#tech x gn!reader

Once he feels like he’s ready, he’d ask you about it, if you’ve thought about having sex with him too, how you wanted your first time with him to be like and many more questions about what you liked and disliked.

It wouldn’t take long after this talk for him to take the first step, he’d keep what you told in mind and wait for a moment where it’s just the two of you to invite you to his bunk. He uses all the knowledge he has from previous flings and the things he’s researched—because of course he did a whole study on sex before talking to you.

The first time would be gentle and soft, he’d prepare you with his mouth and fingers before entering you and keeping a steady pace, insisting that you simply relaxed on the mattress while he did most of the work.

It was good, Tech didn’t have any complaints about it, but there’s an itch in his brain that keeps making him do more research about it and he ends up finding out a lot of things he’d like to try with you.

Once he tries a toy for the first time he gets addicted, cums earlier than intended but doesn’t want to stop testing all sorts of toys he finds on the holonet. Initially he’d use vibrators, rings, dildos, whatever makes you tell him to not stop while you shake in pleasure, as you both got more comfortable he’d ask that you used some on him too, and he couldn’t decide if he loved more using them on you or having you take care of him with the toys.

Tech, being such a creative genius, would secretly make his own devices to surprise you, he’d ask to blindfold you while he tested some new toys and after he made you orgasm at least three times he’d take the cloth off of your eyes and reveal that it wasn’t one he bought, but a toy he made with his own hands.

He says these moments are for research purposes, both of you know it’s just him getting off of the fact not only he can make you cum with his mouth, fingers and dick, but also with the toys he’d made and not some plastic garbage he found on the holonet.

The most obvious of his kinks is to film you two having sex. Any new toy or position you two try he’d want to tap the camera on his goggles to keep his point of view of that moment for later, when you’re not around and he’s needy. You can also film him if you want, he’d let you use his goggles for that purpose, he’d only ask that you guided him as he can’t see shit without them.

You wouldn’t know it until later, but Tech has a thing for your ass. He never showed it too much, as he touched every part of your body equally, you’d only know if you directly asked what he liked more on you. If you used that to your advantage, bending over in front of him, sitting on his lap and shifting a bit too often or using a more revealing piece of clothing, expect his pace to speed up a little, his thrusts would become rougher as he’d want to take you in all fours.

The last surprise you’d get from him is when he asks to try something new—as if you hadn’t done every position and used every toy possible—and he confesses he’d like you to penetrate him, either with a strap or a dick if you have one.

It’s easy to tell when he wants what, on days he’s more relaxed he wants to spend his energy pleasuring you, while during the most stressful days he wants to lay down while you take care of him with your strap/dick.

Reblogs, comments and feedback are appreciated. Let me know if there are any mistakes, English is not my first language. Thank you for reading! <3

Do not copy or translate!

“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.  

***

Bemused that the apex of Tech’s affection had landed itself upon a person and not a superfluous piece of technology, Hunter was insistent that he accompany his brother on today’s voyage, though the guise he’d chosen to conceal his disbelief was a weak one. The coils of wire that he had absurdly deemed “too heavy” for one man to carry, swung daintily from the crooks of their elbows with every stride, and despite having bore witness to the innumerable sleepless nights that Tech had spent meticulously studying current commercial Electrical Code, Hunter remained unwavering in his adamance that his heightened senses may prove valuable – (“what if you need me to sense where the wires are in the wall?”)

‘If only the journey to Coruscant had been for a more inconsequential reason,’ Tech found himself longing as the armoured duo departed the ship. ‘Simply a mission to seek a replacement part, or a simple separatist data decryption.’ Had this been the case, his sergeant’s company would have been welcomed and even encouraged; independent as he was, Tech rarely declined an opportunity to be accompanied by a brother, particularly so if it meant freeing the cockpit of any officious, unsupervised visitation in his absence. Today on the other hand, as his mind continued to shirk his every offer of distraction, and perpetually whirred with cyclical, desultory thoughts, he would have much preferred to make the journey solo.

As they typically did to pacify his overactive mind, his fingers danced fervently across the illuminated buttons of the device clutched tightly in his left hand, the absentminded prods and swipes of his fingers triggering a near constant pull of new, yet continuously marginalized information. Most recently ignored was a collection of graphs depicting the primary effects of seasonal climate changes on the pollination schedule of Felucia’s native flora, though more imperative to Tech in that moment, was calculating the likelihood that you would notice the droplets of engine oil still splattered across the toes of his boots; the only remnants of a night spent repairing the damage that Wreckers most recent attempt at landing the ship had caused to the Marauder’s undercarriage.

Regrettably, the poor condition of his boots was only one of several trivial misgivings. In its company was the budding dread that his lenses had dirtied themselves again despite having mastered the disinfection process, and the fear that the callouses emerging on his palms from several hours of dismantling and reassembling the hyperdrive would deter you from initiating the contact that he’d found himself near-addicted to.

But anchoring all of the other menial anxieties, was the gnawing possibility that the entirety of this adventure could be naught but a misunderstanding; those were, admittedly, frequent occurrences for Tech. The disfigurement of his genetics had rendered him largely unable to accurately identify and categorize the infinite array of human behavior, particularly when expressed by those with whom he was unfamiliar.

What if this was one of those times? What if the request that he come find you was merely a parting statement made with the sole intent of being complaisant, and not one that you intended he act on? Much to his dismay, it was a hypothesis that warranted investigation; after all, you were quite polite… and intelligent… and munificent… and welcoming… and so very becoming to him. What if the profound sense of adoration that welled inside him at only the thought of you, was not a feeling mutually shared? What if the unrelenting desire to be back in your company, with your chilled yet capable hands curled around his, was simply unreciprocated? Could all of this be yet another miscategorization of body language, and was he presently walking toward a potentially crippling rejection? And why did Hunter have to insist that he come along?

Seeking any semblance of reprieve or solace from the advice of a brother was an idea banished from his mind almost as swiftly as it presented itself, as even the most casual, off-hand comments regarding a squad mate’s possible love interest typically had Wrecker jeering so extravagantly that even droids in the immediate vicinity saw their circuits overheating under a potent, secondhand indignity.

Crosshair’s passive yet targeted quip of being to spot “dorks in love” from a mile away had caught Tech entirely off guard as the squad marched otherwise silently through the arid and brittle forest abutting a Separatist ComHub on Sullust, yet the sardonic remark, while unprovoked and initially jarring, did succeed in diminishing a portion of Tech’s uncertainty, and he clung to it as if it were a talisman against the degenerative doubt.

That was until today. With boots clunking noisily along a familiar pathway now bathed in a radiant sunlight that in no way mirrored the turbulence in his mind, his every step toward the bright, yellow door of his emotional demise saw the protection of his brother’s sentiment almost entirely stripped of its integrity.

Tech swallowed heavily, stumbling over the fragmented motions of his feet, the fluidity of their typically athletic movements interrupted by the sudden and irrepressible urge to try and remove the oil from the toe of his left boot with the back of his right pant leg. Hunter, nostrils flared against the onslaught of foreign underworld aromas, remained tactfully blind to the uncharacteristic stumble on his right, only concealing the first signs of a smirk by shifting the coil of wire from the crook of his elbow to the ridge of his shoulder bell, and offering the tip of his nose an absentminded scratch.

“You, uh… excited?” the sergeant probed, waiting until the pair had fallen back into a casual cadence to cast an inquisitive glance toward his brother.

“I am most eager to begin the installation, yes,” Tech answered smartly, his response somehow void of the apprehension currently plaguing his thoughts. “I suspect this to be a multi-faceted problem requiring an equally detailed and well-planned solution. The existing circuitry was designed to house breakers of a 15-amperage allotment, and was thus outfitted with 14-gauge wiring throughout. The previous owner was, regrettably, an amateur in the field of electrical requirements and failed to investigate the symbiotic correlation of breaker-to-wiring before interchanging several breakers, thus rendering the preexisting wires incapable of transporting the increased charge and escalating the likelihood of an electrical fire. A complete overhaul of the electrical panel, including all new breakers of the correct specifications, paired with a 10-gauge wire that appropriately fulfills the demand of several different amperage allotments, would serve the in building’s best interests. Additionally, I will need to determine which of the machinery have a load requirement exceeding that of the common 20 amperages. I suspect both the generator and the lens polisher will both require a replacement breaker with a higher allotment, which may, in turn, require me to reconfigure neighbouring breaker requirements to accommoda—”

“That’s not what I was asking,” Hunter interrupted, the vocoder in his helmet failing to smother the exasperation that wreathed his words. “And I think you know that.”

Offering only a guilty glance toward his sergeant, Tech pursed his lips and refocused his gaze upon his datapad. All too aware of the heat surging to his cheeks, and the failure of his helmet to completely veil its presence from the attuned senses of his brother, he maintained a contemplative silence while earnestly scrolling back to the beginning of the article he’d been thoughtlessly skimming (an abstract on the ‘Primitive Parasocial Behavior Patterns of the Felucian Flying Manta’, a species they were likely to encounter during their next mission).

