the electrical capacity of the wire to its respective fuse. Yet, every time his eyes met yours, he was harrowingly reminded of his close shave with humiliation; reminded of the sheer confusion he’d seen behind your eyes as he pulled away from you, and your persisting geniality had him nearly-suspicious it was nothing more than a front upheld until the work was complete. 

For the sake of niceties, and as a measly effort to atone for his self-proclaimed embarrassing behaviour, he accepted the glass of water you’d offered him shortly after he began the labour-intensive work, though despite the layer of dust gathering in his throat with every inhale, it sat untouched on the counter beside the lens generator.  

He took his frustration out on the task at hand, snipping wire casings with an unnecessary gusto and scowling anew with each new electrical breaker that he clicked into place, but it seemed no degree of mechanical tinkering could distract him from the resentment coursing through him. Even the addition of a small radio, churning out happy-go-lucky, intraplanetary hits every couple of minutes was no match for his morose mood. 

“Tech?” he heard you probe from the doorway several hours later, as he stooped over the sink in the kitchen and began to scrub the grime from his hands.

“Mmm?” he answered, ignoring the prickle erupting on the back of his neck at the sound of his name leaving your lips. He felt you approach, listening to the muted scrapes of your shoes on the floor as you neared, casually leaning against the counter in his peripheral vision. 

“My brain might still be on Ryloth time but… were– were you about to kiss me?”

His stomach plummeted to his toes, eyes quickly unfocussing on that aged and rusted drain, hands briefly hesitating in their attempts to rid his skin of the encrusted soot and grime that had accumulated over hours of working in the walls. 

“Yes,” he admitted after a poignant swallow, and found himself watching the drain noisily consume the stained suds falling from his fingers, hoping the gurgling sound would be loud enough to drown your surely impending stammered apologies for the uncomfortable misunderstanding and your request that he leave and take his misguided feelings with him. 

“Well why didn’t you?” 

His head jerked somewhat awkwardly; he’d nearly snapped his gaze toward you, only to stop himself part way through as the sound of your stifled chuckle surprised him. Tech stilled upon realizing that laugh had not sounded chastising at all. Nor jeering or humiliating, nor repulsed or repugnant. It sounded almost… frustrated. Indignantly accusatory, as if you were mildly annoyed that he hadn’t kissed you. 

He reached blindly for the towel folded on the counter adjacent the sink, lips pursing as he thoughtlessly ran that cloth between his fingers until his skin began to revolt against the continued abrasure. 

“Tech?” you whispered, the delicate probe successful in only fleetingly drawing his gaze.  

“My affection for you, while subjectively highly enjoyable, is paired with an exponential degree of uncertainty that I have never previously experienced,” Tech divulged to the fabric in his hands. “And there are recurrent moments when, despite all other variables suggesting otherwise, I suffer an inherent doubt that you would ever reciprocate my feelings. You are well educated and even better mannered… meticulous with the quality of your work… exceedingly intelligent… your compassion for others and your willingness to assist them, even where the circumstance would deem reciprocity impossible, is truly unrivaled by any person I have ever met and… and…” He paused to regain control of his words as they spilled uncontrollably from mind to mouth.  

“Tech, hun,” you cooed through the ghost of another exasperated laugh. “You are all of those things too. You have no vested interest in this shop yet here you are, laying on your back in the dust, doing several days worth of electrical work so this place can function at peak productivity and make my life easier. You graciously donated several hours of your time last month to help me plough through the mountain of work that had been looming over me for days. You broke in here ready to hunt down and assault whomever it was that had allegedly harmed me without even a thought for yourself. Despite having malignantly convinced yourself that you lack emotional intelligence, you have a truly exceptional mind. You are uncommonly and refreshingly polite, and you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, which is saying something because I’ve seen a lot of eyes. I– I’m kinda crazy about you, too.”  

A truly exceptional mind? Refreshingly polite? Did you believe all of this to be true? He searched every inch of your face for any signs of insincerity, any fragments of dishonesty, any twitch of the lip that might disenchant the gratification coursing through his veins from your admonishment. 

“Well,” he continued, attempting to keep his tone neutral as the realization that he’d likely blown his chance with you threatened to kick his heart clean out of his chest. “With any luck, another moment shall present itself where I may demonstrate how much you undoubtedly mean to me.” 

He jammed his finger needlessly against the bridge of his goggles, dejected gaze dropping back to boots now dirtier than ever while a quiet, albeit forlorn sigh left his lips and he resumed inattentively fiddling with the little towel. 

“Well,” you mimicked. “Since, the ‘ideaology of luck’ is, apparently, illogical…  allow me.” 

He must have stumbled over his toes in the subsequent second, though the most he’d ever be able to offer was a deduction based on the force you’d used to tug him toward you. In the reality of that moment, your perfect response to the divulgence of his feelings and the unexpected affirmation that you, too, felt similarly, had instantly rendered him euphorically ignorant to anything other than the feeling of finally having your lips against his. 

That damp little towel somehow ended up displaced and draped atop the caf machine, but exactly how and when it had left his hands was a mystery that did not need solving. There was simply nothing else worthy of consideration or acknowledgement in that moment; nothing more important than the small drafts of warm air cascading across his cheek every time you shifted your lips atop his; nothing more prudent than the small yet mighty grip you maintained on the collar of his chest plate keeping him no more than a breath away from you. Somehow, you ended up perched on the counter next to that hammer, its existence now so inconsequential that it wasn’t even spared the courtesy of a glance as it fell over and landed with a thunk behind the caf machine. Tech didn’t even notice you blindly lift his goggles from his nose and rest them on his forehead, though the tender brush of your thumbs along the chronic indents on his cheeks sent shiver after shiver down his spine. 

It wasn’t until your lips separated from his, and he was enveloped almost entirely with that same feeling of permitting a limb to depart his body that he returned to some semblance of awareness. 

“Are you still uncertain?” you asked him with a smile that sat somewhere on the border of devious and playful. 

“Darling,” Tech answered near-breathlessly, “The only notion unclear to me at this point, is how I will survive until I can see you again.” 

“Speaking of…” you sighed, gesturing to the small chrono embedded into the caf machine. “You should probably head out. It’s nearly midnight.” 

Tech glanced at the old clock as it mocked him. 23:44 pm. Just enough time to collect his tools from their scattered displacement around the fabrication lab and depart the store. He’d be climbing the Marauder’s ramp within minutes… silently deposit his pack in the cockpit… settle down at the workstation to tinker with his current modification project and reminisce about his afternoon in your company. But… why? Surely if his squad members were already tucked into their bunks, or quietly preparing their weapons for deployment tomorrow, there would be no harm in staying here a little longer with you? “There are no unscheduled breaks from war, no matter what you say…” The sergeant had been referencing his previous alibi; the off-the-cuff excuse Tech had offered his brother after the previous, irresponsible mistake of letting his comm depart his person had ensured him unavailable and unreliable. 

His jaw tensed under the audacity of what he was about to do. 

“Please excuse me,” he requested of you politely, stealing a chaste peck of a kiss from your lips before stepping backward and extracting his gauntlet comm from the cargo pouch where he’d previously stored it for safekeeping.  

“Hunter,” he spoke after activating that little blue light. “What time are we set to depart for Felucia?”

“0600…” his sergeant answered suspiciously. “But curf—” 

 “I will see you then.”

 “Te—!”

Tech silenced his comm with the blind poke of a button and tossed it carelessly to the countertop where it came to rest next to the hammer, his hands instantly reaching to cradle your waist while he chased your kiss so eagerly that you nearly toppled backwards.

***

An hour. It took an hour to stop kissing long enough to resume talking, and then several hours after that to accept that neither of you were going to achieve any other productive tasks that night. Still wholly invigorated by your union, Tech declined your midnight offer for a caf, though with how the taste lingered on your tongue between sip and kiss, he may as well have drank a cup on his own. 

At quarter-past two, you dragged him by the hand back toward the lens edger and lifted his goggles from his nose. You first giggled about how much he absentmindedly squinted in the void of his regular, average eyesight, before instantly launching into an educational titter about precisely why humans even developed that anatomical squint response, and how effective it can be at temporarily improving visual acuity. And while he longed to query every fact against one of which he’d researched on his own time, he’d found a new use for his lips that he much preferred. 

Shortly after four, as you locked your hands around his waist and groaned into his chest about having to spend the next several days on your hands and knees, scrubbing the floor in preparation for the reopening of your store, Tech accidentally knocked over a bottle of effervescent blue liquid; the same concoction you’d used to disinfect his glasses previously, and a quick glance at the ingredients list while he collected the dripping container had him instantly yammering about how the peroxide additive would be the perfect solution for removing the embedded blood stains.  

A short time later, an unseen gang of bad mouthed adolescents were heard hollering on the other side of the fire exit door, their voices amplified by the stillness of the night and the empowered notion that they were loitering where they were not permitted, and despite their inebriation posing no apparent threat while you remained behind a locked door, Tech still refused to let you leave the backroom until he could confirm their exodus. 

At half-past five, an oversized yawn barely concealed by your hand reminded Tech that, despite wishing Father Time would simply abandon his post and gift him a moment with you free from that nagging and imminent deployment, his squad was waiting for him; his sergeant likely highly perturbed and waiting for the pilot’s next transparent excuse.  

“How do the eyes feel now?” you asked over your shoulder as you walked ahead of him toward the front door, his pride-and-joy helmet bobbing near comically on your head as it concealed the smile that he could hear lay atop your lips. 

“Much improved,” he answered, breathing in what he could before your companionship would be lost to him for another little while. 

“Thought so!” you chuckled proudly, the modulator in his helmet distorting the music of your amusement. “Changing the refractive indices of a lens can sometimes initiate a bit of a hiccup in visual processing, especially when paired with changes in curvature and correct application of coatings, but the foreign sensation typically dissipates within a rotation or so.”  

“May I remind you, you need not have gifted me new lenses.”

“I just supplied the material,” you argued, helmet wiggling again as you casually shrugged away the innocent condemnation in his tone. “You did all the work the last time you were here. They’ve been sitting here waiting for you to come back so I could put them in your goggles. Plus, yours were in… questionable… condition, and if your last set were any indication of Kaminoan knowledge of refraction, you’re much better off with these.  How do you feel about the slight tint after wearing it for a few hours?” 

Tech forced his gaze toward the window where the sky was undoubtedly beginning to lighten under the embrace of the sun's first morning rays. He, truthfully, hadn’t given that slight yellow tint any thought in some hours; what was initially found quite unusual had quickly morphed into something… “Quite calming,” he answered.

“There’s built-in blue light protection, too, for all the quality time you spend with that datapad. Give it a month or so, and your circadian rhythm will thank me.”

You stopped when you reached the front door and turned around to face him. Despite the exhaustion having swollen the tender skin beneath your eyes, there was no denying they were still alight and twinkling as they watched him approach. But Tech stopped shortly after you did, knowing that the nearer he reached the door, the nearer he’d be to leaving, and he wasn’t yet done processing the night's events. The budding sunrise on the other side of the glass was bringing with it an understanding he never knew he’d been deficient. So this… this is what he spent his days fighting for. Feelings like this. Companionships like ours. People like you who spent their time trying to better the lives of others without even a hint of motive. Someone who cared if he returned or not.  

Tech sighed, very aware that finding the correct words to elucidate his feelings for you was simply a task for another time. For now, as the sun continued to betray him by rising ever higher with every lingering breath, he wanted every last second with you to be one completely void of thought. 

“How many fingers am I holding up?” you probed suddenly, breaking into his torpor. He refocussed his gaze and found another of those playful smiles crinkling your eyes, palm raised to shoulder height and facing him. 

He let only the ghost of scoff depart his nose as his lips lengthened under their own smile, and he resumed his approach, not stopping until the toes of his boots were nearly touching yours. As he reached upward and gently pulled his helmet from your head, a faint ache erupted in his chest, amplified by the quiet snicker that left you and the regretful reality of that sound being one he would not hear for the foreseeable future. 

“Five,” he whispered after tucking his helmet under his arm, interlacing his gloved fingers with yours and holding tightly to your hand. 

“Correct,” you breathed, eyes fluttering closed as he rested his forehead against yours. “If your next mission is counting fingers, you’ve got that in the bag.” 

“Considering Felucia is widely known as the Planet of Fungal Forestry, I would deem that largely improbable. However–” he added, identifying the first flickers of fear behind your eyes, “–it is highly probable that I shall return by month’s-end.” 

“If Cranky Crosshair doesn’t use you for target practice first?” 

“Cranky Crosshair compares naught to Hunter when he’s truly angry. Hence why I must not be any later than I already am. Goodbye for now, darling.” 

He stole one last, lingering kiss from your lips before reaching for the handle on that vibrant yellow door.  

***

Other Written Works Here

“Ugh, I should get up.”

Sentiments leaving those lips in little more than a contemptuous growl, he’d uttered that necessity nearly a dozen times now while the chrono continued to tick the future ever closer. Though, as if waiting for some unseen, divine force to grasp his shoulders and simply heave him upward from the ineffable warmth and comfort of that squashy, blanket-laden bed, the only muscle spared that lassitude were the few required to drape his arm across your hips and tug you backward until your curves matched those of his chiseled form.

But his repeated probes for motivation acted as only merciless reminders of yet another imminent absence, and further intensified the plaguing sense of foreboding that had you either unwilling or unable to turn and face him; the near-painful constriction in your chest brought on by his incipient departure ensuring your thoughts remained only that, as voicing a response to that sleepy room – that dawdling soldier – threatened instead to escape your lips as little more than a sob.

“Kriff, I really need to get moving…”

The resolve to maintain any semblance of composed pride vanished as, instead of lifting his body from that white cotton sanctuary, he leant forward slightly and gifted the slope of your neck a series of chaste kisses; hearty sniffle instantly exposing your hidden turmoil as his unexpected display of adoration sent you careening into the harrowing pit of anxiety you’d desperately attempted to shirk.

It took even less than a breath for that newly-stubbled chin to cease its ministrations atop your skin. “Are you upset?” he asked you, the heat of his breath departing your neck as he tipped back to survey your seemingly unexpected demeanor. “What’s wrong?”

“M’fine,” you choked back at him, hurrying to dispel that wetness from your cheeks with a gruff swipe from the back of your hand.

“Nice try,” he argued, chin sinking only slightly as he glared through those dark lashes in your direction. “Roll over. Tell me what’s going on.”

For a moment you considered simply ignoring that polite command, as watching those mismatched eyes absorb the fear neath your features only promised to swaddle you with an embarrassment equi-paralyzing as your present anguish… but more powerful was the realization that those same eyes would be entirely absent for the foreseeable future, and neglecting the opportunity further memorize every inch of that slender, olive skinned face would present as nothing more than your deepest regret should you never see it again.

With a laden sigh, you shifted your weight and rolled over, perching your head atop a bent arm while your free hand traced thoughtless lines atop the small section of uninhabited sheet between your bare bodies.

“I’m just… Well I feel kinda… I dunno,” you started, nearly cringing at how juvenile those words sounded whilst spilling so meekly from your lips. “I just get scared sometimes… Ever since what happened on the Triumphant… Ever since all those men…”

“Mesh’la—”

“What if that happens again?”

”I’m an infantry Commander now, Mes—”

”Okay then what if it’s a bomb that drops out of nowhere? A bunch of droids you didn’t see? Bad intel from stale recon?”

“M—”

“Or what if you do something brash on your next mission because someone’s gone and pissed you off, and it ends up being your demise because you were too busy scowling to watch for an ambush? What happens then? Am I just supposed to go on living without you like that’s even possible?”

Cursing the way your chin quivered atop the divulgence of your fears, you paused for a breath, gaze refusing to depart the mindless squiggles your fingertip still insisted on embossing into the soft sheet between you. But that astute Commander, your loving boyfriend, refused to entertain any degree of distraction in that moment, hurrying to place a calloused hand atop your own to cease the relentless attempts at placating the exposed anxieties of its owner.

Finally meeting his gaze, you spluttered, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Every time you leave, it just feels like you’re not coming home.”

