Chapter Text
...things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.
Hanya Yanagihara
“Welcome,” says Eli, and it is the first time anyone has ever said such a thing to Thrawn in many years, let alone meant it utterly.
The place is small: standard Defense Force officer quarters. Some things in the Ascendancy have remained the same. Anyone below the captain’s rank receives the same one-bedroom apartments in the same white high-rises. One Thrawn is finally reinstated, he will be given a similar one.
(If he is reinstated. Ar’alani hasn’t been clear on that part.)
(Quarters afforded to senior captains are different: a white desert, cold and impersonal, so oversized it is impossible for one person to make use of all the space. Thrawn has never been able to do that, at least. The memory is still fresh in his mind: the Defense Council gave him two days to get his affairs in order before the exile; all it took to sort through his belongings, after years of life on Naporar, was thirty minutes.)
This apartment, however, is slightly different from what Thrawn had expected to see.
Eli catches his gaze as Thrawn studies the walls, freshly painted a soft, warm shade of yellow. A brown sofa in the middle of the living room, cocoon-shaped — Sposian style. A traditional Ool patterned carpet: stripes, parallel and intertwined.
“You have made adjustments.”
“Yeah,” Eli says. “The bedroom’s yours.”
“That will not be necessary,” Thrawn says, quickly.
The look Eli gives him is, at best, unimpressed. “Seriously?”
“I do not require special treatment.” Thrawn wishes for this conversation to be over the second it starts; at the back of his mind, he makes an observation that perhaps this — choosing to stay with Eli instead of staying at the hospital ward — may have been a mistake.
“You literally have surgery scars all over your chest,” Eli says. “The bedroom’s yours. It’s not up for discussion.”
Thrawn decides he does not have the energy to argue.
“Thank you.” He places the small, standard-issue CEDF kitbag on the floor.
“Would you like to rest a little?” Eli asks.
“No. Thank you again.”
Eli eyes him closely.
“Would you like something to eat, then?”
Thrawn considers this.
The medication has slowed down his appetite — but the doctors Ar’alani has brought in keep saying that he needs “sufficient protein” to “fully recover.” Food has turned into yet another thing he has to take for his body to return to a functional state — if he ever manages to return to that state.
“If you want to have dinner, I will join you.”
“All right,” Eli says. “We’ll order delivery, then.”
Thrawn narrows his eyes — and casts a glance at the window.
“We can order takeout, if it is something that you would like. I could go for a walk.”
The prospect of a casual Naporar walk feels…overstimulating — and yet Thrawn figures that it is also necessary. He recognizes this place, and yet he doesn’t.
They say Naporar used to be different; Eli wouldn’t know. When he came here, it was already like that. When one raises his head, one sees the deflector shields glowing faintly; they only get turned off for maintenance for fifteen minutes a day. When one looks around, his gaze inevitably falls on the signs leading to the nearest bomb shelters.
Thrawn slumps his shoulders. The doctor says he has lost too much weight on Peridea — “No Chiss being should look this emaciated.” This is, however, not the most disturbing part.
When Eli looks at Thrawn, he sees a man who is here — and yet not quite here. Thrawn scans the surroundings with the expression of a soldier on a mission, deployed to a world he had never seen before.
That’s not how you look at a place where you’ve lived since seventeen.
“There’s a Rentori place around the corner,” Eli says. “Never been there, but I see big lines all the time, so…”
Thrawn stills, as if startled by his suggestion.
Eli gives him a smile.
“You don’t mind?”
The Rentori dumpling house is one of the first things Eli had seen after moving to that tiny apartment in Naporar’s central quadrant. He’d found other things too: a Sposian bakery, a sweet tea house, and that tiny caccoleaf shop owned by an old man who ended up giving Eli free samples of every blend he was proud of.
Eli made a point of visiting everything.
The Rentori dumpling house, however, he saved for later. He did it at the time when “later” was ephemeral — an idea even he had a hard time believing in. A rescue mission the Defense Council would never sanction: no exact location, no approximate coordinates.
Thrawn seems to hesitate.
“I mean,” Eli says, “I always wanted to go there with you.” He gives Thrawn a small smile. “ Not much of an expert in Rentori food, y’know.”