“You know, you don’t need to deflect, Tech.” Hunter finished the assertion by pulling his helmet from his head and shaking his long locks from his shoulders, an absentminded smile peeling across his lips as the radiant sunlight warmed his tattooed features. “I’ve been in your shoes before… I can help you sort out your feelings if you want.”

The gentle, yet, surveying gaze that his sergeant turned toward him while a discomfited silence expanded the space between them saw Tech nearly flinching; not entirely prepared to respond to his brother’s request for vulnerability, he inculpably reattuned his attention to his hands.

“The Felucian Flying Manta bears the ‘Repatavian’ genus, unlike its fellow Manta counterparts with the Reptaquatic subclassification, though socially maintains a similar hierarchy—” he read futilely for the ninth time. “—A lone alpha maintains a symbiotic and systematic breeding schedule with the females of the colony, and remains largely unchallenged for his position as protector and genetic contributor. Rival males must only challenge the alpha for authority during that of a waning gibbous moon, when shifts in the atmospheric currents bring forth—”

“Or… we don’t have to talk about it at all,” Hunter continued with a small shrug, noting both the redoubled avoidance and the subsequent microshift in Tech’s posture. “That’s cool too, but don’t feel like you need to suffer in silence. You know that I’m here for you.”

The likelihood of retaining any imperative information about the flying Manta continued to reduce at a rate that nearly matched the dwindling of Tech’s confidence; the source material slipping from the clutches of his mind as if both the memory of you (and the remnant oil on his boots) were expropriating any and all available cranial space.

Despite his sergeant’s head swiveling about next to him, eagerly taking in the domestic sights of the under-city and offering respectful nods to passing pedestrians, Tech could spare no consideration for the surroundings attempting to permeate his attention. It was likely that they’d already passed the seamstress’ shop that he knew to be only a dozen doors from yours, its impeccably maintained windows exposing the myriad of wealthy politicians pompously designing their senatorial wardrobe from scratch. And if that were true, then surely the cobbler’s shop would be approaching imminently, its windows nearly opaque under the duress of a hundred exuberantly colourful signs, all iterating the implausible claim that Mr. Purble’s shoe repairs were “out of this world!” Yet… despite the dwindling proximity, he still could not summon the resolve to lift his gaze and watch that jubilant yellow door draw nearer.

Tech cleared his throat quietly, nudging his goggles further against his brow in a motion as soothing as it was unnecessary, as he’d long since modified the bridge of his helmet to keep them securely in place on his nose. With time continuing to betray him, now seemed an appropriate opportunity as ever to seek a moment of private counsel.

“I… I am not sure how to quantify the nature of my feelings,” he admitted with a sigh, conceding to Hunter’s periodic glances of encouragement. “I am undeniably excited to be returning, as I have been anticipating this reunion for several weeks, yet I am unreasonably apprehensive. I fear that I may have misconstrued the entirety of this situation and am walking toward an… ignominious encounter.”

Hunter’s sharp eyes softened under the admission, lips momentarily compressing into an empathetic grimace before offering his reply. “I’d argue that’s a pretty normal emotional reaction,” he acknowledged with a reassuring nod, “though even normal is a spectrum from person to person. And some degree of insecurity is to be expected in a situation like this, especially when we’ve placed a high value on someone else’s opinion of us. But your actions speak volumes about how you feel if you take a step back and look at logically: for one, I couldn’t tell you the last time you put your datapad down and forgot about it, let alone for hours and immediately before a mission. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

A moment’s hesitation stilled Tech’s response on his tongue, his eyes narrowing against the embarrassment of his previous, neglectful mistake. Discarding both his datapad and the com system on his gauntlet had been a highly irresponsible oversight, but the hours hidden away in the blissful seclusion of your workshop had seen him too enraptured by your capabilities and intelligence to spare his squad even a transient thought.

“I suppose that is accurate,” he beseeched, apologetically glancing downward to the aforementioned device still encircled by his hands.

“And I have a scar on my wrist from the last time that I tried to touch your goggles. From the few details that you’ve agreed to share, you seem to have no issue letting this mysterious ‘labcoat’ completely dismantle them. Surely, that means something too?”

“Well… yes. Yes, I would agree.” He barely managed to get the words past his lips before they began to curl into a reminiscent smile; the petrification that had coursed through his veins upon hearing the audible snap of his lens unceremoniously snapped out of his goggles, now only a comical memory.

“And you tried every trick in your arsenal to keep me from joining you today,” the sergeant continued with an amused scoff. “So there is obviously an element of confidence here that you’re just overlooking in the shadow of nerves. Seems to me that you really like this person. As far as if the feelings are reciprocated or not? There’s no way of knowing until it plays out, but show me a person that holds hands with a stranger platonically and I’ll eat my fucking boots.”

A chuckle that perfectly matched the hoarse nature of his smoky voice, left lips now smirking under his feeble attempt at humour. “And speaking of boots,” he continued, the smile slipping from his features and replaced with the ghost of a mildly disgusted grimace. “You should have thought about giving yours a quick wipe before we lef— Tech?”

But the sage advice had utterly dissipated into that moment’s soft gust of summer wind; frozen mid step on the pathway, Tech had fallen long out of stride with his brother, the response stolen off his tongue by the peculiar and devastating sight that had finally torn his attention from his hands.

The vibrant entryway that he’d deliberately forestalled seeing was, quite frankly, nowhere near as welcoming as he’d remembered it to be, the joy of its vibrant colour almost entirely negated by a new and… obtrusive… addition.

A perplexity as dense as the furrow in his brow triggered those magnified eyes to fervently dart across the unexpected dereliction in front of him, and a prickle unrelated to the blissful daydream of which he’d just been yanked quickly raised the fine hairs along the back of his neck.

Hunter reappeared at his elbow a moment later, his posture quickly moving to mirror that of his brother with bewilderment knitting his brows, and his head tipping delicately toward one shoulder. “Is this the place?” he asked Tech, his query dripping in skepticism.

“Yes.” A solitary word was all that Tech could formulate, the shambolic disrepair having entirely robbed him of both breath and understanding, his mind whirring near frantically as he tried to make sense of the unheralded situation.

Almost every inch of glass had been opacified; the oversized windows spanning the entirety of the storefront, now completely obscured by the adherence of several, nondescript wood panels affixed into place from the interior of the store. They’d been hung somewhat impetuously; this was apparent on first glance with the lopsided positioning and the subsequent gaps created between panels intensifying the appearance of arrant abandonment. The smaller window inset into the entry door appeared to have been treated similarly, but it was the barrier hung hastily behind its panes that had seized Tech’s attention and refused to free it.

An untidy, scrawling note had been imprudently scrawled across the wood, the dark ink of each letter seeping into the surrounding fibers and ominously distorting the redundant message.

“Temporarily Closed.”

His lips wrapped their way around the pairing of words though no sound left them, his throat bobbing under the duress of a heavy swallow as his heart slipped unsettlingly from his chest to his stomach.

“Looks, er… welcoming…” Hunter chirruped from Tech’s left side, removing the thick loop of wire from his shoulder and tossing it unceremoniously to the ground at his feet.

Tech remained deaf to everything except the trepidation still tickling the hair on his neck. Even the dull ache radiating from his elbow as the joint began to mutiny against the prolonged oppression of its freight was rebuffed, disappointment and a puzzling sense of foreboding fighting for position at the forefront of his mind.

He stepped over Hunter’s abandoned cargo, deftly stowing his datapad away into its respective pouch as he neared the door. “Temporarily closed,” he repeated to himself, as if the act of voicing the phrase might provide some semblance of the understanding that he just couldn’t seem to excogitate.

‘This is highly nonsensical.’ The thought flashed like a warning across his mind as he cautiously pressed a palm to the glass. It was unsurprisingly warm to the touch, the heat of the sun trapped between the glass and the wood panel on its other side, radiating easily through the pliant yet protective Kevlar of his gloves; a sensation that entirely juxtaposed the blossoming dread prickling his skin.

“Safe to assume this isn’t what you expected?” Hunter mused, the soft chortle that encapsulated his words exposing his equanimity, but something sinister had caught Tech’s eye as he tipped his head back and reread the sloppy message. A smattering of red dots, soaked deeply into the fibers of the wood below the scrawling penmanship that he did not recognize to be yours…

Something near a gasp left his lips as he yanked his hand from the window, quickly jerking the wire from his arm and hurrying to engage the mechanical visor on his helmet. Hunter continued to mutter queries over his shoulder, but Tech remained incognizant to it all, too intent on initiating a scan of the liquid that he was praying he’d misidentified upon first glance.

“Sanguination: POSITIVE.” flashed devastatingly across his vision. “Origin: HUMAN- HS.”

“I… I do not like the looks of this.” He pushed the visor up and out of his line of sight, the presumption spoken lowly, and saturated in a sense of foreboding that could not be immediately rationalized.