That soft hitch between dark brows released the tension they’d adopted whilst attempting to follow your desultory reasoning, eyes softening in earnest as they danced to and fro from the contours of your still-trembling chin to the small cataract of tears now escaping the corner of your eye and landing with muted thuds atop the bed next your elbow. But no sooner had that softness emerged was it replaced by an unprecedented levity… the corners of his mouth perking upward as he fought to repress the smirk vying to erupt across those lips.

“Why are you smiling?!” you demanded upon watching his eyes narrow neath crinkled lids, suddenly aghast at the gallish mirth doming his cheeks. “What the kriff is so funny?”

“Nothing,” he defended, only barely repressing the chortle nestled in his throat. “Nothing is funny. I’d tell you not to worry, but you’re not going to bel—”

“Ugh! Just forget it!”

Turmoil suddenly banished by a burgeoning indignation, you sat bolt upright atop that now unwelcoming bed, tossing the sheet from your form and burying your toes into the soft carpet. Ignoring his objection, you snatched your robe from its discarded perch on the floor and stuffed your arms impetuously into each sleeve, nose tipping ever higher into the air as your frustration grew amid every snickering objection still spilling from his lips.

“Ey!” he eventually called as your hand reached for the door of your bedroom, the sudden banishment of all humour neath his tone capturing your attention only enough to still your movements. “Come over here.”

Again, the urge to ignore him presented itself strongly, defiance flaring in your chest in the echoing wake of his amusement, narrowed eyes glaring fiercely at the otherwise austere wood door still barring your exit.

“Cyare,” he warned as your failure to accede his demand continued.

You peeked over your shoulder, that ire quickly dissipating upon first sight of his miraculous figure suddenly exposed and near-glowing amid the budding light of a quickly materializing dawn; that perfectly contoured chest heaving gently amid the deep breaths that had fuelled his shift in posture, the rolling hills of muscle neath his shoulders put on display by their perch atop equally as muscular thighs, one elbow sitting near impatiently on his knee.

Upon the return of your gaze, he clicked his tongue, free hand jabbing a pointed finger toward the floor directly in front of his seat atop the side of that bed, and, infuriatingly so, there wasn’t a force anywhere in the galaxy strong enough to keep your feet still once he’d resorted to non-verbal commands.

Gaze dropping to your hands, you returned to that bedside, standing between his knees and permitting a poignant sigh to blast past your scowling lips.

“I’m sorry I laughed,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you as close as the edge of the mattress would permit, and watching him gently perch his chin just above your navel and gaze lovingly up into your eyes had your stomach lurching, as if the floor below your feet had utterly vanished the moment his eyes locked upon yours. “And you know it kills me that you feel like that… but I need you to trust me.”

Swallowing the reemergence of the lump in your throat, you placed your hands atop his shoulders and nodded faintly.

“Trust that I’m good at what I do…” he continued, tightening the wreath of his arms around your body, seemingly preparing for the chance his words may see you hurtling from the room again. “Damn good. And you need to trust that everything I do, every decision I make while I'm out there, is to make sure I get back to you. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, not permanently anyways. This… you… mean too much to me. Okay?”

Though you offered him another gentle nod, speech having been utterly stripped from your cognizance by his own heart-felt admission, he clicked his tongue again. “Say it,” he requested in little more than a whisper. “Say you understand and that you trust me.”

Desperate to commit that softened pleading look upon his face to memory, you stole a selfish moment just to gaze down into those asymmetric eyes, lips pursing as they threatened to release another unwanted sob.

“I trust you,” you breathed, guiding your hands to cup either side of that angular jaw, thumbs brushing softly across those supple cheeks. “And I love you.”

“Good,” he answered immediately, hands shifting to firmly clutch your ribs while he planted a kiss where his chin had just lain. “Now put those tears away and let’s get a nice hot shower before I have to go.”

“Ouuuu,” you cooed instantly, letting your eyelids flutter flirtatiously as he released you from his arms. “I’d love that. And if you hadn’t just laughed me out of the bed, I'd consider letting you join me.”

“Your inner brat doesn’t scare me, you know that,” Wolffe cautioned, darkened gaze now dancing hungrily across your semi-clothed form. “Now, get going before I put that mouth to another use.”

Other Written Works Here

Perhaps it was the welcome emergence of radiant sunshine this morning that had such an array of Coruscanti citizens seeking the comfort of a fresh scone and blue milk latte. Or, sadly, maybe it was the promise of cold and desolate weather tomorrow that had many seeking out the succor of a treat before that uncomfortable emergence of a fall drizzle. Or, perhaps, it was simply always this busy; with the Grand Republic Medical Facility in such close proximity, it was perfectly logical that such a diverse clientele, and a vast number of them, would visit the nearby caf house. Regardless of why, the sheer din of voices inside those four austere walls was a welcome change to the rhythmic beeps! that had relentlessly assaulted your awareness for nearly two full rotations. 

41 hours to be exact since the shrill chime of your holopad had roused you from your slumber, though it was the sheer panic immediately apparent in your sister’s voice that had sent you leaping earnestly from your bed and pulling on the nearest disjointed pieces of clothing. 

“My water broke!” she’d cried, her voice wavering beneath the surging anxiety of her imminent labour. “Can you meet me at the hospital?” 

41 hours since you’d pulled your speeder hurriedly into a parking space and sprinted through those hospital doors. 41 hours of sporadically having your hand squeezed to the point of simply wishing it would fall off. 41 hours of trying to doze in that creaky hospital chair, while the luminous barrage of Coruscant’s skyline kept you from truly finding the reprieve of sleep. 41 hours of the nurse droids rolling into the room at infuriatingly regular intervals, blinding her with an infrared beam of light as they scanned her vitals before disappearing again. 41 hours of listening to your sister, who’s anxiety was already exacerbated by the imminent reality of raising a child alone, whimpered amidst endless rounds of contractions, those excruciating cramps wracking her entire body with no relief. 41 hours… and still no sign of that baby. 

The hospital caf had been largely digestible for the first rotation, yet as sleep deprivation sunk further into your bones and apprehension continued to fester in those quiet minutes between contractions, just the thought of attempting to force that sludge down your throat saw your stomach churning anew.  

So at daybreak this morning, as the FX-9 medical droid finally conceded to numbing the lower half of her body and permitted your sister the solace of some much needed rest, you departed that stuffy hospital room in search of some real sustenance. 

Renee’s was the first door you’d found on your limited travels, its myriad of somewhat rickety bistro tables scattered both inside that congested space and across the front patio seemed a perfect place to mentally decompress before the need to rush back into the whirlwind of labour reemerged. More so, the thought of a nice baked good had you nearly drooling as you pulled the door ajar and filed into the line behind two bickering Ugnaughts. 

“‘Scuse me.” A voice broke into your wandering thoughts moments later, shortly followed by a thick purple arm reaching daringly across your chest. 

“No worries,” you offered that Devaronian man as he apologized for invading your personal space atop the need to deposit his used fork into the trash beside you, though even attempting a small step to the left neath an effort to grant him more space was a task near impossible thanks to the expanding crowd around the Pick-Up counter. 

“EXTRA LARGE, BLACK, NO SWEETENER!” 

How such a tiny body could have emitted such an assertive sound had you stifling a chuckle as you made your way through the throng toward the petite Pantoran woman placing a large kraft paper cup on the counter, yanking her askew apron back into place before disappearing again. You eyed that waiting caf near-possessively as you stumbled forward, stammering apologies to those you accidentally trod on in your efforts to reach it through the crowd. The promise of that hot, freshly brewed, steaming caf now felt like a talisman against the stress and anxiety awaiting you back on the 8th floor of that medical building, and you’d be damned if you didn’t savour every single sip—

“Oops, sorry…” 

An armoured hand knocked gently against yours as you reached to retrieve your blessed order, those gloved fingers instantly retracting as they collided with yours.

“No no, I’m sorry,” you asserted, looking upward at the person whose caf order perfectly matched yours.  

Even more shocking than the boisterous voice of the tiny blue woman, was the notion that you hadn’t initially noticed this man’s presence upon entering that cramped and crowded space. He stood out like a sore thumb amid that crowd in his dominating suit of white and orange plastoid, the deep scar wrapping from brow to cheek rendering him instantly imposing despite the softness behind those golden eyes.“I, uh… I assumed that was mine,” you continued somewhat breathlessly as his gaze found yours and momentarily froze the air in your lungs. “You’re a ‘black, no sweetener’ too?” 

He nodded, lips tensing under the first signs of smile. “The only way to drink a caf, if you ask me.”

“Agreed,” you grinned, trying to determine if the relentless hammering of your heart against the walls of your chest was the result of that unexpected confrontation, or the tingly feeling left in the wave of his eyes dancing across your features. “I can’t get behind this new trend of weird vegetable-spiced creams and chemically altered sugars. My molars hurt just thinking about it.” 

“You should hear my brother when he orders his,” the man answered with a laugh, those soft creases atop his forehead deepening as his amusement tugged his eyebrows upward slightly. “It’s some ‘non-fat, flip-it-back, no fuzz, extra cold’ …thing. Doesn’t even look like caf by the time they’re done making it.” 

You could only offer a small snicker in response, too distracted by how the small roll of those gorgeous eyes entirely lacked the contempt you’d expect to see when complaining about a sibling’s needless opulence, instead twinkling with something near a suppressed affection. 

“Well,” you started, feeling your face begin to flush under his soft gaze. “Feel free to take this one. I’m not in any sort of hurry.” 

“No no,” he argued, instantly protesting your offer by taking a small step away from the counter. “You go ahead. I’ll wait for the next.” 

“No, honestly,” you argued, retrieving the cup and giving him an encouraging nod as you pushed it against his worn and abraded chest plate. “I was going to wait around a little and see if they put out more muffins anyways. I was eying the last meiloorun one, but someone nabbed it before I could order.” 

“Ah,” he uttered, suddenly lifting a tiny wax paper bag to eye level and looking at you apologetically. “Guilty. Apparently we’re stealing each other's caf and breakfast.” 

“Apparently…” you teased amidst a feigned disapproval, heading shaking slowly while that persistent smile crept further across your lips. “You’re lucky you have a blaster at your hip or I’d be giving you a lot more attitude.” 

“Tell you what,” he proposed after a snort, “Since neither of us are in much of a hurry, I’ll take this caf and go grab us a table outside. Once you get yours, come find me and we’ll split the muffin. How’s that sound?” 

“Sounds like a plan,” you agreed with a nod. “As long as I get the bottom.” 

“The– the bottom?” His brows furrowed instantly, eyes widening while the tips of his ears reddenned. 

“Of the muffin,” you clarified instantly, feeling your own cheeks flush. “The bottom part of the muffin.” 

“Oh– right,” he answered, an apologetic smile peeling across those supple lips before a small snort shook his shoulders. “Okay, I’ll head outside.” 

It was only barely that you suppressed the embarrassing grin doming your cheeks in earnest as that unknown soldier disappeared through the front door and into that glowing sunshine, hands drumming anxiously against the outer parts of your thighs as you attempted to refocus your attention on the serving staff bustling around behind the counter. Seconds felt like hours, minutes like days. Would he actually wait for you? Save you a seat? Split his breakfast? Or had he already taken his wares and left, too polite to grant you a true rejection whilst surrounded on all sides by others?

With something near-impatience welling in your chest, you chewed on your lip and stared intently at every staff member that approached the counter with a kraft paper cup in their hands, heart lurching anew with every order called loudly atop the din of that growing crowd until finally… 

“EXTRA LARGE, BLACK, NO SWEETENER.”

Muscles seizing briefly as the shriek of that tiny Pantoran server took you by surprise, your feet took you hurriedly toward the counter, hands scooping up that steaming cup and wreathing it near-protectively as you thanked the woman and turned on your heel. 

That orange paint was immediately apparent some half a dozen tables from the door, gaze downward at the cup wreathed by his left hand, while his right drummed somewhat thoughtlessly against the tabletop next to an equally worn and distressed looking helmet. 

“Made it.” 

You’d hardly reached to place that cup down on the table and shove your wallet back into place before he rose from his seat to greet you, the legs of that aged and wobbly iron seat scraping loudly atop the stone below atop his sudden motion. 

That unexpected chivalry nearly froze you in your tracks as you nudged your own chair away from the table enough to lower your aching body down, offering him an appreciative smile as he waited until you’d situated yourself before mirroring your action.  

“Just sat down when I realized, I didn’t even ask your name,” he spoke amidst a dazzling smile, wasting no time passing that wax paper bag across the table for you to claim your part of that baked good first. 

“To be fair, I didn’t ask yours either,” you chuckled, extracting that glorious looking fruit pastry from its slightly crumpled container and quickly separating the top section from the bottom. 

He repeated your name under his breath as he took his half from your grasp and placed it on a napkin he’d spread across the table top in front of him. “I’m Cody,” he advised, glancing upward to gift you another near-dismantling smile. 

“Thank you for sharing your breakfast, Cody,” you spoke, tearing off a small piece of that fragrant pastry and plopping it in your mouth. “I really appreciate it. Don’t have any proof, but I’d bet any amount of credits the hospital food is slowly poisioning me.” 

“Uh oh,” he answered gravely. “Hospital? You okay?” 

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” you answered, dismissing his concern with a casual wave. “My sister’s having a baby. She’s been in labour for nearly two days and both of us are going a little nuts. I had to escape for a while.” 

“A baby,” he repeated. “That’s gotta be exciting. Worth the wait, I’d think?” 

“It is…” you agreed slowly, unable to hide the apprehension neath your tone. “She’s on her own though, so she’s a little more anxious than excited right now. What about you? Usually the clones we see walking around here are Reds. Are you posted here, or just between missions?” 

“Neither really,” he answered, brushing crumbs from his fingers and pausing to swallow a mouthful. “My corps and I are technically assigned to the warship my General commands, but he’s a member of the Jedi council so we’re planetside pretty often, though it usually only lasts a few hours.” 

“That sounds kriffing exhausting,” you exclaimed with a frown. “To never get a break from battle?”

“It definitely can be,” he admitted with a shrug. “But sometimes having a break makes it tougher to get back into the action. It's almost better to stay on the combat base where you’re still immersed in the thick of it, though I have a feeling the food in the hospital might be the same as the food in the mess hall, so it’s nice to get out for a real caf every once in a while.” 

“Hmm,” you hummed, lips compressing into a disconcerted grimace as your gaze danced warmly across that battle worn, plastoid kit hugging his body like a rigid second skin. “Well now I’m even more sorry I almost stole your caf.”  

“Don’t be,” Cody protested instantly, leaning back in his chair and shifting to rest his arm casually across the backrest. “I’m not. Not at all. In fact, I was going to ask yo—” 

A sudden chirp erupted from your holopad, it’s cry ringing loudly from the depths of your bag. You gasped, fingers releasing the last of those muffin remnants atop their haste to collect that singing device. 

“Maker!” you cried, eyes quickly scanning that interrupting message. “It’s baby time! I have to go. Um… thank you. This was really lovely, and… I wish I could stay, but… I… it’s time… she’ll kill me…” 

“Well let’s go then,” Cody answered atop a genuine chuckle, instantly returning to his feet and collecting their discarded napkins and wrappers from the table. “I’ll walk you back. And maybe we can talk about… I don't know… splitting another muffin next time I’m planetside?” 

“Sounds like a plan, as long as I get—” 

“Bottom. I’ll remember.” 

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The impeccant ring of the bell that hung above the door had thankfully silenced, and the void of its tinkling alarm saw a peaceful moment of respite and a fresh mug of caf wreathed by hands covered in dried lens polish and seemingly permanently stained with the ink of your trusty red lens pen.

In spite of the lingering exhaustion and the continuous ache in your feet, every complaint that threatened to spill from your tongue was swallowed and substituted with a quiet murmur of appreciation. Since you’d purchased the optical store from your uncle, you’d been blessed with an expanding clientele and an increasing revenue, though despite the economic growth, the inception of your ownership had been fraught with challenges. Your uncle was, and always had been, a kooky and eccentric old chap, and one that had stubbornly deferred his retirement from the industry for decades too long. His later, wizened years had seen him develop a peculiar and surreptitious habit of concealing his deteriorating mind with impugnable, makeshift repairs on his already ancient optical equipment. More troublesome than his DIY endeavours, however, was the recurrent burying of evidence, ensuring that his mounting financial hardship was conveniently camouflaged and ‘misplaced’ with the several hundred overdue invoices. Three consecutive years later, and thousands of credits funnelled regrettably yet optimistically into the pocket of an accountant, the metaphorical dumpster-fire that you purchased from your father’s zany older brother had finally turned profitable.