Thrawn’s Rentori has gone rusty with years — but he still manages to make out some words people keep saying around him: “flight,” “bastards,” “so tired.” It’s not hard to place these words in a context: all civilian transports to the allied worlds have been cancelled once again for safety reasons, and most Rentoris on Naporar have always come here for work, while their families waited at home.
Thrawn remembers being mistaken for a bluedock worker a few times, in his first years here, back when he still had an accent. He didn’t take it personally. If anything, his father had wanted to go to Naporar — it was good money for a skilled mechanic. Would have gone, were it not for that…speeder accident.
The place smells of pickled redberry and fireweed and thick arp-deer meat broth — the standard scents of a standard Rentori eatery. The foods Thrawn grew up eating.
There are braided Rentori garlands hanging from the ceiling, a good-luck charm. Thrawn once knew a man in their village who’d buy one every time something happened in his life, like those things could protect him from more misfortunes.
He doesn’t imagine he has the right to any of this now: the memories, the food, the language.
When one turns away, everything rearranges itself.
Rentor is not the place it was when he left it. Neither is Naporar. He tried to conveniently ignore these facts for too long.
“What’s good?” Eli asks.
“Soup dumplings,” Thrawn manages.
“You want to order?” Eli asks. “They speak Rentori here.”
Thrawn considers saying no. Then there is a purely practical thought: Eli would not be able to pronounce the word eshke’rri’ah correctly, as Rentori sounds very different from Cheunh. He wouldn’t wish to cause Eli unnecessary embarrassment.
(Eli is different these days. He seems much more confident than the CEDF lieutenant Thrawn last met exactly five years ago. Thrawn notices how he pays no attention to the curious looks of the patrons — it’s unlikely anyone here has seen a non-Chiss being before. Eli wear this confidence like a shield. It’s similar to the Senior Commander uniform that he keeps putting on even when he is not on a ship.)
(It only falters in conversations with Thrawn. Eli starts picking his words more carefully. He trails off more often. He phrases more things as questions. Like he doesn’t want to overstep some invisible line, like he is convinced pressing too hard would harm Thrawn.)
Thrawn nods.
Eshke’rri’ah. Shouldn’t be hard to pronounce.
Ali’vi’ni. The purple flatbreads with herbs that he grew up eating.
Es’pi’niye. The pickled berry sauce.
A side of ali’kaor’vi, pickled fireweed.
His pronunciation slips twice, but the noodle-house owner, a tired woman in a stained apron, pointedly ignores that.
Eli pats him on the shoulder.
When Eli places all the food on the plates — he got these at the market a few blocks away, blue and yellow, Vah’nya helped him choose them — he notices that Thrawn reaches to check the questis left on the table.
“No,” Eli says. “We’ve been through this before.”
“Captain Enoch asks for clarity,” Thrawn says. “I owe him this much as his commanding officer.”
“And you can’t give it to him just yet. Might as well focus on the soup dumplings.”
You can’t give him clarity because there’s no clarity, Eli almost says. Don’t act like the Defense Hierarchy Council will come up with the decision tomorrow.
“Ezra Bridger has already left for Lesser Space,” Thrawn answers. “It is no wonder that my officers have questions.”
“Ezra Bridger was one man. And— not that I disapprove, but look at all the trouble it got us into.”
“You said it was the right thing to do,” Thrawn points out.
“And I still think that.”
Eli spent several months simply trying to make peace with the facts he had learned, against his will: Ryloth, Atollon, Lothal. There was a time when he didn’t want to see Thrawn, when he thought he’d never be able to talk to Thrawn like he had been used to.
Then there was Ezra Bridger.
It’s not like Eli has any illusions as to whether years of Imperial service — and the things one does in that time — can be magically undone, reversed, amended with a single action.
But maybe, just maybe, he’d like to think that all the conversations he’d had with Thrawn had amounted to something. Eli wants to hope this thing Thrawn did — coming up with an escape plan for Ezra Bridger — meant that Thrawn listened.
Still, Ar’alani didn’t appreciate their noble gesture.
“It was one man, and I barely got out of a court-martial for letting him escape,” says Eli. “Imagine how the Council and the Syndicure will react if we say that we now want to send an entire crew to Lesser Space — and that we need the Defense Force’s military support.”