“Talk to me, Tech,” Hunter probed, knotting his arms semi-impatiently over his chest. “What am I looking at? Other than a sign that looks like someone wrote it with their kriffing toes…”

“There… there are several things amiss,” Tech muttered unhelpfully, wrenching his gaze from the carnage only long enough to tug his helmet from his head and lower it sightlessly to the ground beside the abandoned wire. “I cannot make sense of this.”

“Sense of what, exactly?” Hunter urged through another infuriating chuckle.

But all desire to answer his brother had dissipated, its urgency overtaken by the dread surging through his veins and pounding heavily in his ears. He turned his attention toward the window on his right, eyeing the linear gap between the frayed edge of the wood board and the window frame. Desperate for a clue as to why there would be blood splattered ominously across a barrier hung where it shouldn’t be, he jammed his eye to the glass; the audible clunk of his goggles hitting the window went completely ignored, his attention funneled blindly toward only that which would provide him even an inkling of plausible reasoning. But the opacification of the boards had rendered the inside of the shop completely enshadowed, and the only detectable movement in the dim was the soft cycling orange glow of the sleep light on your computer monitor.

He affixed his gaze to it determinedly, squinting his eyes to near-closed in an effort to focus on anything in the area that its glow may illuminate, but the same irksome glare that had rendered the screen of his datapad nearly indiscernible minutes previously continued to rob his eyes of the clarity that he desperately sought, and while the cupping of his hands around his face helped marginally, he was soon wincing against the pain of his goggles digging forcefully into the side of his nose as he pressed his eyes ever further against the rigid glass.

“Anything?” Hunter probed curiously.

“No,” Tech lamented, shifting his feet below him to further alter his vantage. “It is too dark to differentiate anything.”

“Well, here…” the sergeant chuckled. “Here, Tech… Tech!… Maker, will you just take the damn flashlight?”

Tech permitted his gaze to depart the shadows for only long enough to snatch the offering from his brother’s outstretched hand, igniting it with a deft flick of the switch and aiming at as precisely as he could through the infuriatingly small gap, but the presence of any obvious clues remained shrouded in darkness… evading him, and every panicked exhale accumulating like a cloud on the glass in front of him, saw the simmering panic in his chest continue to boil until even the innate act of swallowing became a challenge.

“Well… I don’t sense anything weird,” Hunter offered, his voice perfectly pairing the phlegmatic way he stepped backward and looked casually toward the direction they’d come from. “I thought I could smell blaster fire a few minutes ago, but it might have been that pair of shifty looking Rodian’s we passed. And, if I’m being honest, it’s hard to smell anything over the rank trash scattered everywhere in his hell of a hole-in-the-ground. How does anyone even bre—”

“There is a mug,” Tech interrupted gravely, his gauntlet clunking against the glass as he impatiently moved to wipe away the condensation collecting in his line of sight again.

“A what?” Hunter chirruped, cocking an eyebrow.

“A mug,” Tech repeated, stepping away from the window and pointing uselessly at the gap he’d been peering through. “On the counter nearest to us. During my last visit, the sullied dishes had been collected and arranged in the sink in preparation for washing. I– I cannot fathom that someone partaking in a planned, prolonged absence would abandon dishes to garner bacteria.”

But those lips, pressed thin with worry, relaxed only long enough to shift into an indignant frown at the nature of his sergeant’s suceeding reaction; Hunter’s long hair brushing gently atop worn, painted shoulder bells as his head tipped back, and his chest heaved beneath uninhibited laughter.

“Come on, Tech,” the sergeant chuckled. “You’ve lived with Wrecker your whole life. You’ve seen how he leaves his bunk on Kamino… wrappers everywhere… used spoons hiding under his pillow… dirty socks crammed at the bottom of the bed…”

Growing increasingly inexorable, and frustrated that his brother continued to make light of a clearly ominous situation, Tech shook his head. “The Fichus is limp, Hunter,” he spoke intently, jabbing his finger toward the narrow space between wood boards.

“The what-now is limp?”

“The fichus,” he repeated unhelpfully. “The potted plant beside the computer. It appears as if it’s been severely neglected in my absence.”

“Probably,” Hunter agreed, his shoulders jerking lightly in motion of delicate frustration. “It’s dark as hell in there. It’s likely starving for sunlight.”

“Precisely.”

Tech disengaged the flashlight and held it loosely at his side, jamming his goggles back up his nose as he turned pleadingly to his brother. “That is precisely my concern, Hunter. During my last visitation, I observed several written reminders. There was every intention to ensure that all the soiled dishes were sanitized, that each of the various plants were watered, and that the electrical panel was urgently cared for. It was written in ink clearer than this foreign writing. I saw it; I kissed it.”

Hunter’s eyes shifted behind a lagging, unhurried blink, the weight of his skepticism apparent as he looked doubtfully back at the anguished hitch in his brother’s eyebrows, those large brown eyes peering at him in something near a plea behind now crooked goggles. “I don’t know, Tech,” the sergeant sighed, tightening the fold of his arms across his chest and dropping his gaze to the small pebble below his boot. “I’ll agree it’s unusual that someone would board the windows for a temporary closure, but it probably has a valid explanation. I hate to say it because you’re usually not one to jump to conclusions, but… I think you might be overreacting on this.”

“I’m going inside.”

It was not a question nor a request, and Tech didn’t spare his brother even a glance before pocketing the flashlight and stooping to collect both his helmet and the coils of wire from the pathway at his feet.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Hunter protested immediately, unknotting his arms and extending a hand to still his brother’s seemingly impulsive movements. “I can see you’re a little worried, Tech, but this isn’t a separatist stronghold. It’s a private place of business, and we can’t just break our way in and sniff around. It’s an invasion of property and privacy.”

“I familiarized myself with the locking mechanism during my last visit,” Tech answered smartly, throwing a heavy coil over each shoulder. “So nothing is required to be broken for me to gain entry, and my scanners will ensure that neither of us are required to make determinations based on the evidence gathered by the use of our respective olfactory systems.”

“Tech…”

But Hunter’s impatience was matched by only that of the man in front of him now jamming his helmet back onto his head and reengaging his visor.

“I will not cause a disturbance of any kind, I assure you,” Tech continued, dropping to a knee in front of the door and examining the keyhole with narrowed eyes. “My objective is simply to gather the evidence capable of disproving my emerging theory that a perilous, possibly life-threatening event has taken place.”

“Perilous and life threatening?” Hunter repeated after an indignant scoff left his lips. “What in Maker’s name do you think happened here? It’s likely this is just a planned vacation and the topic just didn’t come up in conversation last time. Let’s just take a deep breath and head back to the ship for now. If everything goes to plan on Felucia, we can stop back here on the way to Kaliida Sho—”

“Hunter,” Tech interrupted, pivoting on a knee to look upward at his brother. “My feelings on this are clear and unclouded. I– I feel an admittedly unprecedented yet intense sense of unease, and I am confident neither will subside until I am able to disprove my suspicions. Several aspects of the present situation do not stand to reason. Our final conversation, while frenzied by the urgency of my departure, left me with the premise that I was to return here at my earliest convenience. There is no mistaking the task list that I observed: ‘wash mugs, water plants, call electrician.’ And– and my scanner indicates that there is substantial sanguineous residue embedded into that sign. I suspect the source of the blood is inside, so I must go in and investig—”

“Okay okay okay,” Hunter appeased, his dark eyes thankfully beginning to soften again as he acceded to his brother’s concern. “I don’t necessarily understand your fear, but it’s very unlike you to lose your cool so I’ll heed your curiousity. But make it quick; this walkway is a little too crowded for my liking and we’re already turning heads by loitering.”

Anything even resembling an argumentative retaliation didn’t dare depart Tech’s tongue, the risk of Hunter redacting his already precariously offered blessing was simply too probable, and this was too important. It was imperative that he gain entry.

“I’ll go up top and keep a lookout,” Hunter continued, gesturing with a nod to the roofline above them. “Poke around, but don't linger. Can you get in there without making a mess?”

“Well, of course I can,” Tech answered immediately. “The door is equipped with a primitive deadbolt system; one easily disengaged with the right leverage of a micro tool similar to that of—”

“Okay, do it.” Hunter waved away the unnecessarily lengthy explanation, impatience and regret beginning to ghost across his features. “If you’re interrupted for whatever reason, Plan-11.”

Tech signaled his understanding with an appreciative nod and a heavy swallow, returning his attention to the door while Hunter’s heavy footsteps vanished amongst the crowd of passing children, their raucous screeches and laughter echoing tauntingly into Tech’s ears.