The storefront was auspiciously located on the uppermost level of Coruscant’s nefarious ‘Underworld’, meaning the demographics of your clientele was as diverse as the galaxy was. Politicians, concealing their bulging wallets beneath expertly-sewn and ornate robes, were some of your favourite customers to interact with, as years of experience in medical sales had seen you master the tactful art of disengaging lowball negotiations. Paradoxically, it was the impoverished customers making their way up from the callous clutches of the lower levels that posed your biggest challenge; their often heartbreaking stories of systemic neglect fueled the philanthropic flame that flickered deep in your gut. The inception of the war had enchained many in the shackles of financial hardship and desperation, and while pleading ignorance and naivety was the route that many Coruscanti citizens opted to take, the desire to temporarily close your shop and traverse the galaxy doing missionary work was becoming difficult to stifle.

Yet you were as logical as you were benevolent, and despite the constant pull towards a life of nomadic altruism, the fact remained that you had invested too many days and even more credits resurrecting this business to simply abandon it in its infancy.

The squeak of the rolling desk chair echoed around the quiescent room as you sat yourself down behind the computer, determined to use the hot caf in your hands as a catalyst to ignite the engines of motivation into life. The chrono on the wall ticked on, unaffected by the looming task list that you continued to abscond from; moments stretched to minutes, your hands poised and motionless over the keyboard, and the resolve to work kept simply evaporating, wafting into the air and vanishing faster than the steam from your mug.

‘Damnit, I forgot to water my plants this morning…’ Your eyes were affixed on a the pair of prescription swimming goggles nestled in the tray that you’d perched in front of you nearly twenty minutes ago, yet the mental image of your limp fig tree, neglected the decency of water for the second straight week, was all your unfocussed eyes could see. ‘But I should probably prune it before I water it… and if I’m going through the hassle of pruning it, I should probably repot it fi—’

The sudden jangling of the bell broke you from your listless stupor, sending a startled jerk through your shoulders and pulling your gaze upward to the figure stepping into your space. The detail of his appearance remained momentarily obscured, shrouded in the shadows cast by the bright sunlight pouring in the door behind him, though it was immediately apparent by the rigid armour that enveloped his tall frame that he was a soldier or mercenary of sorts.

“Hello,” you called to him, alerting him of your presence behind the counter, but his response to the greeting and the small smile you’d hitched onto your face, was nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement, his eyes narrowing slightly as they darted around the walls of your shop.

Curiosity tipped your head to one side, and you watched him with reserved intrigue as he neared the counter, his big, metallic boots thunking heavily on the wood floors with every step. The armament that adorned his figure was dark, and unlike anything you’d seen before. The clone troopers on Coruscant typically wore protective suits of white plastoid, and were conversationally quite warm and friendly, but this man’s presence, complete with a frown and a crosshair tattoo, issued none of those vibes.

“What can I do for you?” you probed, ignoring the protest of your aching feet as you stood and met him across the counter. He hastened to fold his arms over his chest, throwing into sharp relief the sniper pole extending proudly from his left shoulder bell.

“What do you know about scopes?” he asked you, the smoke that bathed his words raising the small hairs on the back of your neck.

“What kind of scopes?” you quizzed back to him, wrenching your eyes from the intimidating tool on his shoulder. “Oculars? Speculars?”

“Rifle.” In stark contrast to the way he carried himself— slithering and softly, as if he funneled every effort into not preventing his movements from making a sound, his reply was direct, curt, and impatient, and despite your best efforts to repress it, the contradiction pulled a small smirk onto your face.

“I should have known,” you answered apologetically, gesturing with a flick of your eyes towards the pole on his pauldron, and for the second time in as many minutes, he forewent a spoken response, instead flicking his eyebrows and letting the ghost of a laugh huff from his nose.

“I studied a decent amount,” you continued, bewilderment budding inside of you as the peculiar stranger reached around to a pouch on his belt and retracted a toothpick. “But we don’t sell them. We’re mainly a spectacle sho—”

“I’m not buying,” he interrupted with another impatient little shake of his head. “There’s something… off… with mine.”

The intentionally vague nature of his complaint prompted the arch of your left eyebrow to raise, and it was with genuine perplexity that you replied. “Off? In what way?”

The rhythmic dance of toothpick across scowling lips filled the silent space of his hesitation, and the shadow of scepticism flitted behind his eyes as he peered down his nose at you.

“It sounds idiotic,” he muttered through teeth clenched around his wooden pacifier, “But the visuals are being distorted… and it seems to be at random.”

Your brows furrowed against the continued ambiguity of his complaints, and though you would never voice it aloud, his grievance did sound somewhat idiotic and nonsensical. Intermittent distortion through a set of lenses was not a concept you had ever come across, as typically someone’s vision was either clear, or it wasn’t. His hesitation to provide the description now seemed warranted, and it was your turn to entertain a scowled moment of hesitancy as you fought to digest his undetailed explanation.

“I’m not following you,” you sighed, both coming up short on an explanation and growing increasingly wary of his man-of-few-words attitude. “Do you have it with you?”

He unfolded his arms from their knot across his chest, exposing a thin, black plastoid case previously invisible by the tight ensconce of his gloved hand. The rigid container looked vaguely familiar to you, though your mind barely had a moment to dawdle in potential recognition before he was deftly unlatching the closure on the lid and pulling the scope from its velvet bedding.

Eyes widening with wonder, you collected the tool from him, your outstretched hand instantly sagging under the unexpected weight of the equipment. Your exposure to military grade weapon accessories, and knowledge of the various optical tools available for combat was limited, but one did not have to be an expert in the field to know this was a highly sophisticated, and highly coveted tool.

“Sometimes I’ll line up a shot with no issue,” he divulged, his sharp eyes dissecting your movements as you rotated the scope delicately in your fingers. “Other times, the image of the target seems warped. But I haven’t been able to establish a pattern, and none of my brothers see anything wrong.”

“Hmm,” you acknowledged, concentration pulling your lips tightly to one side. “That’s definitely… odd… and it seems random? Intermittent?”

He offered nothing but a small grunt of confirmation, supervising your twiddling of the tool with unwarranted intensity as if poised to pounce should you dare to mishandle his prized possession, but curiosity had entirely banished your unease of his demeanour, and it was eagerly that you returned the ocular to your eye.

The Snellen chart, hung at eye level across the room and inscribed letters of varying sizes, became the recipient of your attention; while designed to measure how effectively one could see at a specific distance without their glasses on, it acted appropriately well as a makeshift visual barometer for your diagnostics. Though despite alternating eyes, rotating the scope both clockwise and counterclockwise, and shifting your position behind the counter to create a variance in lighting, you failed to see anything that was overtly distorted or warped. The notion that you may not be able to solve the stranger’s problem simply because you couldn’t see it to diagnose it, pulled a disappointed frown onto your lips, usurping the confident determination you’d felt only minutes previously.

Still, he watched you mercilessly, impatience and expectation etched into the every superficial crease on his forehead. It was only as you moved to the lower the scope, prepared to sadly explain that he’d have to try elsewhere, did your departing gaze finally catch a micro glimpse of the issue. The distortion was there… but barely, and his brothers’ failure to corroborate the issue became instantly validated.

“Interesting,” you mused under your breath, locking your gaze on the minutely warped quadrant of the chart and turning the scope slowly in your fingers. “I think I see what you’re talking about,” you continued quietly, your refusal to lose sight of the issue subconsciously keeping the tone of your voice hushed. “It… it doesn’t seem like an issue of direct clarity, so the integrity of the lens coating must be intact… and the reticle itself is orientated at the correct rotation, so that rules out the first focal plane…”

Your hushed diagnostic rambling trailed away to silence as a theory emerged to the forefront of your mind. Before his frowning lips could wrap themselves around a sardonic response, you lowered the equipment from your eye, gripped it tightly in your hand, and flung your arm aggressively downwards, a motion reminiscent of trying to force a small amount of ketchup through the opening of a large bottle. His posture straightened hastily, and his horrified expression on his lithe face combined with the sharp gasp that slapped his throat, had you momentarily fearful he might pluck the toothpick from its clamp between his teeth and toss it at you like a javelin.

“Kriff, be careful.” It was not a request but a demand, leaving his lips in a hiss that suited his demeanor much more than that curt impatience he’d emanated earlier. “That’s my favourite scope.”

His warning went ignored, a prideful self-satisfaction smothering the duress of his mistrust as you peered through the scope again and found the resolution you had expected. “Ha,” you cheered in a whisper, orienting yourself towards him again. “Look now. Tell me if it’s any different.” You held the weighty scope out to him and gestured to the chart across the room. Still tinged with the horror brought on by your seemingly impulsive disregard for his property, his scowl intensified, exacerbated by a budding sense of scrutiny, but despite his dubious disbelief, he took the tool from your extended palm and brought it to his tattooed eye.

The speed in which he ran the scope through his own set of visual diagnostics was nothing short of remarkable, and it was this behavior, not the hissed warnings of care that reinforced his attachment to the tool. “Hmm,” he eventually grunted, his expression now impassive. “Seems normal actually.”

Eager to share your theory, you shifted your weight to your elbows. “I’m thinking the second focal plane might have dislodged in the chamber somehow,” you advised him. “Is there quite a bit of recoil from your rifle?”

A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, almost entirely banishing the tension in his brow and softening his expression to a nearly unidentifiable degree, and it was only barely that you contained the smile threatening to engulf your own features. “She’s got a bit of a kick,” he admitted slyly, flicking the toothpick noisily with the tip of his tongue. “But that’s not going to change. So what now?”

You sighed through your nose, gaze affixed on the piece of equipment clutched in his long fingers as a merciless tug-of-war erupted in your mind. It had been years since the opportunity to tinker with something as niche and unique as a long-range rifle scope had fallen into your hands, but the mountain of work already awaiting your attention was formidable, and could not be ethically delayed any longer.

“I’ll see what I can do,” you offered, sheer curiosity sending a right hook in the direction of your better judgement. “But I won’t be able to identify the root of the problem, or the solution, until I take it apart and run diagnostics on the individual pieces.”

His softened expression receded entirely, the soggy strip of wood in his teeth continuing to dance across now scowling lips as he cocked a dark eyebrow and glowered at you, but you matched the reemergence of mistrust with a neutral stare, drumming your nails lightly on the desk between you and watching the cogs of indecision turn behind his eyes. His top lip flattened slightly, tense with threats and warnings of caution that he longed to voice aloud, but he was as aware as he was cranky; his desperation for a solution seemingly outweighing his skepticism, and he restrained every admonishment lingering on his tongue.

“Like I said,” he snarled, refusing to soften the glare he was sending your way. “It’s my favourite scope.”

You swallowed against a mixture of disappointment and offense, embittered that this unnecessarily stern man had actively sought your help with his problem, but was too suspicious and wary to grant you the permission to fix it, despite having seemingly identified the root of the issue before his eyes. You hitched an ingenuine smile to your face and shrugged, perching yourself back on the seat of your squeaky desk chair and pulling the swimming goggles towards you. “It’s your choice,” you reminded him, rousing your slumbering monitor to life with the prod of your finger. “You can leave it and be no worse off… or I can take it apart and have a go at fixing it.”

Silence ensued in the following moment, a quiet broken only by the occasional click of wood against molar and the rhythmic tapping of your fingers on the keyboard, but despite his seemingly steadfast refusal to accept your offer, he didn’t move from his perch against the counter.

“Fine,” he grumbled, taking you by surprise and immediately stealing your attention back. “But I fly out at sunset, so I’ll need it back before then.”

“I can do that.” Thrilled by the valid excuse to delay ordering it (and its neglected comrades) for another few hours, you happily pushed the acrylic tray housing the goggles away from you and stood from your chair. “I close up shop before then anyways. Actually, there’s a shooting range about a block west of here. I can meet you there in a couple hours, and you can fire off a couple shots to see if my handiwork holds up.”

“Deal.” He stood up straight and plucked the strip of wood from his lips, flicking it to the floor at his feet without a second thought. “Name’s Crosshair.”

“Crosshair,” you repeated after offering your name in return, and with a gesture towards the tattoo around his eye you said: “Should have known.”

***

The sun that had so refreshingly bathed the planet that afternoon was readying itself for another night of slumber, sinking ever lower toward the horizon with each passing minute, and its void in the musty industrial building sent a shiver down your back.

A small alcove set into the wall, adorned with a smattering safety notices, acted as a landing zone for those entering and exiting the active firing lanes. An obnoxiously heavy, rolling durasteel door separated the two areas, and it was with an almost comical level of exertion that you managed to roll the door ajar just wide enough to squeeze through the gap. The audible rumble of the long-ago seized wheels was lost amongst the echoing din that bathed your ears in the room beyond; each of the two dozen lanes occupied by a duo of armed beings, jeering at each other over missed shots and poor grips.

If the sniper pole protruding menacingly from his shoulder wasn’t enough to make him easily distinguishable in the shadows opposite, then the stunning contrast of his silver hair and his dark armour certainly was, and it was with haste that you crossed the room toward his pacing position. The separation from his prized possession seemed to have rendered him, shockingly, more impatient than hours previously, the soggy toothpick between his frowning lips dancing ceaselessly while the thumb on each of his hands aggressively cracked the knuckles of its neighbouring fingers. But while his appearance and obvious restlessness had initially captured your attention, it did not hold it. Something else caught your eye… someone else.

A second man stood in close proximity to the sniper, almost identical in height though the stoop in his posture, brought on by the intent downwards gaze toward the device clutched in his hands, ensured a less imposing presence than his broad shouldered, glaring neighbour. He seemed at first glance, to be an extraordinary dichotomy to his companion, the perfect ying to Crosshair’s yang; where one’s hair shone brightly in the light of the buzzing fluorescent bulbs overhead, the other’s reflected the dark of shadowed corners, where one’s cuirass was deliberately painted dark, the other’s remained white, adorned with colour only minimally, and where Crosshair’s impatience was evident, with his sharp eyes darting mercilessly around the room, his companion seemed content to remain still, gaze affixed to the screen only inches from his nose.

‘Must be one of his brothers,’ you concluded as you approached the loitering duo.

Crosshair detected your arrival almost immediately; the intensity of his unrelenting gaze as you crossed the room to his position rendered your friendly “hello,” completely redundant. A double-take interrupted the greeting poised on your tongue for his companion, the unexpected allure of his features, thrown into relief by close proximity and the fleeting shift of his attention from the device in his hands to you, rendered you briefly inarticulate.

He continued to look remarkably different from his brother at second glance, with a squarer jaw, fuller lips, a more substantial frame (disguised by poor posture, a slight bow in his legs, and significantly less armour), and a set of dark goggles framing a pair of stunningly warm, brown eyes.

“Any luck?” Crosshair probed impatiently, opting to forgo niceties for the second time that day.

“Yeah, some,” you assuaged with a nod, tearing your gaze away from his brother. “My first assumptions were largely correct. The second focal plane must have dislodged in the scope’s housing at some point. Unless you knocked it pretty forcefully against something, a theory I can rule-out based on the otherwise pristine condition of the equipment, it was likely the extended period of repeated recoil that caused the dislocation.”

The large, goggled eyes had directed themselves to you again, this time almost urgently and paired with an abrupt jerk of his head in your direction. The jarring motion stole your attention mid-sentence, the recited explanation rolling off your tongue turning laggy and discombobulated under the intensity of his wide-eyed, astonished stare. Your eyebrows lifted slightly as you turned to face the slack jawed stranger, but no sooner did your gaze fall onto his blushing face, did he avert his focus from you again.

“Okay, and?” Crosshair asked, his probe prompting you to frantically try and find the lost train of thought from the previous second.

“Honestly,” you continued, redirecting your attention to the sniper, “With how minutely displaced the lens was, I’m impressed you even noticed.”

“Impressed?” Crosshair repeated, cocking an eyebrow in apparent disbelief. “Why?”

“Well… mathematically, any change in the relative vertex distance between focal planes will cause a deviation in the refracted ray, thus distorting the perceived real image…” The goggled man’s head snapped violently upwards again, his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates as his attention darted back and forth between you and his silver haired brother. “...but the second focal plane was only dislodged by about a millimetre. You must have pretty fantastic eyesight to pick up on such a small visual misalignment.” A fleeting glance to your right confirmed that the goggled man’s twinkly brown eyes were affixed on you, and it was with a foreign sense of budding shyness, that you extended the plastoid box out to Crosshair.

“Did you fix it?” he queried, collecting the offering and promptly unlatching the lid.

“Only temporarily, unfortunately.” A disappointed grimace weighed down your response. “It likely happened during the initial dislodging, but the bevel that holds the lens in place is significantly chipped. I’ve re-embedded it into its grooved housing, but I wouldn’t rely on it being a permanent solution.”

The disappointment that saturated your explanation did not seem to be mutual as the sniper wasted no time dropping to a knee beside you and pulling the pack from his shoulders. He retrieved the scope from its enclosement first, abandoning its container to the stone floor at your feet, before collecting and clicking together the deconstructed rifle parts that he wore on his back. Eager to avoid being accidentally knocked by the intimidatingly long rifle barrel being mounted into place, you turned and took a small step sideways.

The toe of your boot, however, didn’t descend as gracefully as you’d intended, instead snagging itself upon something domed and rigid, simultaneously sending your right ankle tipping sideways, and your arms outwards in a frantic motion to stabilize yourself. It wasn’t until you’d steadied the breath in your lungs that your eyes located the tripping hazard, ready to kick it away lest you step on it again. Embarrassment flooded your veins. It was a boot…

“Oh kriff, I’m sorry!” you cried, immediately relieving your fingers of their iron grip around the goggled man’s forearm. “I should have looked before I moved. Did I hurt you?”

Fuelled by the pounding of your heart in your chest, a heat rose quickly and earnestly to your cheeks as dazzling brown eyes widened behind those goggles again. An awkward silence expanded in the air between you as he failed to answer, and you hastily shifted your attention to Crosshair’s retreating figure, reconstructed rifle pointed upwards to the ceiling as he headed towards the nearby shooting lane.

“You did not. Our footwear is impregnated with a multilayered durasteel core that is able to withstand over 150kg of pressure, and you do not appear to have a mass equivalent to or exceeding that. However, the unanticipated need to anchor yourself with my arm nearly caused me to drop my datapad.”

It may have been the curt, matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke, another complete inverse to the slithery smoke of his brothers voice; it may have been the awkward and inelegant cadence of his reply; it may have been the adorable shift of his goggles on the bridge of his nose as he averted his gaze from you again that triggered a flutter in your gut, but for the second time, you found yourself momentarily tongue-tied.

“That would have been bad,” you somehow managed to force out under the duress of the giddy smile fighting to adorn your lips.

“Indeed,” he breathed.

His attention returned bashfully to the illuminated screen in his hands, the tops of his ears reddening slightly against the brush of his dark hairline, and you took the deviation of his gaze as an opportunity to survey his goggles. It was not the untraditional choice of eyewear that warranted your curiousity, as a strapped goggle was an entirely appropriate choice for a soldier who was likely constantly active, nor was it the recording device, mounted expertly along his right temple and aglow in the dim lighting of the corner either. It was his lenses: tragically thick, horribly smudged, and inducing a degree of magnification that you saw only rarely in the industry.

‘Poor hyperopes,’ you thought to yourself, the inherent squint of his eyes as they fought to focus through a series of ungodly fingerprints pulling an adoring smile onto your lips.

“Sorry if this is a little strange but… can I clean your lenses?” You spoke deliberately lightly and aloofly, intent on ensuring that he took no offense to your offer, and it was with a subdued tentativeness that you watched the adam’s apple bob in his throat.

“Clean my lenses?” he repeated, returning his gaze to you with dark brows knitted slightly in befuddlement.

“Yes,” you confirmed, blindly reaching into your bag for your trusted, green microfiber cloth. “They are filthy, and I don’t know how you can see anything.”

An unexplained affection welled inside of you as his thin fingers nimbly shifted his goggles again, exposing the repeated gesture as a soothing motion; the smallest of irrelevant movements acting as a pacifier against situations where discomfort threatened to provoke him.

“I did not realize the poor nature of their condition,” he admitted, indefinitely suspending the back and forth of his attention by stowing his datapad away into one of many pouches around his waist.

“You wouldn’t,” you answered with a small shrug and a smile, watching his features tense momentarily under the duress of pulling his goggles off. “Hyperopic, or ‘far-sighted’ people, by nature, struggle to see anything in the immediate vicinity of their gaze. That’s why they can never tell if their glasses are dirty or their lenses are scratched. So… you can’t help it.”

“You… are correct.” He answered slowly, his tone still dripping in what sounded like pleasant astonishment as he extended his goggles out to you. “A mutation in my genetic structure caused an innocent yet bothersome bilateral malformation of my corneas, resulting in a significant degree of hyperopia.”

“That’s probably putting it lightly.” A small chuckle left your mouth as you swaddled the left lens with your cloth and began to deftly wipe away the sea of fingerprints. Much like Crosshair had while his precious scope was being tended to in the foreign clutches of a stranger, this man watched your practiced hands intently and possessively as you worked to polish away any signs of a smudge.

The fluorescent bulbs suspended two-dozen feet above you were nowhere near as effective as the optical-grade backlit yellow panel that sat in the corner of your workshop, but were just luminescent enough to affirm you’d removed the last of the oily smears before you pocketed your cloth. A knowing smirk peeled its way across your lips as you shifted the lenses to-and-fro in front of your mildly squinted eyes, observing how the biconcavity on the front surface bent the reflection of the overhead light. “What’s the nature of your prescription?” you questioned as your left eye closed and your fingers rotated his goggles. “I’m assuming just based on the Against-Motion principle, that you’re probably around a +8.00? Maybe a +9.00?”

He blinked rapidly and repeatedly, seemingly trying to rid his vision of the anatomical blur that would forever plague him in the void of his goggles before answering.“I… am not certain of the exact dioptric correction,” he divulged, now grinding his knuckles into his eyes. “But I believe your estimation to be accurate. I am impressed that you could make such a determination based loosely on the principles of magnification alone.”

“It’s my job.” While you were able to modestly shrug away the giddiness of his inferred praise, your composure was no match for the accentuation of his sharp jawline, thrown into relief as the first hint of a smile tugged his cheek toward his ear. “I handle dozens of lenses every day,” you continued, averting your eyes to the goggles you held out to him. “I’m well practiced.”

“That is obvious.”

The affable response waiting just behind your smirking lips was halted in place by the return of the sniper as he reappeared at his brother’s side, his lithe face impassive and his rifle already snuggled into its cradle in his pack.

“Big improvement,” he uttered, the nod of appreciation that followed his words filling you with a mixture of relief and pride. “What do I owe you?”

“Not a thing,” you answered with a dismissing wave of the hand. The sight of notoriously scowling lips now taut behind a satisfied smile was enough to support that delaying your nefarious to-do list, while undeniably irresponsible, was the right decision. “It was actually nice to have a bit of a challenge for once. Like I said, it’ll hold for a while but it’s not a forever fix.”

“Disappointing.” Faster than it had come, the sly smile on his face disappeared, replaced in a breath by a glum grimace as he plucked the toothpick from the tight clamp of his teeth and flicked it to the floor at his feet. “Pretty sure that model is out of production now.”

“Sure is,” you confirmed, sympathetically matching his grimace with one of your own. “I did some research today—” (goggles snapped his head in your direction again) “—from the limited information that I could find, your model was the last that incorporated a biconcave first focal plane. But… I actually found an alternative tucked away in my workshop.” You reached a hand blindly into your bag, the keys to your speeder jingling as you roughly pushed them aside in search of the stiff plastoid box you’d shoved into the depths before leaving work. “The internal components are the same, but the barrel attachment clip differs from yours.”

Crosshair spared the offering only a microglance before the crease between his dark brows deepened, his top lip flattening at the thick layer of dust that blanketed the white plastoid case. You grinned apologetically at the sight of his disgusted expression, and an understanding began to click together like puzzle pieces in your mind. Crosshair’s man-of-few-words ethos was not one of implied supremacy as you had initially presumed, he simply communicated more effectively with his expressions and mannerisms than he did with words.

“The box looks like it hasn’t been touched in centuries,” you admitted, pushing the case into his chest, “but the scope itself is pristine. You’re welcome to keep it if you think it’s suitable.”

His gaze danced across your features skeptically as if dissecting it for any sign of an ulterior motive that hadn’t managed to previously identify, but the reassurance you offered by means of a small smile must have silenced his concerns, as he moved to unlatch the container and flip it open.

It was barely an hour after Crosshair had departed your establishment that you realized why the plastoid case that housed his scope had seemed vaguely familiar to you, and it was with a sense of excited urgency that you’d jogged to the back corner of your workshop and snatched the step stool from beside the broom. Tucked away on the top shelf of a precariously hung cupboard above the lens polisher and caked several decades worth of dust, the white box sat seemingly waiting for you. Countless times in the past had it been regarded as nothing but left over detritus from your uncle, unceremoniously pushed aside and ignored as you fervently looked for something else among the clutter, but today, as recognition had flared inside of you, it’s time in the spotlight had finally come.

The sniper’s abnormally long digits pulled the foreign scope from its foam mattress, hovering it in front of his tattooed eye while turning to orient himself toward the target sheets on the opposite wall.

“Hm… not bad actually,” he relented a moment later, turning back around and holding the scope out to his brother. “Tech, do you think you could modify the barrel attachment?”

So his name is Tech. The wordless introduction ensured another flush of your cheeks, and eager to repress the giddy smile that threatened to expose you, you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth and ignored the brown–eyed man still passively gaping in your direction.

Crosshair shook the scope impatiently in the space between them, seemingly hoping the motion would shatter the muted reverie in which his brother was currently enthralled. “Tech? …Tech.”

“Um… yes,” Tech confirmed to your surprise, having collected the tool from his brother and agreeing to the task without even sparing it a glance. “Yes… I am able to… attach… myself.”

The chuckle that threatened to spill from your lips forced your gaze to the floor. The weathered and worn painted concrete beneath your boots was nothing but the epitome of lusterless and drossy, but in this moment of featherbrained awkwardness, you’d never seen a more interesting floor.

“Maker, since when can you not talk?” Crosshair hissed through clenched teeth.

Hot in the face and growing increasingly embarrassed by both the awkwardness of the conversation and the rapid emergence of this schoolgirl crush, you turned your attention back to your bag, thrusting your hand into its depths once again and pretending to dig around for something. Your peripheral vision saw Tech shift his goggles on his nose again, and immediately retract the datapad from his waist pouch.

You cleared your throat quietly before adjusting your bag on your shoulder and swinging your keyring noisily around your finger. Tech was blushing furiously and had turned his gaze to the screen of his small device, fingers dancing across the multicoloured buttons as if he’d injected rocket fuel directly into his knuckles. Crosshair, on the tail end of an elaborate eye roll, shook his head impatiently and huffed.

“You sure about this?” he asked you, tapping the lid of the plastoid box in his hands.

“Absolutely,” you answered without even the thought of hesitation. “It was just taking up very limited cupboard space so, if you want it, it’s yours.”

He nodded once, surveying your expression fleetingly once more before tucking the parcel under his arm. “Thanks again,” he mumbled, tossing you a casual three-fingered salute of acknowledgement before turning on his heel and heading the opposite way to the heavy, sliding door.

The sudden abandonment at the hands of his brother seemed to have roused Tech from his vigorous tango of typing, and his magnified eyes flickered to yours only briefly before darting towards the door. Mild amusement pulled another smile to your lips as discomfort erupted across his features; his jaw tensed, his posture straightened, and despite having spent the previous dozen minutes intermittently gawking at you, he now avoided your gaze.

“You better go,” you smirked, gesturing towards the disappearing head of silver hair. “It was nice to meet you. Good luck going… wherever it is that you’re going.”

“The ideology of ‘luck’ is illogical,” he intoned, raising a know-it-all finger into the air, the gesture somehow only intensifying your affection for him though he continued to evade eye contact, “but the sentiments are appreciated. And it was a pleasure gaining your acquaintance as well.”

His stooped frame made it barely three long paces before an urgent idea erupted in your mind. “Tech, wait!”

He turned his slumped shoulders back around to face you, mild curiosity etched into the small furrow in his brow as he lowered his datapad and held it limply at his side. “Keep this,” you offered, extending out the green microfiber cloth to him. “You need it more than I do.”

He stared, adorably flummoxed, at the fabric in your hand. “Keep it in one of your six hundred pockets,” you added with a goofy smirk and small gesture down to the series of cargo belts that seemingly adorned every inch of his tall frame. A mildly affronted expression ghosted across his face, but it was succeeded almost instantly by the same small smile that had sent your heart aflutter earlier. He took the cloth from you with a small nod, tucking it into the pouch perched just above a dangling spanner wrench on his hip, before muttering a quiet “goodbye” and continuing toward the door.

If you asked him what it was that kept him returning to the pier every morning, he’d hitch a quirky smile to that scarred face, and toss his hand in a wave of casual dismissal before launching into a myriad of superficial reasons: the smell of the salt in the air, and the way the sun baked the taste into his lips so that every word spoken between departing the dock and stepping into the refresher tasted like the remnants of a pleasant day. He’d remark that the radiant warmth of the beaming sun never had him itching against the unwanted beads of sweat that had a tendency form in the center of his back, the breeze off the water mercifully preventing the heat from becoming all-consuming and rendering him uncomfortable like so many of his previous missions on desert planets. He’d point upward to the sky where the flock of gulls swooping overhead never abeyed their cries of delight as the salty spray tickled their webbed toes. He would tell you that the hobby of fishing had anchored him in a way that nothing else ever had, as his years of enlisted service had never awarded him the luxury of leisure time, the chance for a hobby, or the opportunity for quiet, reflective solitude. And it was all so foreign… so foreign and so wonderful, and he’d happily spend eternity dangling his feet over the end of that old, sunburnt pier if the universe would allow it.

And while all of the aforementioned reasons were undoubtedly true, and while Pabu’s casual ethos had offered him a sense of comfort that Kamino’s oppressive rigidity never had, the true reason behind his continued return was something he would continue to keep close to his chest.

It was you.

The sight of you. The thought of you. The ringing music of your laughter and how it relentlessly raised the hair on his arms despite the breeze having carried it several dozen feet down the pier. How the dazzling sunlight danced across the surface of the water and set your eyes aglimmer. The way you never failed to lose your footing and stumble as you stepped into the hull of your father’s boat, the goading churn of the water momentarily robbing you of the innate poise that had Wrecker nearly certain you were an angel. The way your brows furrowed in exertion as you unwrapped that weather-worn rope from its elegant coil around the wooden post anchoring your vessel to the dock and looped it carefully over the intriguing slope of your shoulder. The sound of that elated sigh pouring from your lips as you departed the pier for the solace of open water, arms thrown wide to embrace the wind as your father engaged the throttle…

But mostly it was the way his chest seemed to hollow and ache as your figure retreated toward the horizon. That unexplainable feeling of missing you despite hardly knowing you. The longing that lingered beside his heart in the wake of your departure. The potent elation that ignited like a fire in his gut as the bow of your boat reappeared amongst the orange glow of the setting sun, and the twitter of anticipation in his gut that simply refused to subside until your features were near enough to exude the pleasant exhaustion mirrored by your father.

Today, however, had brought an unprecedented and unwelcome deviation to Wrecker’s routine, and something near a debilitating disappointment sat heavily in his chest as the sun neared the apex of its journey across the sky. Despite the spotless curtain of blue overhead intensifying the enamouring hue of the water, there was no sign of you. Every gentle swell of the sea below the solemn swings of his feet saw your empty boat knocking rhythmically against the legs of the pier like a tantalizing reminder of your absence. The bountiful schools of exotic fish drifting merrily in the current below his perch only intensified his disdain as they refused to offer even a moment of consideration for the sparkling lure he’d lowered into their depths some hours earlier.