His composure began to dwindle, adrenaline inciting a tremble in his fingers as he retrieved the soldering needle from his belt, sitting back on his heel to reevaluate the best method for a clean and concise entry. Overriding a lock system with his datapad was child’s play, but manually disengaging a deadbolt was not something he practiced regularly. After a deliberative pause, he jabbed the fine tip into the keyhole and began to methodically maneuver it around. With ears attuned for the nearly inaudible clicks that would affirm his success, he redirected his efforts into preventing the simmering panic from permitting his mind to wander; concerns for what potentially lay on the other side of the door pulling droplets of sweat to his furrowed brow. Fear was not a commonplace emotion for soldiers, particularly not for a squad of enhanced commando’s with a 100% mission success rate, but fear for the safety of someone else… a civilian… was both a foreign and a potent feeling, and not one that he was eager to reexperience.

The deadbolt released with a click audible enough to warrant Tech quickly glancing over his shoulder for prying eyes. When satisfied that he hadn’t garnered any unwanted attention, he quickly turned the handle and pushed the door ajar. Long stagnant dust particles danced about in the beam of stark luminescence as the disturbance imbued them with new life, yet Tech observed them for only moments before hurriedly shutting the door behind him; he could not risk a pedestrian risking the open door as an invitation to enter.

He reactivated the borrowed flashlight, his eyes hungrily following the beam as it darted toward the darkened corners. Was it worth calling for you? Making his presence known before clearing the area of perpetrators seemed a foolhardy action given your obvious incapacitation, but his frantic need to establish any semblance of your safety, paired with Hunter’s request for efficiency, demanded that he at least try. The echoing silence in response to his call only succeeded in inflating the now undeniable dread sending his blood pounding heavily through his veins.

He engaged the visor over his eyes again, ignoring the strobing alert in the upper corner warning him of his increased heart rate, and directed both the beam of light and his line of sight toward the floor beneath his boots. Despite having anticipated its presence, the blood splattered amongst the floorboards threatened to tear the breath from his lungs.

Sporadically smattered like a trail of morbid breadcrumbs, he followed the droplets into the open space of your shop, peering around in the oppressive darkness. The familiar orange glow from the computer stole his attention almost immediately, and after casting a final glimpse at the gruesome implications dotted across the floor, he departed their path and made for the counter. The dilapidated ficus was offered only a fleeting glance as he passed, as was its equally dehydrated fern counterpart and the ivy trailing down the wall, their dilapidation having already been registered. No, he was more interested in the mug; the second clue.

The degradation of its contents became obvious within seconds of stepping into its proximity, yet despite the aroma of its putrefaction forcing his top lip to flatten, Tech continued toward it without hesitation. Milk had coagulated densely in the center of the unfinished liquid, and a quick activation of his scanner indicated a bacteria progression only achievable by several weeks in an undisturbed environment.

“Unusual,” he mumbled to himself, stooping to observe the sparse layer of crystallization forming around the rim where the anemic looking liquid met the white ceramic.

A sudden, booming thud against the window sent his shoulders jerking in alarm; his datapad stowed deftly into its pocket and his pistol departing its holster in the span of a blink, but the ringing laughter and jeers of the passing children outside quickly exposed the intrusion as nothing more than an inopportune distraction, and a reminder that time was of the essence.

Tech cast one last surveying look at the mold festering in its unmolested paradise before departing the area and retracing his steps back toward the droplets of blood scattered atop the floor. Like the worn footpath that his own boots had traversed during his last visit, the red blemishes formed a direct path toward the back room, scattered at near precise intervals as if a gruesomely soiled object had been dripping as its holder tread across the store, yet the macabre trail was but a walk in the park compared to the door to which it led. He stared, horrified to the point of immobility at the once glimmering gold knob that would permit his entry, its radiance hidden by a crusted, red handprint.

The grip around his pistol tightened until his hand began to tremble, yet despite its demand for absolute security, he longed to simply drop it and reach instead for his datapad, his always reliable source of information… his comfort, but too much unknown still lingered in the air; too many enshadowed spaces still to explore. A horrifyingly developing theory needed disproving if he were to be able to leave this place with his heart intact.

He dared not disturb the third clue lest it be scanned at a later time and tested for identification purposes, so an assertive kick of his boot saw the door swinging ajar, the hallway opposite as hauntingly enshadowed as the one in which he stood. A seemingly endless trail of blood lay on the floor in front of him, nearly stealing what was left of his resolve; the droplets increasing in frequency and size before diverging into a small room on the left that he knew to be the kitchenette.

His fear only intensified at the sight of another morbid handprint, this one smeared across the faucet of the sink where… in the depths of the aluminum basin, was a soiled hammer.

The threat of suffocation encompassed him as a sinister realization began to fit puzzle pieces into place, but he was robbed of the opportunity to process the additions by the chirp of his comm.

“Tech,” Hunter urged. “I think you may have a visitor inbound. Someone is hovering by the door but I can’t get a clear line of sight through the crowd.”

Plan-11: The Perceiver. Hide and observe; do not engage until you’ve established a visual on your approaching backup.

A degree of focus that only imminent danger could provide saw his jaw tensing beneath his helmet, his gaze darting from the bloody tool in the sink toward the door in which he’d just passed through. He raised his pistol, crossing one wrist over the other so that blanching beam of light may guide him back through the din.

Your workshop, the haven in which he’d mentally prepared himself to spend the next several hours in, was as dark as it was silent, and for the first time hesitation stilled his steps from exploring the the uncharacteristically lifeless space, as there were numerous shadowed corners in which further clues, or dare he think it, your body might be found.

But time had seemingly diminished, and every extended blink into the darkness was a moment wasted; a moment he needed to enact Plan-11 while he still could. He disengaged his flashlight, and a quick nudge of the door with his knee saw him reentering the retail space, his eyes immediately darting around to search for any semblance of cover; somewhere he could stoop and watch until Hunter appeared in the doorway to flank the intruder, but his moment of hesitation had cost him.

Poised to welcome the perpetrator who’d likely come to clean up their mess, he refused to squint against the onslaught of sunlight as the door creaked slowly open and exposed the intruder.

Final Chapter coming soon!

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"That won't be necessary," he replied. "You seem to be preoccupied with your thoughts and I thought I might help by completing inventory for you."

"Oh," you replied.

Tech looked around a little. "On second thought, perhaps you desired a distraction in the form of work and I just now took that-"

"It's okay, Tech." You nodded toward the door and walked toward the front of the ship so you could sit. Tech followed and sat next to you.

"Is there any way I might help," he asked.

You let out a deep sigh, not bothering to try to hide your feelings. You pursed your lips. considering what to say.

"Two years ago today, something major happened in my life and it's weighing on me today."

"Would you like to talk about it," he asked.

"No," you replied. "It was traumatic, but I am not ready to say any more than that."

He put a hand on your shoulder in a gesture of support and asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

You nodded and held open your arms, leaning toward him. Tech smiled a little to himself and pulled you into an embrace. You could feel his steady breathing and hear his heartbeat, reminding you that you were not alone and you were with someone safe.

"If you want to talk about it, I will always listen," he said softly.

"Can you stay with me today," you asked. "I don't want to be alone."

"Absolutely," he replied. "I will be here as long as you need me."

This morning saw the clamouring chime of your chrono alarm rouse you from a slumber enriched with renderings of large brown eyes crinkled under the pressure of a shy smile, though the moment that yours fluttered open, unfocussed and narrowed against the jarring intonation that abruptly robbed you of your reverie, the imagery vanished from both thought and memory.

The recurring cool drizzle, falling mercilessly from the grey blanket above, had imbued the road outside of your shop so completely that it now more resembled a path of mirrors, capable of nothing except intensifying the gloom lingering overhead.

The drafty windows of your storefront whistled to the tune of the cold wind as if resolute that no area be free of its subjugate song, and in an effort to retain as much body heat as possible, a steaming cup of caf had found itself a permanent extension of your left hand. Despite the handicap that accompanied a continuously occupied limb, the counter behind your register was nearly barren, laden with only a sporadic collection of tasks left to complete.

Ten cold fingers had oriented themselves in a wreath around the ceramic mug still poised in your clutches, all of them trembling under the duress of your insistent need to sip at the warm pool of caffeine. With lips bunched to one side in a motion that inexplicably corralled your concentration, your eyes scanned the trio of trays scattered across the back counter. The urgency in which they needed to be addressed dwindled as the clock ticked the present into the past, and it was with a mumbled, “I’ll call them tomorrow” that you hastily stacked the containers and stowed them away.

A satisfied sigh poured from your lips and your shoulders squared pridefully of their own volition as you turned and departed the area, offering only a fleeting peek toward the mizzling outside as you passed. Semi-concealed in the shadowed corner beside the refresher, and adorned with an unostentatious sign that read “authorized personnel only”, was a door that separated the retail space from the backroom. On the left side past the threshold, and traversed so frequently over the years by various shoes that the stain itself had worn off the floorboards, was a piteous excuse for a kitchen. A single bank of cupboards anchored a derelict aluminum sink, the deep basin bespeckled with water spots and blotches that refused to dissipate despite countless, vigorous scrubs. The durasteel countertop flanking either side of the vessel still held much of its original integrity, though its formerly reflective surface was now hazy from decades of being scratched, buffed, and rescratched. An unpretentious caf machine found itself perched on the end of the counter nearest to the door, and its repeated call-to-arms as a reinforcement in your battle against early mornings and human fatigue, had seen it begin to look worse for wear, the heating element encrusted and charred in spots, and the glass carafe cracked and hastily repaired with industrial grade glue.