It wasn’t until the perseverant pangs of hunger swelled to waves of nausea did he finally concede to that sad sense of defeat and pull his bait from the water, shouldering his rod and retreating to the familiar cool, ionized air of the Marauder.

“What’s up with you?” Hunter probed upon his arrival, cocking an eyebrow at the chagrin ghosting behind his brother’s heavily scarred features.

“Nuthin’,” Wrecker fibbed with a halfhearted shrug. “Just overdue for some grub.”

His teeth sunk eagerly into the tangy flesh of the meiloorun Lyanna had tossed him from behind a stall at the market yesterday, but the sweet nectar pooling around his lips and dribbling down his chin only managed to only partially lift his sodden, dour spirits despite placating the emptiness of his stomach.

“No sign of your girlfriend at the pier today?” the sergeant jeered, leaning casually against the backrest of the navicomputer chair, folding his arms across his broad chest and surveying his brother with a knowing smirk.

“She’s not my g— wait, how’d you know?” Wrecker wiped the stray juices from his lips with the back of his hand before tossing the pit of the fruit out the open door of the ship, and into the seemingly waiting beak of a white gull.

“We bore witness to her participation in a tree planting ceremony this morning, down in the lower hills,” Tech offered from the cockpit, his interjection muffled by the abrasive whirring of the condenser perched precariously on his knees, his beloved spanner clutched tightly in a hand smeared with dark, oily coolant.

“Looked awful purdy too,” Hunter added with an infuriating wink, jestingly punching his brother's elbow before clunking down the ramp and into the last of the afternoon sunshine. “Woulda chatted her up myself if I didn’t think you’d knock me out for it…”

Wrecker’s lips had barely parted to confirm that violent notion when the sound of a sharp gasp sent his shoulders jerking in alarm, and a tiny hand immediately encircled the crook of his elbow, drawing his attention downward to the blonde bundle of joy bouncing up and down on her toes.

“Wrecker!” Omega shrieked, her free hand balled into a fist of glee and hovering in front of the radiant smile that had crinkled her big, brown eyes. “You have a girlfriend?! Who? Where? Can I meet her? Let’s go!”

“I would surmise that based on Wrecker’s continued, futile attempts at secrecy and the lack of colloquial interaction between parties, the female in question is not yet aware of his affection.”

As if the strenuous task of prying the cover plate from its position over the condenser's maze of copper tubing hadn’t rendered his features utterly demented by the duress of his efforts, Tech spoke characteristically passively. “And Wrecker,” he continued as the cover plate clattered to the floor at his feet, “You may be interested to know: Pabu’s current obtuse positioning in relation to its moon, combined with the planet’s 11 degree axial tilt, is due to largely shift the dynamic of the sea’s undercurrents. It is an anomaly known as ‘The Influx’ and it only occurs once every 12.63 years. While the effects of this deviation are negligible on land, the change in current will present a paramount opportunity for—”

“Ugghhh,” Wrecker groaned audibly, growing increasingly embarrassed that he hadn’t managed to conceal his crush as well as he’d intended. “Tell me later, Tech. I’m hittin’ the refresher.”

Ten minutes in the cool sonic and a mouth-wateringly fresh seafood dinner saw Wrecker nearly returned to the typical genial demeanor that had Pabu’s youth constantly prodding at his back. The intrinsic robbery of your absence that had simmered in his gut throughout the morning and mid-afternoon continued to dissipate the with diminishing daylight; the saturated hues of pink and orange sweeping across the sky as the sun began its nightly kiss atop the horizon felt like a divine reassurance that everything was precisely as it should be.

Barely an hour after their squad arrived in the courtyard for a much-discussed night of music and dancing, Shep and a handful of his closest friends emerged from behind the Tree of Life; their broad shoulders slumped under the weight of various musical instruments, and the smiles on their sun-kissed faces promised a evening of good tunes and wholesome merriment. A particularly mellow opening number saw Omega scooped into Wrecker’s large arms, her tiny hand enveloped in his as he waltzed them theatrically around in a circle, her giggles lost amid the obnoxious, off-key croon pouring shamelessly from his mouth.

“Wreck! 8 o’clock!”

Detecting the familiar urgency in his sergeant’s voice, Wrecker ceased his boisterous serenade and craned to peer over his left shoulder.

A tingle erupted underneath his skin upon seeing your figure retreat behind the tall, stone handrail of the grand staircase, and the serenity of which the sunset had endowed him was instantly swallowed by the ineffable desire to join you on whatever adventure had you bypassing a party and disappearing into the increasing darkness.

“Wrecker,” Omega whined, sending a sharp poke to his shoulder. “Why’d you stop?”

He shook the desire from his head and wrenched his unfocussed gaze away from the stone landing, and the contemplative hum pouring mindlessly from his lips as he hurried to redirect his thoughts into an excuse was, according to the blond bundle still perched on his arm, an inadequate replacement for his egregious singing.

“Because it’s my turn for a dance,” Hunter interposed, correctly recognizing the flummoxed expression on his brother’s features. “You can stand on my boots like last time. Wreck, why don’t you go down to the pier for a stroll?”

The implications of the wide-eyed, knowing glance that Hunter sent his way as he reached for Omega’s hands was not lost on the love-sick soldier, and Wrecker offered nothing more than an appreciative nod and a casual salute before lowering her to the ground and turning toward the stairs.

The pounding of his heart in his ears deafened him to the repeated clunks of his boots atop the stone, and the smattering of applause that succeeded the final ringing chord of the same song that had him unknowingly waltzing around the courtyard in front of your very eyes, offered a perfect distraction to slip, unseen, into the darkness.

But you were moving with intention, your purposeful strides hardly faltering in their cadence as you hopped down from the last step and headed along the same sandy pathway that Wrecker’s heavy boots traversed every morning. He stumbled slightly in his haste to catch you, adrenaline surging heavily through his veins as he recovered his footing and relaxed his grip on the handrail. “Cool it, Wreck,” he told himself, swallowing the lump in his throat and resuming his descent.

He, of course, knew your name, but he didn’t dare call for you; he wasn’t entirely sure what he would say if you acknowledged his summon and turned your beautiful eyes expectedly in his direction. Instead, he simply followed quietly in your wake, admiring the way the blossoming light of the full moon danced across your skin, and frantically trying to funnel the myriad of conversation starters whirling about his mind into one coherent salutation that he could offer when the time came.

“I thought that was you behind me, Wrecker.”

You spoke before he even had the chance, turning unexpectedly to face him when he’d reached a proximity near enough to hear you; the smile doming your freckled cheeks was a little too knowing to be effortless, though its unexpected emergence banished all hints of suspicion from his mind.

“Oh… uh…” he stammered, lifting to run a calloused hand along the back of his neck, his eyes darting away from yours and coming to rest upon the waistband of the cargo pants that hung just a little too nicely around your hips. “Yeah… I— I missed you this mornin’, and I saw you head down the stairs so I—”

“You missed me?” you interrupted.

He swallowed heavily again. Was it that tiny, innocent tip of your ear toward your shoulder that had his fingers fidgeting anxiously at his side? Or was it the gentle purse of those lips as you fought to repress that refulgent grin?

“Well… I didn’t miss you, miss you,” he digressed feebly, certain that the heat sending his cheeks aflame was also threatening to spout funnels of steam from his ears. “Well I did… but I didn’t see you this mornin’ is what I meant. I was here fishin’… and… and you were there… treein’.”

‘Way to be cool,’ he grumbled inwardly, only barely repressing a roll of his dark eyes as the music of your soft chuckle raised the hairs on his arms.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” you assured him with a shrug. “My father’s back was giving him grief this morning. I was hoping a little rest might get him back to normal for the influx tonight, but he’s still pretty sore so I’m just going to have to put on my Captain’s hat and hope for the best.”

“The influx?” Wrecker repeated curiously, watching you step clumsily down into the hull of your teetering boat.

“Yeah,” you agreed once you’d regained your balance, jabbing a thumb over your shoulder toward the open water. “The undercurrent’s shifted south for the first time in years. Apparently it’s going to bring in some big fish from beyond the bay, and if I can wrangle at least a couple of them, it’ll give my dad the break that he needs.”

The ghost of Tech’s image flitted across Wrecker’s memory; his brows furrowed behind his goggles while he simultaneously snipped a copper cooling line and launched into a seemingly unimportant info-dump about an anomaly brought on by Pabu’s moon, and Wrecker was flooded with the irksome notion that maybe he should pay better attention to his brother’s verbose rambling.

“Well I’m not doin’ anything,” Wrecker offered with what he hoped was a casual shrug. “I can give you a hand, if ya want?”

His breath hitched in his chest as you paused, slender hand poised halfway toward the rope wrapped expertly around the post on the dock, eyes alight and twinkling as if impervious to the deepening nightfall.

“I would love that, Wrecker,” you finally admitted with an encouraging smile that sent his heart somersaulting into his belly. “Hop in.”

The moment he left the security of the dock and stepped carefully onto the rolling floor of the boat, his hands darted outward to steady himself. The addition of his weight in the vessel sent a cascading series of large ripples atop the surface of the water, and that moment saw him eternally grateful that none of his brothers were there to guffaw behind their hands at the way his knees wobbled with every step.

“Actually, would you mind driving?” you proposed as he turned and headed for the stern of the boat. “It’ll be faster if I unload the perimeter rods and fill the Livewell, as long as you’re comfortable behind the wheel?”

“Uhhhh, I don't know if you want me drivin’ to be honest,” Wrecker chuckled through an apologetic grimace. “My brothers are always tellin’ me I’ve got the spatial awareness of a blind bantha.”

The laugh that stole through your chest as you ignited a small lantern and placed it on the Skipper’s seat damn-near hypnotized him; that small shimmy of your shoulders under the exertion of your joy, the way your eyes crinkled shut to permit the expanse of your smile to dominate your features, and that absentminded little slap of the knee that gave away the authenticity of your mirth.

“Never heard that one before,” you chortled, sticking the Captain's key into the ignition and kicking the engine into life. “But I think you’ll be alright. Inside the bay is a zero wake zone anyway, so we can’t do anything more than glide until we’re out on open water. Just make sure to avoid the Narrows and we’ll be fine.”

Wrecker followed your subtle gesture toward the horizon, his eyes quickly falling upon the mentioned pairing of dark, jagged rock walls only visible by their stark contrast to the beaming reflection of the moon atop the placid stillness of the water.

“I trust you,” you added with a smile and an encouraging nod. “Come here. I’ll give you the low-down on how it all works.”

Inflated by your seemingly unwavering confidence in him, he returned your smile and trod carefully toward your position behind the wheel. It was a simple set up really, nothing like the vast array of intimidating controls distributed across the entire cockpit of the Marauder, and your gratifying gaze felt drastically less oppressive than the burn of Tech’s narrowed eyes every time someone other than Echo reached for the copilot wheel.

The Captain’s seat perched behind you appeared both squashy and weathered, the leather seat cracking and peeling in several places as its integrity failed to match the powerful union of saltwater and hot sun. The steering wheel near-perfectly matched its seat counterpart, worn in the two places where your father’s practiced hands had undoubtedly spent decades navigating the vessel. Perched on the dashboard was a small, primitive compass, its needle timidly reorienting as every churn of the sea below them shifted the vessel. On the left was the throttle lever, and immediately adjacent to that, a sonar screen of-sorts was already depicting various subaquatic movements of which Wrecker could make very little sense.

“Give me your hand,” you requested kindly, reaching for his palm without even a breath of hesitation.

Your touch was mystifying; as mesmerizing and powerful as a bolt of Kaminoan lightning, setting his very nerves aprickle as if waves of electricity were coursing under his skin from the place your fingers had touched his.

“Right now we’re in idle—”

He could barely discern your words over the pounding in his ears, yet he hung on every syllable as you gently draped his palm over the handle on the throttle.

“—first gear is one notch down, second is down one more, and then reverse at the bottom—”

Surely you could hear his heart pumping so thunderously against his chest? And if that beaming moonlight wasn’t exposing just how flushed his cheeks had become, he’d eat his own boots. Yet you looked upward at him with that same adoring smile, as if there wasn’t a force anywhere on the planet that could deter you from keeping your hand atop his.

“—stay in first while we’re in the bay—”

Was his touch sending your stomach aflutter too? Were you as enamored with his eyes as he was with yours?

“—once we get past the rocks, change to second and we’ll head a few klicks west to get to where the rock shelf drops off—”

Was it painfully obvious just how much he was struggling to focus?

“—I’ll give you a thumbs up from the stern when we’re in the right spot. Sound good?”

“Glide while we’re in the bay,” he somehow repeated, his self confidence failing to reach the same degree of your implicit trust in him. “Second gear once we pass through the rocks, and then go until you give me the signal. Got it.”

With a level of concentration typically reserved for manning the tailgun amid a firefight, Wrecker furrowed his brow and steered the boat from the dock as you stumbled toward the starboard side of the boat and began unlatching several compartments.

Gliding across the still waters of the bay, where his reflection shone as clearly atop the surface of the water as it would in the refresher mirror, offered him a sense of glorious insignificance. The expanse of the sea felt nothing like the immensity of the sky where the utter lack of organic life often felt suffocating and restrictive. Below the tipping hull of this old boat was a world of its own, teeming with action and eternally unaffected by the ruination of war and destruction; a self-sustaining paradise for every ecosystem that resided amongst the currents, and he knew instantly this was a sensation that would have brought all of his brothers to their knees.

Yet nothing commanded his admiration quite like you did. He watched in pure adulation as you pulled half a dozen rods from a hidden storage container and laid them carefully on the floor. Horrified that whatever pitiful remnants of his composure might simply abandon him, he enthusiastically averted his eyes as you bent forward and disengaged the latch in the Livewell tank, filling it with the cool water needed to keep your bounty fresh and preserved until your return to shore. Once certain that your rear end was no longer pointed high in the sky, he risked another glance in your direction, only to have that devastating sense of longing surge through his chest. Framed by the dark outcrops of rock now flanking you on either side, your posture nearly stole his breath; arms thrown wide, head tipped back, and hair blowing wildly off your shoulders.

He stifled a grin and dropped his gaze to the throttle lever still casually anchoring his left hand. A little downward pressure had second gear activated, the engine roaring into life, and a genuine chuckle pouring from his salty lips.

The innocuous licks of the water tickling the sides of the vessel quickly turned deafening as each rolling wave saw the floor beneath his feet heaving and crashing onto the surface.

His arms were soon drenched in sea spray, yet he refused to shudder at the sensation as being on the open water, away from the shelter of shore and the stability of land was a feeling unlike anything else he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t isolating as he’d expected… he felt wonderfully small and truly free.

“You good back there?” you called to him, your voice almost entirely lost amid the power of the wind dancing across his ears and around his neck.

“I’m great!” he shouted back, savouring the way you beamed at him.

He’d never know if it was minutes or hours until he caught sight of your promised signal, the roar of the engine subsiding to nothing but a quiet hum as he returned the engine to idle.

“I think we’re in the right spot,” you sang, excitement triggering you to rub your palms together. “Can you help me toss the lines out?”

“Now that I can do,” he chuckled, cracking his knuckles before scooping the lantern from the skippers seat and departing the wheel.

“As far as you can,” you encouraged, taking the lantern from him and exchanging it with the nearest rod. “There’s holders every couple feet. We’ll cast out and then cross our fingers.”

The praise that you bestowed upon him after every broad toss of the line into the water swelled his chest and widened his shoulders. It wasn’t until each rod had been situated carefully in a holder, and the lantern placed delicately on the ground between your feet and his, did Wrecker’s gut begin to simmer with nerves once again.

“Where are you from?” you asked through the ringing quiet, the only discernible noises above the rhythmic licks of the water were the tiny clicks of each reel unspooling more and more line as the turbulent waves pulled the lures deeper below the surface. “I see you every morning at the pier but we don’t ever get to talk much.”

“I’m uh… from Kamino.” He tore his eyes from the nearest rod and glanced bashfully in your direction.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it,” you admitted with a snort, hands reaching delicately for the nearest rod and slowly cranking the reel to recoil the line. “But my father and I landed on the island when I was a little kid and we haven't left since, so… I’m a little bit sheltered. What’s Kamino like?”

Wrecker let a contemplative hum issue from his nose, his mind whirring as he tried to find words to properly describe the insufferable sterility of Tipoca City, and the complicated relationship he’d had with it before its obliteration. “It’s… Kamino,” he finally replied. “And most of it’s destroyed now. It used to storm almost every day. If we got even a splinter of sun, we’d all fight to get to the windows so we could look outside. It was a water planet, so the cities were built up on tall towers in the middle of the ocean. But it's weird… the sea there isn’t like here. It was rough and dangerous, and so cold that every time you got splashed, it felt like you were getting stung by somethin’...”

“Was there no land?” you asked incredulously, those enticing lips parting just enough to distract him. “How did you get your hands dirty as a kid?”

“Well… we found ways,” Wrecker shrugged, looking downward at his palms. “Me and my brothers were always gettin’ into somethin’ we shouldn’t have been. I’ll never forget the time Tech asked me to hang him upside down by the ankles so he could crawl into the garbage chute. He… uh… he likes researchin’ things, and there’s not much else to research on Kamino. I could hear him gibberin’ on about compost while he was hangin’ there, but Nala Se snuck up behind me and scared me so bad that I let go.”

“Let go?” you snorted, eyes wide and sparkling. “You dropped him into the trash?!”

“Not on purpose,” Wrecker defended with a reminiscent smirk. “But yeah. It’s alrigh’ though. He was only mad for a few hours, then he paid me back by lecturing me about fruit flies and their ‘growth cycles’ for a week.”

“I like him already,” you grinned, turning your attention back to the spool in your hands. “He sounds kinda… different.”

“He is,” Wrecker affirmed with a nod, failing to stop that smile that always peeled across his face when he spoke of his family. “All of us are in our own ways.”

“Well, can I meet them?” you queried, glancing back at him with your eyebrows raised.

“You— you want to?” he stammered back.

“I’d love to… if that’s alright with yo–?”

A loud gasp fractured your sentence, the rod in your hand having lurched nearly entirely from your clutches as something below the rippling surface of the water bit down on the lure and took off. Your body leaped into almost masterful action, your hands intensifying their grip around that graphite pole while your left leg lifted to brace yourself against the powerful tug toward the water. Wrecker froze in place, his mind still twirling happily with the notion of you wanting to meet the people he loved most, and it wasn’t until you muttered a string of undignified curse words did he reawaken to the challenge at hand.

“Maker,” you gasped as you lost your balance, your foot slipping from its position perched on the side of the boat and sending your hip crashing into the wall. “Wreck! Can— can you grab the net?”

Wrecker swallowed at the sight of the rod in your hands bent nearly in half under the duress of the unseen prize still desperately fighting for its freedom in the depths of the dark water. “Wrecker! Net!” you urged as you stumbled again.

“Net…” he repeated frantically. “Right.”

It must have only been seconds… fractions of seconds since he stooped to snatch the tool from the floor, but by the time he’d straightened up, the entirety of your torso had disappeared over the side of the boat, the muscles in your legs still seizing in an effort to keep you upright despite that unrelenting pull downward.

“This— this fish is… huge,” you managed to choke out.

The next several seconds played out in half time; each moment lasting two, each movement lagging as if the events were truly happening in slow motion. Your feet departed the floor, the soles of your shoes rising to waist height… then higher… as your body teetered over the edge of the boat, anchored in place only by the bend at your waist, and even that feeble grip began to diminish as the struggle to subdue your monstrous catch continued. Wrecker acted without coherent thought, darting forward and wrapping his arms around your waist to secure you, lest you tip any farther forward and disappear into that surging sea.

Your addition of your weight was nothing to him, even combined with the efforts of the still unseen aquatic beast, but now free of the risk of toppling overboard you seemed to funnel every ounce of energy into rigorously cranking the line back onto the reel. He took a step backward and away from the water, determined to keep you safe and dry, but a foreign object had found its way into the path of his retreating boots, and his heel knocked heavily against something before his ears were met with a deafening shatter. The boat was thrown into darkness, and the pair of you toppled with a thunderous crash to the floor.

There wasn’t the time or the wherewithal to relish in the feeling of your body against his. He saw his hands clutching tightly at your hips before he even felt them under his fingers. He could smell the pleasant aroma of your hair in his nose before he’d even realized he was sprawled onto the damp floor with your body perched awkwardly atop of his, and that musical laughter began pouring from your smiling lips before any semblance of understanding returned to him.

And when it finally did? Panic… erupting inside of him like a volcano. He was holding you. You were on top of him. He could feel every swell in your body, every subtle shake of your laughing shoulders. He could count the freckles on your back. He could feel your hand placed gently atop his. The rear end that he’d deliberately avoided ogling at was now nestled securely in his lap and it threatened to utterly destabilize him.

“Maker, we botched that one didn’t we?” you chortled as you shifted your hips and tumbled off of him, rolling onto your back beside him and nudging the now shattered lantern out of your space. “I think I lost the whole rod.”

He attempted to clear the shock from his throat, yet his lungs seemed to be completely void of the breath required to complete the task and nothing but a strangled choke left his lips. His skin was on fire. Spiked adrenaline was threatening to set his hands atremble. Surely this is how he would die… lovesick to the point of suffocation. Not falling from a towering height like his nightmares had always imbued him with, but laying side by side with someone who he cared for so deeply that even breathing felt like a challenge.

“Thanks for saving my ass, Wrecker,” you spoke, nestling your head against his arm.

You shifted your gaze to look upward at him, that beguiling twinkle in your eyes somehow even brighter now that the lantern had been extinguished; those stunning glassy orbs sending his mind spinning near-painfully as he fought to find the cognition to answer you.

“You’re… you’re ass—” he stammered, feeling his face burn red hot. “I mean, you’re welcome!”

A delicate snort was your knee jerk response, and the silence that ensued afterward was so stifling… so insufferable… that Wrecker was half a heartbeat away from clambering to his feet and pitching himself headfirst into the water to escape the embarrassment.

“Wrecker…” you mumbled suddenly, breaking into his panicked thoughts. “Why did you come find me tonight?”

“Because…” he started quietly after swallowing heavily. “Well because I— I wanted to see you.”

“Do you maybe want to see me more often?”

He snapped his head in your direction, brows furrowed together as the implications of your questions flitted into his brain. “I want to see you all the time,” he answered, his gaze betraying him by darting back and forth between your eyes and your smiling lips.

“Me too.”

His lips fell open as those freckled cheeks drew nearer, your sparkling eyes disappearing as your lids fluttered closed. He froze, his own sight disappearing as your hand reached forward and cupped around his jaw, your lips descending slowly and tenderly onto his. An explosion unlike anything he’d ever crafted went off in deep in the part of his stomach where only the deepest and most intense feelings emerged; euphoria had him utterly floating. There was simply nothing else. No one else. No fish in the sea. No stars in the sky. Nothing but the warmth of your hands on his skin, and the gentle swipe of your tongue along his lip. His hand found the curves of your body without coherent thought, pausing to linger at the curve of your hip for only a moment before trailing softly up your back until his fingers wove themselves into your hair.

But it was over before it began. You pulled from him abruptly, head snapping around as three more rods suddenly began to whir and noisily unravel their tightly coiled spools of line. “Oh, Maker,” you sighed. “How about you reel them in this time, and I’ll net and tank them?” you proposed.

“Deal,” Wrecker answered, shaking his head in complete disbelief as you stood up and darted towards the farthest rod.

“Don't get stressed, it's gonna get figured out…” you sang to yourself. The fluffy pop song filling the quiet corners of the room was not your regular cup of tea, but was surprisingly successful at pulling a small wiggle from your hips, and the occasional snap from your dusty fingers. “Deep conversations at the Waffle House...” You sashayed across the room to the beat of the song, heading towards the wall of cabinets opposite the door.  

“But you knowwwww it’s always love,” you chorused, holding an invisible microphone in front of your mouth with your right hand, while your left latched each of the cupboards closed. 

The clunk clunk of approaching heavy footsteps (the kind that could only belong to the large metallic feet of Echo) were masked by the reverie that the radio always seemed to put you in, and you were momentarily deaf to everything else.

“Um… Mesh’la? Mesh’la?”

A sudden sharp intake of breath tugged heavily at your throat as your body jerked in surprise. You spun around towards the door, ready to adorn the person who’d induced your cardiac arrest with the most vehement glare you could muster… but the distress on the face of the man slumped in the doorway wiped every ounce of ire from your mind immediately.

“Sorry,” Echo mumbled from the doorway where he had paused. “I didn't mean to scare you.” 

The urge to clamp your hand over your thundering heart was immediately robbed from you as your eyes registered his visible torment, and his even more obvious need for medical attention. “Maker,” you hissed, your eyes widening and your lips parting. 

“So it is that bad...” he grumbled, correctly reading the shock on your face and triggering his shoulders to sag. 

You closed the space between you in a brisk walk, your brows knitted tightly in concern and focus. Echo had his hand clamped over his right cheek, though the pressure he was applying from his palm was nowhere near enough to stem the flow of blood now cascading down his jaw and dripping onto his chest plate. 

“Let me see,” you instructed gently, wrapping your fingers around his wrist and slowly tugging his arm downwards.

You had no choice but to ignore the loop-de-loop that your heart did in your chest as a result of your contact with his skin; Echo had had that effect on you from the get-go. For obvious reasons (and not), he was unlike any man you’d ever come across before. Sure, his cybernetics and past experiences made him unique enough as an individual, but it was more than that. He had a distinctive, polite sort of grace about him; a warmth that emanated from deep in his person that you’d never encountered before. There was just something about the way his eyes seemed to caress your features as he listened to you ramble about whatever topic it was that you needed to vent about that particular day; something about the way that his smile tugged just a little more on his left cheek than his right when Wrecker got him laughing hard enough; something about the little smirk on his lips, and nod of his head that he sent your way every morning before he was awake enough to voice a greeting.

Simply having him in close proximity somehow simultaneously calmed and excited you, wiping your mind of all coherent thought, while your heart was jolted into overdrive. It was particularly bad in the moments like this one where your skin brushed against his, as your body always seemed to take it as a cue to throw composure out the window, doping your blood with enough hormones to make your hands tremble. And then there was the fact that time did not seem to be a concrete concept when you two were together; you could have happily spent a continuous decade passing tool after tool over his shoulder as he patched up the ship, or three weeks collecting firewood from the nearby forest, or simply reading side by side in the cockpit chairs.

You cleared your throat quietly, trying to rid your insides of the butterflies that had launched into a fluttering dance routine at his touch, so you could focus on his injury. “Tech told me to come see you,” Echo mumbled through an expression laced with fear as his arm fell to his side. “He said something about a flap being ‘full thickness’?”

Now free from the pressure of his palm, the laceration on his cheek began to leak freely the moment it was exposed. Barely a breath later saw your fingertips quickly cloaked in the same red carnage that had seeped through the cracks of his own fingers. As you gently pulled at the loose overhang of skin, you reached around to the waist pouch on your lower back, yanked the zipper open, and deftly retrieved a handful of sterile gauze packs. With a quick rip of the paper packet, you unfolded a fresh square of linen and immediately pressed it against his cheek. He winced lightly against the pain of the pressure you applied, but did not pull away from your touch.  

While one left hand continued to hold the gauze in place against the warmth of his oozing cheek, your other reached for his elbow, pulling on it gently until he took a step forwards through the threshold of the door and into the MedBay. Somewhat awkwardly, as you were walking backwards and at a drastically reduced speed, you guided him towards the treatment chair and sat him on the worn albeit squashy cushion on the seat (an addition you incorporated upon first seeing the cold and rigid equipment).

“What in the name of Mandalore’s moon happened to you?” you asked him, reaching for his hand again and gesturing for him to hold the gauze in place for you.

He swallowed with apparent difficulty, his eyes flickering anxiously around the room, glaring at each piece of diagnostic equipment mounted on the walls around him. The MedBay was Echo’s least favourite area of the ship, and he had already apologetically admitted that he only visited it when he absolutely needed to. “The machines and stuff kinda freak me out,” he had divulged quietly halfway through the generic physical you had put him through shortly after you joined the squad.

Thanks to your research and the details in his medical chart, you were well aware before joining the crew that he had had several limbs replaced by cybernetic machinery in the past, but it wasn’t until several weeks after, in a whispered night-watch conversation on the ramp of the Marauder, that Hunter explained how… and why. Echo’s recurring MedBay anxiety, or the “Med Dreads” as you had comically labeled it since, became immediately validated and unspokenly understood.

“Your cheek, hun. What happened?” you probed again when he failed to answer you, deliberately keeping your tone light and warm as it usually helped diminish his anxiety.  

“I… uh… got cut.” He answered your question in a mumble, forcing the lump of anxiety down his throat for a second time and sending you a fleeting glance.

“Well I can see that, Captain Obvious,” you quipped with a smile and a small eye roll as you took the saturated material out from under his hand and replaced it with a fresh one.

After tossing the used fabric into the biohazardous waste bin beside the chair, you reached around your waist into the pouch again, this time retrieving the travel sized bottle of your go-to wound disinfectant: a neon orange effervescent solution that smelled strongly like iron, and worked remarkably well at cleaning superficial wounds with minimal pain. You held the gauze over the opening in the bottle and tipped it upside down thrice. Once satisfied with the level of saturation, you screwed the lid back on and returned the bottle to your pouch.

Your fingers wrapped tenderly around his wrist again, tugging it away from his cheek and collecting the soiled linen from his fingers. The bleeding had almost entirely subsided, blood now seeping out from under the flap of skin in droplet form, as opposed to the crimson river it had been when he first walked in.

“It’s… it’s Corporal.”

Had you not seen his lips move out of the corner of your eye, his murmur of words would have been completely lost amongst the incoherent chatter of the radio hosts.

“Pardon?” you asked him, stopping the movements of your hands to give him your undivided attention.

You were surprised to see a small smile begin to tug at the corners of his mouth as he turned his gaze back to you. “It’s Corporal,” he repeated. “Corporal Obvious.”

The upswing in his demeanor took you by surprise, momentarily blanking your mind of a response as a smile worked its way across your own face. You peered into his twinkly eyes for a breath of a moment, basking in the warmth that they smothered you in every time that they fell on you. “Oh, my apologies, sir…” you chirred with a smirk, resuming your careful wiping motions across his injured cheek. “Apparently you’re Corporal Funnyguy today, too.”

A small laugh left his nose in something of a soft snort, triggering the butterflies in your stomach to resume their tortuous, internal flap-about. Your cheeks began to burn as the echo of his laugh; you loved when he laughed, particularly if it was you that had managed to pull it out of him.  

In an effort to keep the giddy smile off your face, you bit down on the insides of your cheeks, deliberately keeping your eyes away from his until you could regain your composure. After discarding the gauze in your hands, you turned your attention back to the laceration on his cheek, prodding it gently and tugging on each end to observe its reaction to various degrees of tension. Now that the area was cleaned of the carnage, the injury was thrown into sharp relief, and you were internally grateful you’d removed the mirror from this room months ago. Echo was a tough cookie but was notoriously squeamish with blood and injuries, and whatever it was that had cut him, left a clean albeit deep wound, extending from his cheekbone outwards to his ear.

“Hmm,” you hummed, placing your hands on your hips and wiggling your nose as you thought about the best method to close the wound. “It’s definitely full thickness, unfortunately,” you intoned. “I’ll have to E-Mag stitch it, hun.”

His shoulders sank dramatically, and a heavy sigh left his mouth as he tipped his head back in exasperation. You swallowed against the sadness and empathy building in your chest, placing what you hoped was a calming hand on this shoulder. He nibbled gently on his bottom lip before looking back at you, his eyes now framed with small creases of suppressed fear and contempt. 

“Can’t you just use a bacta patch?” he asked you, failing to entirely stifle the desperate plea in his tone. “Or some of that fancy tape you have?” His eyes darted around the room again, this time almost frantically, as if visually finding the tape would be enough to convince you to use it, but his silent petitions were met with nothing but a poignant shake of your head. The inevitable, and likely infinite, list of alternatives he was sure to propose, as he so frequently had in the past, were no match for the dismissive explanation waiting patiently on your tongue.