Arranged parade style in the depths of the sink was a legion of used and forgotten mugs, silently awaiting the shower that would free them from the sticky residue of a caf long since devoured. Their appearance wasted no time robbing your shoulders of their gratified posture, and you were reminded, once again, that mental checklists were growing increasingly insufficient in the thralls of your overstimulated mind.

“Wash mugs, water plants.”

Your chilled hands dug their way from one pocket to the next, furtively searching every crevasse and fold of your lab coat for any semblance of a pen; any tool that you could use to ensure the tasks did not continue to slip from the forefront of your mind. A cantillating chant erupted on your lips, repeating the small series of words as you yanked the cap off a red lens marker and hurried to ink a scrawled reminder on the back of your hand.

Your feet guided you thoughtlessly from the room, the familiar cadence taking you back atop the worn footpath and across the narrow hallway to the Mecca of your business: the workshop.

The fabrication lab was a modestly sized and minimally furnished room, and likely appeared to the untrained eye as a recipient unworthy of the several thousand credits that you had funneled into its refurbishment, yet the space had become both your sanctuary and your perdition. Several purchases later, all of them procrastinated in the name of thorough research, saw all new manufacturing equipment installed in the space. Despite your uncle’s repeated claims of their superiority to modern machinery, the equipment he’d bestowed upon you with the purchase of his business had deteriorated at a rate similar to his wizened mind, the tools habitually seizing mid cycle, their mechanics unable to overcome the strain that decades of neglect that had enchained them.

Their sophisticated replacements now encircled the perimeter of the room, meticulously and deliberately placed to maximize functionality in the void of square footage, and their sparkling infancy created a drastic yet welcome contrast to the decrepit cupboards of which they sat atop. But the flame ignited by the potential of efficiency upon their installation, was aglow for only hours before being snuffed completely by an unaccounted for realization: voltage requirements had apparently changed since the previous equipment had been wired. It was now a frustratingly common occurrence for fuses in the electrical panel to blow if you didn’t maintain a hyperfocussed awareness of which machines were cycling simultaneously, the infancy of the equipment now a hindrance, as your role of mechanical babysitter emerged.

The lights overhead buzzed menacingly as you brought them to life, and it was with haste that you added “call electrician” to the tasklist on the back of your hand, but despite the dirty dishes having stolen a portion of your resolve, the tower of orders waiting to be manufactured saw your cold knuckles cracked into action, and your sleeves yanked to your elbows before the flickering bulbs ceased their warning.

With knitted brows, you turned your attention to the counter on the right, hands instantly working to dismantle and sort the acrylic containers into an arrangement with some semblance of priority, while your eyes searched relentlessly for a specific triad of exigent orders; three small pairs of the glasses, the colourful frames fated to remain lens-less for only minutes longer now that the opportunity to initiate their fabrication had finally presented itself. You found your prize in the third tray from the bottom, you gaze quickly unfocussing upon the invoice as the sight of their exotic names launched your mind’s eye into a recollection of that humbling day:

Tarlu, a Twi’lek man from the 22nd level of Coruscant’s underworld had made the trip into your shop several weeks ago, a stunning turquoise chain of clasped hands stumbling in tow behind him; three small children, all of whom appeared at first glance to be a spitting image of their broad shouldered father, though their sparkling, violet eyes, dancing around the foreign corners of your shop, were largely unlike the electric blue of his own. He uttered a cautionary warning to them, a demand for the respect of good behaviour while he ‘spoke to the nice shop owner’, and the half dozen steps that he took away from his children, purposefully orienting his back to them in some semblance of privacy, were not lost on you.

Age and the innate understanding that accompanied life experience had yet to rob the children of their naivety, and innocent shrieks laden with insouciant joy left their mouths as they disobeyed their father’s plea, running amok around the confines of your shop. Their violet eyes blind to the slump in their father’s dejected shoulders; their youthful minds still too ignorant to identify the tension that riddled his brow as he quietly and solemnly confessed his desperation. Their mother was blind, he explained grimly, diagnosed at a young age with a degenerative visual condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Her most recent years had seen her vision and her hope recede to nullity, and it had taken every credit left in their savings to purchase a transport ticket and hire a protocol droid to see her safely returned to Ryloth.

Coruscant, he divulged, and its esteemed medical field had offered them a glimmer of hope in the face of impending visual darkness; whispers of a corrective procedure inaccessible to them in the primitive outer rim saw them willingly and enthusiastically uproot themselves… their family… their entire lives. But the usurious capital planet had repudiated them, and the system had swiftly exposed itself as corrupt, only willing to accede to the needs of those whose wallets would support their owners plea’s, shunting all others into the cold embrace of exorbitantly long waitlists.

A grave shift in the children’s behaviour since last seeing their mother had only amplified his despondency; tantrums, repeated condemnations from their school teachers, fights escalated over trivial issues, an increase in their desire for isolation, a rejection of things and experiences that once brought them joy. The intelligent Twi’lek man couldn’t and wouldn’t deny that the fracturing of their family had likely acted as the catalyst for the behavioural decline, though he admittedly couldn’t shake the dread that something else was amiss.

The way your voice shook under the constraints of suppressed emotion offered the truth before your lips had finished somberly wrapping their way around the explanation, and despite every effort to remain professional, your glistening eyes betrayed your composure as you confirmed his suspicions; his children were all showing signs of the same condition that had robbed their mother of her sight and her freedom. “I can’t stop the progression,” you whispered with a quivering chin, “but give me a couple of weeks and I’ll make some glasses that will maximize what vision they have left.”

“I have no desire to linger here.” His tone was that of a man utterly broken, a man whose hopes had been stripped and excoriated within an inch of complete eradication. “Nor do I have the funds to pay you for your services. I will need every available credit to transport us back to Ryloth. The children need their mother, and I need help.”

Despite every cell in your body yearning to ease the father’s dejection, the gift of hope was not one that you were capable of bestowing on him, as the recent past had seen his very soul calloused by the greed of business and politics; you could not promise him that his children would have a future free of obstacle, all of them destined to walk in their mothers footsteps with the unbearable weight of depleting vision on their shoulders, but what you could offer was a helping hand: three free pairs of glasses and the promise to expedite the process to the best of your ability so he could leave the planet that had forsaken him and return home.

It was their tray held firmly in your grip as you marched across the lab toward the lens generator, refusing to deviate your attention to anything and anyone until their needs of this family were satiated…

As if determined to challenge your resolve, the harrowing tinkle of the doorbell saw you halted in your tracks barely two paces from your destination, drenched in the cold realization that, in your haste to recuse yourself to the lab, you’d overlooked the routine task of locking the front door.

“For kriff’s sake…” you grumbled, your eyelids aflutter in frustration as a familiar cool, damp draft whistled through the gaps of the door and raised the fine hairs on your arms. An unceremonious flick of your wrist saw the plastic container tossed onto the counter beside the machine, and an irritable huff sagged your shoulders as you turned on the spot and retreated back toward the door.

“Hello,” you called blindly, summoning the pitiful remnants of your patience from the depths of your soul as you pulled open the door that led back into the retail space, tugging your sleeves back down.

For the second time in as many seconds, you found your steps halted abruptly and another intense wave of gooseflesh erupting across your skin. “Tech!” His name escaped your parted lips drenched in startled disbelief.

A tall, poorly postured figure stood patiently at your counter, and it was the prompt of your voice echoing around the quiet room that had him turn to face your direction. His magnified gaze was alert and twinkling with an unexplained light as it fell upon you, and the ingenuine smile that you’d hitched onto your face at the prospect of an unexpected interruption, lost all sense of insincerity at the sight of the familiar, thick goggles.

“Hello.” His answer came accompanied by a respectful nod, his fingers suspending their dance across the device in his hand to needlessly shift his goggles on the bridge of his nose.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” you admitted, crossing the handful of steps between you and leaning against the counter next to him. “Either of you. Did my fix on the scope not hold up?”

“On the contrary,” he began after a quiet clearing of the throat. “Crosshair remains quite pleased with your repair. The rigidity of his nature does not coincide with being a proponent of change, particularly so with his weaponry. Your repair has ensured his continued satisfaction, indirectly maintaining symbiosis amongst the rest of the squad… for now, anyways.”

The familiarity of his curt, matter-of-fact tone only intensified the smile on your face, forcing you to fleetingly avert your gaze to the floorboards below your feet, eager to minimize the flush rising to your cheeks. Your attraction to him was as enigmatic to you as he was; the simplified truth was, you knew almost nothing about him, other than the fact that he was exceedingly poor sighted without the aid of his goggles, and that he was remarkably well educated to have been brought up by the indurate embrace of combat training and war, and yet you were drawn to him with an unexplained appetence.

“Good, I’m glad,” you answered, leaning onto an elbow. “Your goggles look like they’ve stayed in decent repair since I last saw you, too.”

The departure of his eyes from yours to the void of space over your left shoulder saw you promptly regretting your comment, as the swift flush of his cheeks and the deliberate bob of his Adam's apple exposed the fact that your unintentional scolding of his dirty lenses during your previous conversation had rendered him somewhat embarrassed.

“Ah… yes,” he murmured, the warmth of his eyes only blessing you with a fleeting glance before departing again. “I have since managed to incorporate a routine cleaning into my morning regimen, though despite having extensively researched varying techniques, I can not seem to achieve the same result as yourself.”

Disapproval bathed his every feature, the corners of his lips inverting into a reproachful frown more adorable than any quirky half-smile he’d previously gifted you, and it was with great difficulty and another quick aversion of your eyes that you repressed the chuckle threatening to spill from your lips. Intent on alleviating even a portion of his indignity, you permitted your brows to offer a jesting, egotistical wiggle and uttered, “Well… you won’t.”

His gaze darted back to you instantly, lids narrowing only slightly in befuddlement at the smirk twisting your lips. “Opticians have the magic touch. Hand ‘em over.”

You extended a hand toward him, the eagerness to award him with even a fraction of the same satisfaction that you’d somehow gifted his brother outweighing all else in that moment, but his response to your gesture was as apprehensive as yours was determined. His affronted gaze danced across your awaiting palm, his long fingers fidgeting needlessly around his datapad as he seemingly blinked away a myriad of intrusive thoughts. Reassurances flooded the tip of your tongue, poised to express promises of meticulous care and affirmations that you fully understood how desperately he relied on his goggles, but your lips had barely parted wide enough to permit an intake of breath before the datapad was released of his grip and placed gently atop the counter as his hand reached instead for the strap around his head.

A blend of gratitude and adoration welled inside your chest as your fingers enveloped the rubberized surface of the unexpectedly rigid frame, your pinky fingers hooking themselves securely around the strap lest the staggering weight of his lenses cause the equipment to fall from your clutches. If any apprehension or doubt of your abilities lingered in his exceptional mind, it was seemingly usurped by the need to massage his tired eyes, as he forewent the motion of possessively watching your hands to grind his knuckles against lids clamped tightly closed.

Dismal as it may be, the dwindling daylight meekly cascading in your windows threw into sharp relief the poor condition of his spectacles, and the thoughtless action of retrieving the trusty cleaning cloth in your pocket was halted entirely by the sight of several deep gouges across his lenses, all of which had been previously hidden from your scrutiny by the darkness of the shooting range.

A contemplative hum rumbled past your pursed lips, the rounded edge of your thumbnail trying in vain to scrape away the remnants of a mysterious, encrusted substance from the front surface, achieving nothing but imparting another microscratch to the wide array of others. A scoff of contempt threatened to escape you, scorned by the fact that someone in Tech’s situation, so highly reliant on their eyewear, would be issued such a subpar set of lenses; the material obviously too soft to uphold the demands of his lifestyle, the subjective magnification exacerbated by the poor choice of curvature by whichever ignorant being had manufactured them, the coatings improperly sealed before being thrust into the scrupulous edging process.

‘I bet these are Polycarbonate…’ you thought to yourself with a disdainful roll of your eyes. ‘But only one way to find out.’

Without even a breath of hesitation or an ounce of consideration for his potential reaction, you gripped the goggles tightly in one hand and applied firm pressure around the rim of the right lens with the other. His knuckles fell from his eyes immediately, the ungodly snapping sound of the lens separating from the frame triggering a wave of horror to erupt across his features, but you remained blind his unspoken objection, too deeply enthralled in the abhorrence of his glasses to notice his mouth falling open and his unfocussed eyes widening in terror.

“Did– did you just–?” His stammered query trailed away to an aghast silence, too appalled to finish vocalizing the question that he feared the answer to.

“Hmm?” you hummed innocently, wrenching your rolling eyes away from a series of small pressure cracks in the plastic between your fingers and directing your attention back to him. “Oh! No, they’re not broken!” you hurried to assure him, recognizing the semblance of panic tugging his eyebrows together. “Lenses are manufactured with an angled bevel to permit repeated insertion and removal, as long as you apply the pressure in the correct place.”

He swallowed heavily, his gaze still affixed at the disc-like plastic clutched loosely in your palm. “I just wanted to identify the lens material,” you continued pleadingly, convinced that if you provided a detailed enough explanation for your objectively impulsive action, there may be a chance you could placate his evident fear and surging mistrust. “I’m assuming they’re polycarbonate lenses based on how easily they’re damaged, but without seeing the initial paperwork, the only real way to tell is the sound that the lens makes when tapped against a rigid surface.”

To no avail; periodic blinks over widened eyes robbed of their warmth was the only indication that he hadn’t simply died of fright. “Listen,” you beseeched, gesturing for him to step closer and prepare to witness the presumed madness behind your methods. His gaze reluctantly followed your hand as it began gently tapping the very edge of the lens against the counter top. “Hear how it sounds kind of… tinky and light? Polycarbonate is a fibrous material so it makes a sharper tone compared to resin plastic. Resin is a powdery material, so it makes more of a deep thunk.”

The dramatic expansion of his eyes softened significantly as they watched you extract the orphaned plastic lens that you’d pocketed this morning after finding it astray under the desk, his gaze intent on following your every move as you knocked it rhythmically against the surface to demonstrate the difference.

“That is… fascinating,” he admitted in a mumble, the tension in his shoulders dissipating enough to collect the pieces you were extending out to him.

“Do you have a few minutes?” you asked him, teeth nibbling against the smile threatening to tug at your lips as he immediately turned and began percussing the lenses against the countertop. “I’d like to give them a thorough clean with my favourite solution, but it’s a peroxide blend and needs a good five minutes to neutralize.”

“Thank you, that is very kind of you,” he replied with a nod.

“My pleasure,” you answered with a bashful shrug, another wave of heat surging to your cheeks as his already narrowed and unfocussed eyes shrunk even further under the expanse of his bashful smile. “Would you mind flipping the sign and locking the door for me?”

He followed your gesture to the entryway, the lights of your shop reflecting brightly in the glass door against the dark backdrop of the deepening sky beyond, before nodding and departing the counter, lenses pinched protectively between his long fingers. An empathetic frown tugged at your lips as you watched him fumble to engage the deadbolt, his movements clearly impeded by the lack of depth perception, robbed of him by the removal and disassembly of his glasses. “Just come meet me in the backroom when you’re done,” you called, sending him one last adoring glance before retreating through the threshold to your workshop.

You were granted only a short minute to calm the bounding of your heart against your chest, launched into a fervent dance by Tech’s unexpected appearance, yet despite funneling every effort into stifling the persistent smile on your face, the joy that his visitation had triggered simply refused to be so easily contained. Your confession to him had been truthful, the concept of seeing him again was one that you’d actively avoided entertaining since your introduction, for it was simply too impractical of a hope; he was a soldier living too nomadically to risk establishing relationships of any kind… yet here he was, but why?

The thunk of his boots on the wood floor alerted you of his approach, and you hurried to clear the surging giddiness from your mind with a gentle shake of your head before retrieving the bottle of cleaning solution from the cabinet below the counter.

“My apologies,” he offered as his tall frame filled the expanse of the doorway a moment later. “I did not familiarize myself with your hours of operation prior to arriving. I hope I am not keeping you from any prior endeavours?”

“Not unless you consider several hours of grinding lenses a ‘prior endeavour’.” you chuckled, upturning the bottle until the entirety of its contents drained into the small steel bowl perched in front of you. He folded his arms across his chest in a near perfect impression of his sniper brother, a passively curious expression on his face as he watched you finish formulating your concoction.

“Do you still have your other lens?” you questioned after submerging the entirety of his goggles into the effervescent, blue liquid.

He gently dropped the loose disc into the tub with its counterparts, stooping comically low to study the bubbling substance, the tip of his nose barely an inch from the surface, and eyes narrowed to nearly full occlusion in an effort to refocus his vision.

“I didn’t mean to scare you when I popped your lens out,” you offered apologetically, leaning casually backward against the counter and watching him. “It does tend to freak people out, I should have warned you.”

He stood and cleared his throat quietly, unfolding his arms in a motion to shift his goggles on his nose, only to remember half way through the gesture that there was nothing presently on his nose to shift, instead justifying the awkward motion with a small scratch of his reddening ear.

“I will admit my knowledge of the Optometric industry to be lacking in comparison to other subjects,” he voiced, turning to lean on the counter beside you. “My brothers and I are subjected to visual testing on Kamino as a subsection of a routine complete sensory examination. My oldest brother has senses heightened to a nearly inhumane degree, and by the time the result of our inspections have been collected for further processing, departing the clinic for the comfort of our barracks is typically his first priority. I have never lingered long enough to expand my limited knowledge of optics and ophthalmic correction.”