“Echo, hun, we've been over this before. Bacta is a great tool, but it isn’t the end-all and be-all.” You spoke quietly, trying to catch eye contact again by shifting your weight and tipping your head until your face was in his line of sight. “The laceration is deep into the epidermal layer, and skin always heals from the bottom upwards. If we put a patch on, it will limit the amount of breathing your wound can do while it’s healing, and the chance of forming a compound infection increases pretty drastically.”

You watched the ghosts of unvoiced arguments shift his expression as he turned his face away from you again, his amber eyes flickering back and forth between the rebuttals that only he could hear; sorting through the rolodex of bargaining chips in his mind, searching for anything to help him obtain a fast pass out of this chair, and away from the prospect of foreign tools near his body. But despite the crease between his heavy brows deepening to that of dark chasm, he remained quiet, the only motions of his mouth being the mollifying nibble of his bottom lip.  

“I promise, once the stitches dissolve, we’ll put some bacta gel on to prevent scarring, and you’ll never know it happened,” you offered warmly, standing up straight and retracting your hand from his shoulder. “But for now, I’ll give you a pain injection to numb the area and you won’t feel a th—”

“No pain injection,” he interrupted, snapping his head around to stare at you. 

You stifled your sigh just enough for it to leave your mouth as nothing more than a poignant exhale drenched in sympathy. “Echo,” you started, cowering only slightly under the intensity of his stare. “We've been over this too. You know the stitcher is more uncomfortable than the injector. It'll be more comf—”

“No injection. I don’t need it, or want it.”

“Come on, Corporal Toughguy,” you pleaded, hoping that adding a dash of humour to the situation might soften his refusal. “I’m a whizz with the injector, ask anyone! And you can even load the vial yourself, if you want, so you know exactly what’s going in—” 

“Still no, and always no.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and challenged your pleading eyes with the flick of a dark eyebrow, wordlessly reinforcing that this was a battle you were not going to win, and he would out-stubborn you into the ground. Little did he know, the intensity of his warm eyes directed at you so piercingly, had almost entirely diminished your resolve, and a smile was working its way back across your face before you could stop it. 

“Fine,” you conceded, sticking your tongue out at him fleetingly before turning around and stepping away from the exam chair.

With an unladylike grunt, you retrieved the heavy durasteel case that held the E-Mag stitcher from one of the lower cabinets on the opposite wall. The Republic Cog logo on the lid was almost entirely faded from the constant friction of your hand opening and closing it, but the tool inside was measuredly kept in good repair. With the prod of the button, you brought the stitcher to life while simultaneously doing your best to hide the tool behind your back as you crossed the room towards where Echo sat watching you.  

His glazed eyes focused again as you approached, flickering only fleetingly to your hidden hand before another heavy sigh stole over him. You steeled yourself against the dread building inside of you, reminding yourself that your discomfort in this moment was nothing compared to his, and despite the awareness that you were about to cause him moderate to significant physical and emotional pain, this treatment was necessary.

“You sure no pain injection, hun?” you asked him when you returned to his side.   

“I’m sure,” he answered with a stoic nod.

“But are you sure sure? For sure, sure?”

“I’m sure sure… for sure… sure?” he answered slowly, his eyes narrowing slightly as his lips curled into a smile. “Maker, that word sounds weird when you say it so many times.”

A huff of a laugh poured from your mouth as you nodded. “I did that to Tech the other day too,” you said with a grin. “I somehow got him to say ‘tinkle’ three times in a row and I think he almost had a seizure.”

Another laugh forced Echo’s injured cheek upwards, though you were pleased to see the creases around his eyes were momentarily free of pain and tension. The look of neutrality, hell even joy on his features was a welcome change to the subdued and forlorn demeanor that the Med-Dreads drowned him in.   

You know you let your eyes linger on him for just a little too long, but you couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same euphoric pull towards you, that you were feeling towards him in the span of that shared laugh. Father Time had launched into his usual cruel tricks the second that Echo’s crinkled eyes met yours, and suddenly moments could have been hours; years could have been seconds; an eternity could have passed and you wouldn’t have known, for his eyes on you made everything around you make sense, and at the same time, irrelevant.

“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled, apprehension ghosting behind his eyes as he clutched the armrest of the chair tightly in his pallid hand. 

“Okay,” you answered in a determined whisper, gathering the remains of your resolve, and finally pulling the E-mag stitcher from behind your back. 

The wad of boxes wedged between the chair and the wall was, unfortunately, precisely where you needed to stand to hold the stitcher at the optimal angle, but you had no intention of delaying or drawing out Echo’s torture any longer than necessary. Eager to start and to finish so that he could be free of the mental and physical turmoil, you opted to lean across his body instead. You heard his breath hitch in his chest as you stepped in between his knees and leaned into his space, but whether his alarm was triggered from the feeling of your body against his, or the fear that enveloped him upon seeing the stitcher, you were not sure. 

“Just keep your eyes on me,” you instructed him, giving him one last smile before turning your attention to his cheek.

And he did. And it almost killed you. Watching his eyes water and his muscles tense with each stitch that you guided the tool to feed through his skin sent a wave of guilt and remorse crashing through your stomach to the point where you began desperately searching your brain for something to distract him with. 

“I think I’m going to try and get Hunter next,” you declared after the 6th stitch had wracked his tense features with another wince. You paused, offering him the moment of pain-free peace that he refused to verbalize. “What should I try and get him to say? Something attainable... but I kinda want to be on the raunchy side. Any ideas?”

“Hmm,” Echo considered after a long, slow exhale. “How about something like nipple?”  

“Nipple!” you chortled. “That’s perfect.”

“It’ll be hard to get him though,” he added against another wince as the tool in your hand threaded another stitch through his skin. “He’s too aware. You’ll have to get him nice and distracted first.”

“Kinda sounds like you’ve done this before,” you suggested quizzically, glancing over at him and cocking an eyebrow.

Echo shrugged a shoulder and let the ghost of a smirk work its way across his lips. “My brother and I had some prankster tendencies back in the day,” he answered cryptically. “Though he was a natural at it, so I always took his lead.”

“Tell me about him,” you probed, grateful for the opportunity of a lengthy and important topic; one that might be enough to steal his awareness from the present pain that you were putting him through.

A surprisingly sad sounding sigh left his mouth as he closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly against unspoken thoughts. “Maybe another day,” he eventually mumbled with a small grimace.

Every cell in your body urged you to protest; to argue with him; to reassure him that you truly did want to know everything about the brother that he only ever mentioned fleetingly; to remind him that you would eagerly listen, with open ears, for as long as he was willing to talk, like he had done for you only countless occasions. But you couldn’t bring yourself to force him into anything at this moment; not while he was already uncomfortable... already desperate to escape this room and the pain you were putting him through.

You sighed quietly to yourself, making a mental note to prompt again later, and pushed the 11th stitch into place.

“Okay, deal,” you answered. “Maybe you and I can take down Hunter as a team? I’ll bring nipples up in a conversation because, let’s be honest, it’d be weird coming from you… but you’ll have to think of a way to get him to say it multiple times.”

“Deal,” he agreed with eyes clamped shut. “What about Cross? Have you managed to get him, yet?”

“No,” you grumbled audibly and dramatically. “I can’t even get him to say one word, let alone the same word repeatedly. I don't think he likes me much to be honest...”

“Nah, it’s not that,” Echo assuaged, opening his eyes again and directing them on to you. “We all love you. Crosshair’s just a severe guy. It takes him a little longer to show his colours than everyone else.”

“Yeah well… so far the only colours I’ve seen of his are ‘snipey’ and ‘cranky’,” you chuckled, shifting your weight slightly so you could rest your elbow on his shoulder. “Oh… and ‘morning-breathy’.”

Pride welled inside of you as Echo laughed again, his chest vibrating below yours with every snicker that left him.

“He does have bad morning breath,” he agreed with a grin. “Not as bad as Wreck though. He could kill a man with that toxic morning gas.”

“Good thing Tech has the cabin ionizer on full blast at night or I think we’d all be dead.”

“That’s why he has it on full blast at night.”

Two things happened in the subsequent moment of shared laughter: you pushed the final stitch through his skin, but before a suppressed sigh of relief could even think about leaving your mouth, Echo’s hand shifted from the arm of the chair and landed gently on your side. He placed it there so softly that, in any other moment, you may have been able to shrug it off as an unprovoked shift of your waist pouch, but being so close to him had increased the sensitivity in your skin- in your very awareness, and there was no denying that was his hand clasped timidly, yet purposefully on your clothed rib cage.

You froze, turning your head slowly to face him. His eyes were fixed on you, and his face donned an expression that you’d never seen on him before: a juxtaposed blend of confidence and apprehension. You slowly straightened up, the breath in your lungs stalling as you watched his eyes dart from your left eye to your right.

You could have sworn you had heard music playing mere seconds ago, but it didn’t seem like your mind was presently able to register anything other than the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. You could have sworn you were just laughing about something… but that couldn’t be true, as there was absolutely nothing inherently comical about the way he was looking at you, nor did there seem to be any air left in your lungs to spare on laughter.

“Thank you,” he breathed, using the gentle hand on your side to pull you a fraction of an inch closer to him.

“For… for what?” you somehow managed to ask.  

Hesitation stilled him for only a moment, his cheeks flushing slightly as his eyes darted back and forth between yours again. “For being… you. For being so... you know... awesome.”

If the butterflies rearranging your internal organs like furniture wasn’t enough to end you right then and there, then the addition of his gentle touch under your chin would certainly have been your demise. Tingles radiated from the place where his finger rested on your skin. Your hands, still limply holding the stitcher at your side, began to tremble in anticipation as a force more powerful that gravity pulled you closer and closer to him. Your lips parted slightly as his gaze darted between your eyes again. 

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered against your lips.

“Yes,” you breathed, your eyes fluttering closed.

A cannon went off somewhere in the depths of your stomach as his lips brushed against yours, testing the waters of your approval; offering you the opportunity to pull away if you wanted, but there was simply nothing else in the entire galaxy that you’d rather be doing. There was simply no better feeling than this; than transferring every ounce of desire in your body into his through means of a kiss.

You pressed your lips more firmly against his, deepening the kiss while the stitcher fell to the floor at your feet with a clunk that no one heard… forgotten, irrelevant.  As he probed your lips further apart, your right hand snaked its way up his chest to cup his jaw just below his ear. His hand returned to your side, brushing his thumb tenderly against your ribs, as his tongue made a hesitant entrance into your mouth. You welcomed it immediately, pushing your chest right up against his, impervious to the uncomfortable rigidity of his armour.

“This does not seem an appropriate treatment protocol for a level 2 subdermal laceration.”

You and Echo broke apart immediately, both of you turning deer-in-the-headlight’s expressions to the door where Tech stood wide eyed and slack jawed in the threshold. Echo blushed and hung his head to his chest, as a nervous giggle left your lips.

“Um…” you started, your mind frantically searching for a valid excuse as to why you and Echo had just been unceremoniously draped all over one another, all the while somewhat distracted by the large smears of engine oil across Tech’s forehead. “Well I stitched him first… and then… shifted focus...” Tech deadpanned you, his expression unreadable, and his magnified eyes blinking intermittently behind the lenses of his smeared goggles. 

“What was your method of choice?” he eventually asked you, when not even the radio in the corner could puncture the awkward silence in the room.

“S-sorry?” you stuttered. Echo scratched his nose in your peripheral vision but you refused to look at him, lest you return to pieces and pounce on him again.

“What was your chosen method for the laceration repair?” Tech clarified, shifting his goggles on his nose.

“Oh… um. The Electro Magnetic stitcher. It was full thickne—”

“Then I was correct in my initial diagnoses. Good for me.”

He turned and left without another word, his gaze immediately redirected back downwards to the datapad clutched in his dirty hands.

When the sounds of his footsteps faded to nothing, you finally risked a glance back at Echo. His smirking face pulled an embarrassed smile from you immediately, but his eyes remained locked on you as he stood up and reached for your hand.

“Come on,” he spoke quietly, interlacing his fingers with yours and pulling you towards the hallway. “Let’s go for a walk.”

.

1. Colder Weather - Part One

Those optimistic moments often saw you rambling, thoughts slipping easily from mind to mouth in a desperate attempt to keep him connected to you; resolute in keeping him both physically and mentally present; urgently trying to protect him from the monster on his shoulders long enough for him to realize that everything he could ever want was lying peacefully beside him. Periodically, if your chosen topic was one he found particularly amusing, his eyes would crinkle under the embrace of a smile, and — if the universe deemed you worthy that night — a hoarse chuckle would pour from his lips. Despite your continued pleas to the stars, it was a sound that graced your ears with a tragic infrequence, yet the way its radiance illuminated your soul had you shamelessly begging the universe that it continue to spill from his lips for all eternity.

But despite the prophetic bond that kept him returning to your side, only once had the bliss of your union softened his guard enough to let something… slip. Only once had he mentioned a brother: Jesse, a man spoken of thoughtlessly as Kix snickered his way through the recollection of a frantic speeder ride across the plains of Saleucami. But the music of his laughter utterly vanished upon voicing the name that he never meant to speak, the silence that filled its wake so polluted in unexpressed grief, that even the hushed sounds of your breath felt inappropriate, and despite having watched the light leave his eyes so often in the past, you’d never seen it replaced with a darkness as deep and as sorrowful as then.

“Tell me about him,” you probed instantly, hopeful that the delicate touch of your hand on his shoulder would be enough to ground him there in the bed with you; hopeful that the soft caress of your fingers would prevent him from conceding to his anguish, tossing the sheet aside and leaving you with nothing but the familiar sight of his retreating back and the bittersweet smell of him lingering on your pillow.

2. Dork Love - Part Four.

“An apology is not required,” Tech spoke instead. “It would appear that I jumped to an inaccurate conclusion upon arriving here to find you missing. It was a most uncharacteristic overreaction, and one from which I now-suffer a great compunction.”

“Compunction?” you repeated, brows furrowing at the implications of his confession as you reached to pull the coils from his shoulder. “Why?”

Tech hesitated for only a breath, watching your nimble fingers blanch under the weight of the wire as you took it from him. “Well… several years of advanced training and exposure therapy have rendered me effectively inured to a multitude of scenarios that others may deem distressing,” he divulged as something near concern wiped the smile from your lips. “Yet, I failed to maintain control of my emotions in the face of your disappearance. I became largely inexorable, making objectively impetuous and questionable decisions.”

“Tech,” you uttered in little more than a consoling whisper, his stomach lurching as your free hand collected his from somewhere near his hip, those slightly chilled fingers weaving their way in between his before the soft, consoling brush of your thumb nearly weakened his knees. “There is nothing to regret. Worrying about someone is nothing to be ashamed of, and arguably even less so if that person is someone you care greatly about. In fact, an initial surge of panic followed by attempts to verify their safety is likely the expected psychological response to such concerns. You walked into what looked like a very foreboding situation and had no data to disprove your suspected theory.”

“I suppose that is correct,” Tech shrugged, dropping his gaze to the toe of his oily boot, “Though it has been several years since I last studied the sympathetic subsection of the autonomic nervous system in response to traumatic stimuli.”

“Sounds like an interesting read,” you mumbled through a sarcastic smile that prompted the return of his gaze. “Tell me– if the same situation presented itself again, would you not react similarly? Would you not do everything within your power to make sure that someone was okay while everything around you was telling you they’re not?”

“Of course I would.”

“Then that’s that,” you answered simply. “There’s no reason to regret your actions, just like I don't suffer any contempt for getting myself stuck on Ryloth. Making the trip there was the best and potentially only solution based on the information available to me at the time. Things went awry… and that’s okay, because we should always do what our gut is telling us to do when it comes to things and people that we care greatly about.”

And there it was: that intemerate benevolence that he wholly adored about you, reemerging to knock him over the head with a validation that he’d never experienced before… and the subsequent moment, as his eyes locked on yours and his grip on your hand tightened, he felt truly seen as himself. Not Tech the highly-skilled soldier… not Tech the ingenious mechanic responsible for keeping the GAR’s most elite squad in the air… not Tech the pilot who loved his datapad above all else and never slept. You saw Tech… accepting and welcoming him as he is; validating his infrequent displays of vulnerability as if humanity was something he could and should experience first hand without fear of persecution or judgement.