“Heightened senses?” you repeated instantly. The snippet of information had been delivered so blithely that it had almost failed to register, yet the implication of the statement could simply not be ignored.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “All clones are genetically modified in the embryonic stage of formation to allow several decidedly ‘desirable’ characteristics to take precedence during growth. Regular clones have an enhanced sense of loyalty, obedience, tenacity, and stamina amongst several other attributes. My squad was the first and only to have our DNA further reconfigured to enhance additional qualities. The aforementioned brother is our leader, and Hunter has senses incomparable to any other being. He perceives every movement, hears every sound, feels minute vibrations, senses lingering energy signatures… As such, he became plagued with recurrent episodes of extreme overstimulation while in the depths of our training, but has established a sense of near-complete autonomy since our convocation.

“My genetic structure was deviated to permit the rapid collection and categorization of data. I am able to perceive much of which the typical mind overlooks, with the subsequent ability to recall information at a moment’s notice. As you may have deduced by my chosen moniker, an interesting and perceptibly correlated mutation has bestowed upon me a particular proclivity with technology and mechanics, and during rare instances where I am not able to direct my thoughts into research or the customization of various equipment, I too can become overstimulated.

“Wrecker is our resident ordnance expert, having extensively studied the science of detonations and their various implementations in warfare, and is both the physically strongest and arguably the most emotionally intelligent member of our squad, though a recent poorly-timed detonation has compromised a large portion of his eyesight and an even larger portion of his mental reasoning skills, a challenge of which we are still shifting to accommodate.

“Crosshair, our youngest brother whom you have met, has a mathematical brain that could rival most modern software. He can process calculations and formulations in mere fractions of a second without the plague of human distraction. Paired with his remarkable eyesight, his mutations have formed him into a marksman of incomparable skill and ability, though at the cost of charisma; he would rather concede his crown than to engage in a lengthy conversation of any topic.”

The effervescent cleaner had long since stilled, only mere remnants of the microbubbles tasked with removing surface grime and grease were still clinging to the rubberized surface of Tech’s submerged goggles. Both thought and speech were robbed of you; unable to fully compute the implication of his explanation, you could only stand there, lips parted to permit shallow breaths from your lungs as your eyes unfocussed on his features.

The information itself was a repulsive dichotomy of fascinating and horrifying. Largely sheltered from the ramifications of the war, your knowledge of the Clones from Kamino was limited to only that with which you had firsthand experience; that they were typically lovely people, barred from extensive interaction with civilians though seemingly drawn toward the dynamic of humanity. The science of genetic manipulation was not one that you’d ever heard of before, and despite finding the notion of it unethical, there was no denying that it was medically captivating.

But layered atop the affronting information was the casual tone in which he delivered it, as if he was merely describing a mildly unusual childhood, or reciting a paragraph that he’d written in the book of his upbringing, and if ever he had shared in your feeling of revulsion, he’d long since learned to mask all evidence of it.

“That’s… wild.”

It wasn’t the correct word… if there even was a correct word, though ‘wild’ suited the horrifying notion more appropriately than anything else that came to mind; it certainly wasn’t tame, or humane.

Hurrying to conceal the conflict ghosting behind your eyes, you turned and retrieved his dismantled goggles from the basin on the counter beside you, gently shaking the excess liquid from the frame before swaddling it in a soft towel. Tech watched you nurture his glasses intently, showing exceedingly more interest in the technique you used to reinsert his lens than he had while discussing the unique dynamics of his family.

“Nothing can remove the scratches unfortunately,” you lamented, wiping away the last of your fingerprints from his lens before handing his goggles back to him. “But they probably haven’t been that clean since you first got them.”

“That is likely an accurate estimation,” he answered, shifting their weight on his nose and attempting to blink away the strain that several, prolonged minutes of blurred vision had imbibed on him.

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” you chuckled absently, tossing the damp hand towel over your shoulder.

His attention returned to you so urgently that it stilled your hand on the empty bottle of cleaning solution, the dripping container poised in your fingertips mid-way to the trash bin below the counter. You’d seen that look before, and it had adorned you just as urgently then; wide eyes, lips parted, gaping at you as if you’d just uttered the very secret to human existence. It was an expression reminiscent of your first encounter, interrupting you mid-muse about the dislodgement of a focal plane in a riflescope with the sudden intensity of his eyes, and the vulnerability setting your skin alight under his awestruck gaze was no less palpable the second time around.

“What did you say?” he probed, brows furrowing slightly.

Hesitation paused your response, momentarily abashed by the dubious smirk beginning to tug on his lips as his eyes continued to look upon you quizzically.

“Wouldn’t– wouldn’t that be considered an oxymoron?” you repeated tentatively. “I mean… you can’t really have an ‘accurate estimate’. They’re technically opposing ideologies, thus making that an oxymoronic statement…”

All semblances of a smile that had previously blessed his features were instantly outshone by the grin unfolding across his face. The doming of his cheeks under the embrace of a true smile lifted the goggles off the bridge of his nose, and it was quite possibly the most attractive thing you’d ever seen.

“Yes,” he answered, with a reassuring nod. “It is precisely an oxymoronic statement. Excellent catch. I am impressed.”

“Um… thank you,” you muttered, barely able to wrap your own grinning lips around the two measly words as the pounding of your heart nearly deafened you. “Not just a pretty face… I guess…”

“No, you are much more than that.” The deep reddening of his cheeks rivaled only that of your own, and that moment saw both of you equally embarrassed by the comment that had seemingly poured from his mouth without second thought. “I– I surmised your intelligence almost immediately upon gaining your acquaintance,” he continued, the aversion of his eyes entirely negating the welcome shift of his body to face you. “Your practiced recital of the laws of refraction was fluent and precise, and your charitable willingness to assist Crosshair with his problem in combination with the extensive knowledge that you possess of a topic that has always been of intrigue to me, is the reason for my intrusion… not just your attractive features.”

If you hadn’t known it to be completely medically ludicrous, every credit would have left your bank account on a bet that the butterflies in your stomach were rearranging your organs as if they were pieces of furniture. Yet greater than the uncomfortable flap-a-bout happening inside of you, was the sudden and mystifying crave for his touch; an increasingly gnawing desire to feel the solidity of his presence, desperate for the affirmation that his enigma wasn’t just a trick of the mind. A gentle hand, trembling slightly from the spontaneity of his flattery rose into the space between you, palm facing him with softly bent fingers.

He swallowed heavily and cast an apprehensive glance toward your gesture, his hesitancy to mirror your intimate motion swatting violently at the butterflies in your stomach with the paddle of rejection. It felt like years were passing under the disguise of mere seconds on the clock, his eyes darting back and forth between yours as the tips of his fingers fidgeted anxiously against each other. His jaw clenched, once, twice, until… at long last…

The slippery material of his gloves felt strange against your skin; unexpectedly metallic and silky despite the apparent density of the material, yet it accommodated the swell of his knuckles with ease as his fingers interlaced yours.

Had the clock simply stopped now? Had Father Time so easily forsaken his fateful duty, halting the progression of anything and everything else to permit you this quiet moment of delicate connection? Or was it the gentle caress of those stunning brown eyes atop your features that manifested the wistful longing stay in this lingering second for eternity?

Despite the nimble swipes of his thumb along the back of your hand pulling a shiver down your spine, it wasn’t until the lights overhead launched into their menacing flicker that you returned to some illusion of cognition. “So… hang on,” you muttered, pausing to briefly nimble on your bottom lip. “Are you here to hangout with me? Or to learn the laws of refraction?”

“Um… my priority was the former,” he admitted, “Though I would quantify both being a desire of mine.”

“I can do both,” you offered through a giddy grin, relaxing the entanglement of your fingers from his until your hands separated. “You said you have an affinity for mechanics? Maybe you can help me grind some lenses, and I’ll serenade you with facts about the deviation of light waves through a prism with a biconvex curvature.”

The speed of which he mastered the lens manufacturing process quickly eradicated any lingering scrutiny in your mind of the validity of his mutations. It took less than three complete demonstrations to have achieved a near flawless understanding of what each piece of machinery did and how it accomplished its goal. The clock had barely ticked an hour into the past before Tech was independently running lenses through the sealant process, happily chirruping about his fascination with optics; about how he’d always longed for a deeper understanding of differing refractive indices, about how he found it truly remarkable that a minor decrease in curvature on the front of a lens, when paired with the correct backside curvature, could drastically alter the magnification through the lens itself.

Thrice more did he reach for your hand, his fingers long since freed from the protective confines of his gloves and draping themselves around yours with affectionate intention; every fleeting glance he sent your way, every barely-there brush of his arm against yours continued to reinvigorate your enrapturement for each other.

“How’d we do?” you probed him coyly, sneaking a peek at the sparkling, blemish free lens that he held delicately over the ocular of the lensometer. “Prescription accurate?”