“Oh, and don’t think I didn’t catch that,” you added, brow shifting into a devious arch as a playful smirk tugged at your lips.

“Catch what, exactly?”

“The oxymoron you dropped in there: ‘found you missing’. Someone can’t be found and missing, hun. But keep dropping them– I’ll catch ‘em every time.”

3. The Only Exception - Chapter Two.

‘He’s just a soldier,’ she reminded herself with a snort of self-directed derision, desperately trying to extract her password from the depths of her distracted brain.

And he was. There was nothing overtly different or unusual about CT–5863 in relation to the hundred-or-so other clones that had passed in and out of her care since the war began. Quite frankly, there couldn’t be anything different about him, it was genetically impossible. So why had one look from this set of honeyed eyes seen her stomach careening into the next dimension and her nerves prickling as if every shift of his gaze left a trail atop her skin?

Thrice she tried and failed to enter her secure information into that software, yet its repeated beeps toward the inevitable system lock-out fell on entirely deaf ears, and it wasn’t until the screen strobed that she’d near-reached the maximum login attempts did some glimmer of awareness surge back to her.

“I’m Dr. Kiore,” June told him, attempting to banish that myriad of improper thoughts by corralling every cooperating neuron into entering her password, and the breath she’d unintentionally held in her lungs was granted their escape atop a sigh of relief as that familiar landing screen emerged in front of her. “What’s your name?”

“CT–58—”

“No, Captain, your name.”

“My name?” A puzzled pause preceded his answer, that brief second of hesitation having failed to lessen any of the obvious confusion behind those two words, and the notion that she may have to formally explain such a simple concept was the first to pull a smile to June’s lips.

But, “Howzer.” He recovered quickly, offering his name in the same tone he’d used upon hearing her tap on the door, and the small creases now wreathing those twinkling eyes as they narrowed in something close to suspicion entirely laid bare his continued bewilderment at her behaviour.

“Howzer,” she repeated, offering him a casual smile as she swiped her finger across the monitor and entered the information next to his designation number. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A moment’s innocent silence fell between them as she typed, masterfully toggling between different pages of his medical chart and familiarizing herself with the details of his treatment history. For an active soldier, particularly one that appeared as if he’d spent several respite-free rotations laying in the foreign dirt of a distant planet, his chart was remarkably vacant, the only few noted injuries being quickly treated in the field and recorded somewhat haphazardly by the trio of different medics who had seen him.

“I– I think that might be the first time a civilian’s asked me that,” he contemplated under his breath, eyes unfocussing as he rubbed that dirty palm across the stubble on his chin

“Yeah, well… they were supposed to ask downstairs,” June scoffed, the grumble swaddling her tone readily exposing the disdain for the repeated shortcomings of her colleagues. “I’ve asked them four billion times to try and remember, but of course no one listens to the youngest.”

When the squad rendezvoused back at the ship earlier in the day, Wrecker had wasted no time pleading with Hunter to permit them a night of ‘nourishment’. After six straight successful missions, including a particularly messy one this morning that lead to a dislocated shoulder on Crosshair’s part, the sergeant had little choice but to concede and grant his brothers a few hours of delectation before their next objective would take them across the galaxy to another desolate planet.

Crosshair, riddled by the persistent ache that he refused to satiate with an injection, was not at all in the mood for the crowd tonight; his head was pounding, his shoulder was sore, his heels were blistered. He’d have much preferred to remain behind on the ship, as the warm embrace of an unreasonably long shower, void of the sporadic knocks and irksome reminders that ‘the hot water needs to be shared equally’ from his always-democratic brother, would have likely been exactly what he needed to turn his mood around. But Echo had also expressed the desire to remain aboard, and the verbose recollection of events that he unfailingly insisted on uttering aloud to himself and anyone else that would listen, seemed like the greater of two evils for Crosshair’s agitated brain.

The sniper had managed to put up with almost two hours of anarchy inside the bar; he’d even forced himself to partake by downing a couple glasses of whiskey, and while they succeeded in moderately placating the pain in his shoulder, they’d done nothing to stabilize his mood.

“Um, excuse me—” His head snapped suddenly to the left in the direction of the voice that had startled him, “—you wouldn’t happen to have a lighter would you?”

Lost in the recollection of this morning’s mission-gone-sour, he had been blind to your invasion of the quiet alley in which he’d been seeking a moment of respite. Unlike the two companions that flanked you on either side, you appeared largely unaffected by the mist of cold drizzle that had started falling from the dark sky. Your eyes were on him expectantly, though while the glassy surface perfectly reflected the orange glow of neon from the sign across the street, it was the unexpected beauty of your eyes that gave him pause.

The tail end of your eyebrow lifted slightly in response to his silence, a hint of a smile pulling up the corner of your lips.

Crosshair swallowed against the strange feeling that lurched in his stomach as he met your gaze, before reaching behind him into the smallest pouch on his belt and retracting the lighter that he’d been meaning to toss away for weeks. “All yours,” he managed to force out, extending it towards you.

A grin erupted on your face as you thanked him, and the sudden appearance of two charming dimples on either side of your mouth tossed him headfirst into a sense of captivation and curiousity. He shifted his gaze deliberately away from you, and returned his arms to their entangled position across his chest as you fitted a deathstick between your lips and clicked the lighter into action.

“Eugh…” The sudden, disgusted intonations from your companions stole his attention back almost immediately, and he fought to stifle an eye roll as, in an effort to clear the new cloud of smoke, they began dramatically swatting at the air around their faces.

“We’ll just meet you there,” they chorused to you, waiting only long enough for you to nod in acknowledgement before departing the quiet of the alley and crossing the street with their noses in the air.

His eyes returned to you, curious to see your reaction to being seemingly abandoned in the company of a stranger with blasters on his hips and a rifle on his back, but you remained as unaffected by his companionship as you were by the drizzle, happily pulling another drag from the deathstick pinned between your fingers.

“Some friends,” he mumbled, gesturing to the pair of retreating bodies with a jerk of his head.

“They are, believe it or not,” you answered with a small smirk, crossing your ankles below you and wrapping your idle arm around the front of your body. “They’re just fed up with me promising that I’ll quit smoking, and then immediately lighting one up.”

The way that your lips embraced each word as they left your mouth, enamored him in a way that he couldn’t properly comprehend in that moment, and he had to mentally fight to process your sentiments while the pulling sensation in his gut intensified. The sheen blanketing your skin from each passing second of feeble rain was capturing the bright luminescence from the sign above, bathing you in a warm glow that sent goosebumps down his neck. But the master of composure masked his growing desire for you with knitted brows and the ghost of a smirk. He flicked the toothpick across his lips, discreetly caressing your features with his sharp eyes.

“What’s with the toothpick?” you quizzed, breaking the silence that ensued in the wake of his forgotten response.

He clamped the soggy strip of wood between his molars, keeping it secured in place while his lips parted to reply. “Trying to quit smoking,” he mumbled, gesturing with a flick of his eyes to the glowing embers pinned between your painted fingertips.

“Hmm,” you hummed through a knowing smirk, deftly flicking ash off the shrinking deathstick. “Is it working?”

Crosshair scoffed a small laugh, the tension in his brows relaxing as a smile played across his lips. “It was,” he answered. “Until about a minute ago.”

You matched his laughter with a snicker of your own, sending another wave of goosebumps across his skin. The pounding of his heart in his ears went ignored, as the only current recipient of his attention was the portion of your bottom lip that had disappeared between your teeth by means of a subconscious, gentle nibble.

“Let’s split this one,” you spoke, breaking his languor and extending your hand into the space between them. “We can’t rightfully admit to ‘smoking a deathstick’ if we each only had half, right?”

He thought fleetingly of Tech and what he would have said if he’d witnessed your flawless manipulation of logic. The image of his brothers already magnified eyes widening to an unnatural size flashed in Crosshair’s mind only momentarily, before the flick of your eyebrow banished all other coherent thought.

“Twist my arm,” he answered with a smirk, pulling the toothpick from his teeth and flicking it onto the ground.

His skin brushed against yours as he collected the deathstick from your clutches, and the iron grip that had encapsulated around the depths of his gut when you first spoke gave his stomach an almighty twist, as if trying to wring water from a sponge. He brought the butt to his lips and inhaled, thankful that his mind had the unconscious wherewithal to complete the motion without requiring deliberate thought as his composure threatened to unravel.

“You a bounty hunter?” you asked him, your glimmering eyes dancing up and down his armoured figure.

“Soldier,” he answered quietly, letting the smoke stew in his lungs for an extended moment before releasing it into the night. “Trooper… Clone… Killer… take your pick.”

“Killer?” you repeated with a grimace, retrieving the death stick that he extended back out to you. “That’s a little grim.”

“Grim, but true,” he answered, his words leaving his mouth more soberly than he had intended. “It’s all I really know how to do.”

You ran your free hand along your forehead, absentmindedly brushing away the moisture that was beginning to collect as seconds in the drizzle turned into minutes. “You don’t seem pleased about it…” you probed, tipping your head slightly and looking at him inquisitively.

A shrug of the shoulders was all the response he could muster for in that moment, an unprecedented feeling of vulnerability and exposure began to wash over him. It was as if your twinkling eyes had an inhuman ability to see deep inside of him; as if the small, persistent smile on your lips held all the power that it needed to disassemble him.

“Well… we’re all killers in some way, aren’t we?” Your eyes followed your fingers as they passed the shrinking remainder of the deathstick back to him to finish off, your words bathed in a contrasting mixture of reassurance and uncertainty. “We’ve all had to kill parts of ourselves to survive.”

Crosshair paused, his hand hovering in front of his mouth and smoke wafting past his eyes as the profundity of your words rendered him momentarily flummoxed. Who were you? And how was it possible that, in less than two sentences, you had both soothed and baffled him? Less than two sentences had seemingly told him everything he needed to know about you, while simultaneously inciting an intense curiousity as to exactly why you would believe in such a notion.

A droplet of water running down the side of his face broke his stupor, and he hurried to insert the deathstick between his lips. He cleared his throat quietly, debating if he dare ask the question poised and waiting on his tongue. “Which parts are those?” It left his mouth softly and free of motive, but you still glanced back at him with mild shock and apprehension on your features.

“Well… my lungs to start.” You answered almost as tactfully as you had when you twisted the logic of sharing a deathstick, though the ghost of vulnerability remained etched into the subtle crease between your brows despite of the smile dancing across your lips.

A sudden thunderous wave of noise broke the following breath as the door of the bar below the neon orange sign opened, filling the street with the booming sound of grungy music and sporadic shrieks of inebriated laughter. Your friend’s head and shoulders appeared a moment later, their eyes narrowed slightly as they peered through the mist for any sign of you. Barely audibly over the sheer volume of the music, they called for you. The sound of your name reverberated into the corners of Crosshair’s mind louder and more thoroughly than any subwoofer in any dingy bar that he’d ever been in.

You acknowledged the summons with a small wave of your hand and a thumbs up, before turning your attention back to the sniper who averted his eyes immediately, coyly trying to disguise the fact that you were like a flame to the moth of desire in him.

“Well… thanks for the light,” you simpered with a wink, taking a few steps backwards and away from him. “And the chat.”

Budding disappointment yanked the pitiful remains of a smirk from his slender face, replacing it with a tormented scowl. He was flooded with the overwhelming desire to follow you out of the alley, into the bar across the road, off the planet… hell, anywhere. Anywhere with you… but he gathered the resolve to resist, knowing his prolonged absence had already likely triggered an alarm in Hunter’s hyperawareness. Despite every cell in his body protesting his restraint, sending tingles through his limbs as his very atoms vied desperately to jump ship from his body for yours, he remained stoic and unmoving.

Your lip returned to its nestle between your teeth, your gaze stealing the breath from his smoky lungs. It felt a little like a standoff that he hadn’t been prepared for, both of you seemingly paused and waiting to see if he would be impulsive enough to follow you. Indecision surged through him in waves, and still his body refused to move.

“Here.” You lobbed him the half-empty pack of deathsticks, resuming your slow backwards steps away from him. “Maybe you’ll be the reason I finally give up the habit.” Crosshair caught it nimbly with one hand, his eyes still locked on yours as he fought the silent, internal battle of his next move.

“Maybe you’ll be the reason I pick it up again,” he cooed back at you, pocketing the gift. Your head tipped back as a laugh left your mouth like music.

“Enjoy your night, killer,” you quipped. He stood up straight as you finally turned away from him, crossing the street in a jog and disappearing into the depths of the rowdy bar.

Crosshair watched you go, an incompressible tornado of emotion coiling in his gut: disappointment, regret, longing, confusion, bewilderment, vulnerability, curiosity, lust, indecision. The harmless drizzle intensified to a light rain, droplets landing heavily against his armour in metallic thunks. The crowd on the street dispersed immediately, everyone too eager to preserve their fancy outfits and whatever was left of their decency from being further dismantled by the downturn in weather. Crosshair stayed rooted to the spot, unable to rid himself of your retreating image… unable to rid his mind of your words: “We’re all killers in some way, aren’t we?”

A heavy sigh stole over him, and he shook his head gently in an effort to clear it as he reached back around to his belt and retrieved the gift. He flicked the top up of the carton up with his thumb, silently vowing to himself that he’d discard whatever was left in the pack in the morning, when a scribbled line of loopy writing caught his eye.

On the underside of the lid, you had scribbled what looked like a com frequency number. Crosshair’s heart leapt at the sight of the breadcrumb… the opportunity… the chance to do and say everything he immediately regretted not doing and not saying as you jogged away from him.

He lifted his arm immediately, typing your frequency numbers into the comlink on his forearm. He stared at the blue light with intensity, waiting for the static to clear, for you to pick up.

“That was fast.” You voice, distorted only slightly by the vocabulator, pulled a smirk onto his face immediately. The booming sound of the music from your end of the line was filling the alleyway, and filling him with a determination.

“Get back here,” he demanded to the blue light on his arm.

You did not immediately answer, and he waited with a held breath as the sound of the music continued to fill the void of your response. But then, after what felt like an eternity…

“Be right there, killer.”

The blue light disappeared from his wrist as you ended the transmission. With eyes glued to the door across the road, Crosshair pulled a deathstick from the pack in his hand, fitted it between his teeth and lit it.

Through the cloud of smoke, he saw the door open and you appeared framed in its opening. He watched, blood pounding in his ears again, as you locked eyes with him and stepped out from under the canopy. You splashed through a small puddle as you crossed the road, seemingly undeterred by the wetness seeping around your sandaled toes. Crosshair dragged heavily on the deathstick in his mouth, his mind frantically trying to formulate what he would say when you approached. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, the mere absence of you and the possibility of a reunion blinding him to all other thought.

Breath began to leave his lungs in pants as you flung your damp hair to the other side of your head. You were mere steps away now, eyes alight and blazing, sending wave after wave of desire through his body.

He pulled the deathstick from his lips and tossed it unceremoniously into the puddle that had formed on the ground in front of him, and when you were near enough, he stuck his hand out, grabbed a fistful of your jacket and pulled you against him.

His lips descended on yours forcefully, full of passion and unsaid sentiments. He could taste smoke, but whether it be from your tongue or his, he didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Not a muscle in your body showed an inkling of resistance as he forced your lips further apart, keeping you pulled tightly against his armoured body with his grip on your collar. You conceded the plea of his tongue immediately, your hands moving upwards to grip the forearm that had you pulled so tightly against him.

As his tongue entered your mouth, he pulled you back into the alley, and slowly backed you against the cold durasteel wall. Heavy huffs of air left your mouth as he worked his lips across your jaw. Your hands left his arm, the fingers of your right hand digging into the collar of his chest plate and roughly pulling him harder against you, while the other reached up to cup his jaw and redirect his lips back to yours. He wedged a thigh between your legs and released his grip on your collar, yanking the zipper down on your jacket and snaking his hands under the material. His long, powerful fingers clutched at your waist as if the very feeling of your body in his hands provided him with life. “Wanna get out of here?” he stammered through wet, open-mouthed kisses.

“Yes,” you breathed, your eyes fluttering closed as his lips trailed down your neck. “Go hail us a cab.”