You nibbled gently on your bottom lip, teeth only barely containing the knowing smirk tugging at your lips as you held your breath in expectation of his response. “It is precisely correct,” he answered without diverting his attention from the screen in front of him. “Perfectly on axis, with zero induced prismatic effect. It seems I have attuned my lens manufacturing skills quite remarkably, if I may say so.”

The irony of his words threatened to dissolve your feigned complacency; a man so intelligent that he’d achieved a near mastery in optical technologies in record time, unable to determine that the lens clutched between his fingers being so heavily scrutinized by his eyes had been manufactured to his prescription.

“You may,” you permitted slyly, disguising the grin on your face as nothing more than a reaction to your own audacity. He merely offered you a small snort, exchanging the lens in his fingertips for its counterpart. “You know,” you choked out, lungs nearly seizing under the controlled repression of a chuckle. “That last pair of lenses that you made are for yo—”

The admonition so desperately vying to leave your tongue was robbed of its overdue spotlight by a sudden and complete blanket of darkness. The whirring chorus of engines descending into utter silence inducing a stark ringing in your ears more deafening than the hum it replaced, and you hurried to jump down from your seated perch on the counter.

“Kriff,” you grumbled, fingertips obtusely patting around in the darkness to reestablish a bearing of your positioning.

“It appears that we have lost power,” Tech mumbled introspectively from your right, his arm brushing gently against your chest as he stepped away from the equipment.

“Hang on,” you advised through an undignified grunt, bending over carefully to reach for the handle on the drawer situated somewhere in the proximity of your right hip. “I forgot to keep an eye on what machines were cycling together,” you admitted. “The generator and the polisher always… always trip the electrical breakers if… if they cycle at the same time. Maker have mercy, where is the fucking handle?”

A spotlight appeared abruptly on your right hand, illuminating the pair of pliers clutched stupidly in your grasp, the steel handle having felt convincingly similar to the drawer pull you’d been blindly hunting for in the utter blackness of the windowless room.

“Where is the electrical panel located?” Tech asked you, his free hand deftly snapping closed the pouch from which he’d just retracted his flashlight.

“On the wall beside the edger,” you advised, pointing uselessly in the dark toward the culprit across the room.

Visible only as a dark figure sauntering behind a stark beam of light, you watched him cross the room, the grotesque squeak of the panel’s aluminum door indicating through the echoing silence that he’d successfully found the perpetrator. “That is… alarming,” he muttered, triggering a snort of laughter from your nose. “The breakers in this panel are both drastically undersized for the required pull of amperage and… discernibly ancient.”

“I would merit that both of those claims are accurate,” you confirmed glumly, wincing as your fingers knocked dumbly against your nose in their intention to rub your eyes. “Getting an electrician has been on my to-do list for a shamefully long time.”

Several loud, familiar clicks saw the overhead lights flickering back into some illusion of life, and a cacophony of dissonant chimes erupted around the room as each machine simultaneously launched into a reboot cycle. Tech deactivated his flashlight and stowed it deftly away in the pouch strapped to his right thigh while his other hand trailed gently along the series of cobweb-laden breakers.

“I would estimate that the sum of the required amperage for each breaker largely exceeds the allotted amount for the panel in its entirety,” he mused, cringing mildly against the abhorrent squeak of the door as he pushed it closed and latched it. “It will be both a costly and a laborious installation.”

“Glorious,” you sighed, knotting your arms tightly over your chest, anxiety rippling through you at the implication of his conclusion.

“However, the odds that I may be of assistance are in your favour.” He hesitated for only a second before gently wrapping his fingers around your wrists, dismantling the hug that you’d bestowed upon yourself as anxiety began to simmer in your gut. “Commercial electrical panels are of a different mechanical structure than those regulated for areospace,” he continued quietly, lacing his fingers between yours, “but the circuitry should be vastly similar to that of my ship. I would be happy to attempt the installation for you, pending we can locate the correct mater—”

“Tech… Come in…”

A loud chirp and a foreign, husky voice issued from several feet to the left, robbing you of the listful smile that had begun to peel across your face at the reintroduction of his touch. His posture straightened immediately, his body reacting instinctively to the summons echoing from the comlink on his gauntlet, long ago stripped from his hands and buried under the thick blanket of his gloves on the counter.

He flicked his gloves aside impatiently, collecting the rigid plastoid piece and bringing it to hover in front of his mouth. “Sarge,” he addressed, his eyes flickering to you apologetically before adhering themselves intently to the blue light illuminating his chin.

“Where the hell are you? I’ve pinged your datapad a dozen times.”

“Ah,” Tech vocalized awkwardly, left hand absently patting the empty pouch perched on his lower back that typically housed his beloved device when not in use; the device abandoned to a live a solitary existence on the front counter. “My apologies. I… I fear my task of locating a spare condenser valve was hindered by a… um… distraction.”

“Does this ‘distraction’ happen to wear a labcoat?”

The jeering inquiry was bathed in a slithering smoke all too familiar to you, the mild distortion from the vocabulator failing to deplete any of its intensity. The image of Crosshair’s sneering face erupted in your mind as a ringing, potent silence ensued in response to his sardonicism.

Tech’s lips pursed into a thin line, eyes wide and unmoving as if his mind had simply seized under the effort of frantically searching for a plausible excuse that did not entail he divulge the truth of his whereabouts.

“Just get back to the ship… now,” the first, hoarse voice demanded. “We’re overdue on Ithica. Cody’s holding his advance until we get there.”

Tech offered a simple “understood,” before silencing the comlink with a prod of a button, and you met the return of his gaze with a fearful, guilty grimace. All-too thrilled to waste your time in his presence, basking in the joy that walked hand-in-hand with the emergence of his affection for you, time had simply vanished.

“I lament that I must depart so quickly,” he spoke, wiggling his fingers back into his gloves. “I have unknowingly delayed my squad’s departure significantly.” He paused to reaffix the plastoid pieces to the backs of his hands, flexing his joints until satisfied with the comfort of their positioning.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” you reassured him with a meek shrug, meeting him at this position in the doorway. “Thank you for coming to waste your time with me.”

“Time with you is never wasted, darling.” The endearing term embraced you with a warmth so layered that you doubted even the sheets of cold rain cascading from the clouds above could have robbed it from you, your adoration for him only intensified by the brazenness he was now showing in the face of his frenzied departure. “And if it is,” he continued scooping your hand into his, “I will happily do so again when I return… if you would still desire my company.”

Your movements stilled, breath halted in your lungs, lids refusing the innate need to blink lest you miss a fraction of this moment. His eyes attuned to you, soft yet determined, as he gently guided your hand upward, setting your nerves alight with the tender press of his lips to your skin.

“Oh, I will,” you reassured him in barely more than a whisper, the tingles radiating from the spot where he’d adorned your hand with a kiss, rendering you numb to the gentle squeeze that he gave before releasing it.

Budding disappointment forced a slump into your shoulders as he offered you a small nod of salutation and turned toward the door. “Tech!” you interjected, watching his tall figure begin to disappear behind the doorframe. His head poked back through the doorway, cheeks aflush and eyes atwinkle. “Good luck.” It left your lips somewhat meekly, the two words nowhere near expressive enough to convey all the thoughts and reassurances of understanding that you couldn’t verbalize.

He paused, reaching up to pacify his feelings by shifting his goggles on his nose before granting you a smile, the same quirky grin that had stolen the breath from your lungs hours earlier. “The ideology of luck i—”

“Yeah, yeah… an ‘illogical concept’…”

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.

You stood up and started walking, not really paying attention to where you were going. You only headed to a clearing, away from the Marauder, away from town, away. Your walk turned into a jog and you didn't even register the tears in your eyes. You finally stopped near some trees, sitting underneath them, trying to catch your breath more from your emotions than jogging.

As you tried calming down that nagging feeling showed up again. You wished someone had noticed and followed and yet you were terrified to be vulnerable with anyone. It wasn't until this moment that you noticed someone had followed.

"Might I be of assistance?" It was Tech.

You looked up to see his face covered in concern and kindness. You nodded. He was about the only person you wanted to see right now. With Tech, you were safe.

"May I sit down?"

You nodded again and he sat on the ground next to you. Tears were still streaming down your face and you pulled back a sniffle. Tech looked at you and lifted his arm. You moved in and the weight of his arm grounded you. For several moments you breathed and seemed calmer until the tears came back. You started sobbing over your fears that wouldn't seem to go away, trying to explain to him how you felt.

Tech took a minute after you finished before responding, "We both know that you are smart, you are worthy, you are enough. You're my dear friend. I know that logically, saying these things will not offer an immediate fix, but please do not feel you must run away when these thoughts appear. You are more than welcome to run to me."

You looked up at him to see the warmest smile in the galaxy. His eyes conveyed how much he cared for you. You hugged him and quietly promised you would come to him next time. When you pulled away he offered you a tissue and rubbed your shoulder.

"I am here for you," he said. "Just as I know you are always here for me." He looked directly into your eyes and added, "You are never a bother."

"Thank you for coming after me," you said.