“Ezra Bridger’s worth was tied to his sensitivity to the Force. My crew, however, has no worth to the Ascendancy, not in the Council’s eyes.”
“I’d beg to differ,” says Eli. “You know, we could use anyone who can fight at this point.”
Thrawn takes his eyes away.
At one point, he contemplates excusing himself and leaving, to his new — Eli’s — bedroom. Yet Eli has said nothing wrong or even untrue (which is, on its own, uncomfortable).
“I have a responsibility to my people. We have just received news of the Emperor’s demise. It is only natural that I endeavor to—”
Eli sits down. “No.”
“Explain,” Thrawn says, even though he doesn’t need an explanation.
“You have this thing,” Eli says. “You tend to come up with plans that take you further and further away from your goal.”
He gestures at the kitchen window; it overlooks a construction site. The consequence of the Clarr bombings from two years ago, before the deflector shields were installed.
“The goal was to keep all this safe.”
You have become more Chiss than I expected, Thrawn thinks.
“There is a difference between treating symptoms and offering a systemic solution.”
“Just how long are you going to keep pretending that this is still a systemic solution?”
Eli’s voice is edged with the kind of tension that Thrawn doesn’t recognize: it’s not the commander Eli Vanto he remembers.
“You have a habit of looking away,” Eli says. “Don’t you think?”
Thrawn’s expression grows impenetrable, like it’s a discussion he doesn’t want to engage in.
“And in any case,” Eli says, “it would be a more practical choice. Use the Imperial resources that you have at your disposal, not the resources that you might have one day — to solve the problem that exists here and now. Rhigar is a Grysk world now. So is Bogo Rai. We could use those shipyards, y’know.”
A decade ago, he would have been mortified by the idea of talking back to Thrawn, let alone arguing with him. Only arguing with Thrawn proves to be a useless task. He meets Eli’s words with silence.
“You sent me here to serve your people,” Eli adds. “I wonder why you’re so unwilling to do the same damn thing — now, not tomorrow. Not in another decade. Not—”
He stops himself through sheer willpower. This conversation is turning unproductive.
Thrawn’s eyes dart to the plates of food on the table that remain untouched. Eli sighs. Something tells him this all is not about rational arguments, no matter how much he wants to bombard Thrawn with them, or how much Thrawn prides himself on his rationality.
The Chimaera is what Thrawn can control. The Defense Force isn’t.
Or maybe it’s about something else, something entirely different.
“We need you here,” Eli says. “In case you haven’t understood that already.”
“I see,” Thrawn says, after a pause. “Let’s eat.”
“Here’s your special dumpling, buddy,” Father says. “Don’t drop it.”
The dumpling in Vurawn’s hands is heavy and warm and slippery, and it smells of broth and those tiny blue spicy vegetables Father brought from town. Father said that they are very special vegetables. They are called Peppers, and they only grow on those planets that are big and warm.
Vurawn really wanted Mother to put those Peppers in his dumpling instead of the usual pickled berries.
When he does get what he wants, however, it feels…scary.
He must not drop the dumpling.
He must be good.
If he drops the dumpling, Mother will likely be sad, because she has been sad most of the time lately, and she doesn’t like doing more cleaning-up than she absolutely must. She’s been very tired, too, since she told Vurawn Vurika died.
He must not drop the dumpling.
The dumpling is big and slippery and it smells so good and it scares him.
Father leans to kiss him on top of his head. He’s been doing that much more often lately, too, since Vurika died. He also now wants Vurawn to dress up even warmer, and he cooks for Vurawn now that Mother is so tired, before he goes to Work.
“It’s all right,” Father says. “It’s just a dumpling. If it’s too spicy, we’ll give you another one.”
“Do not drop it,” Thrawn says.
Eli smiles at him. The smile is tired, small, a scrap of a smile, but it evokes an odd sort of fondness in Thrawn. Thrawn pays it no heed.
“Not dropping it,” Eli says, like they haven’t just had an argument. “Watch me.”
He bites the corner of the dumpling and slurps the broth.
The rest of the dinner they spend without saying a word to each other, until Thrawn asks, “When are you to be back on the Steadfast?”
“In two weeks,” Eli says.
Thrawn decides to clarify. “The Steadfast is scheduled to leave for a patrol mission tomorrow, if I remember it correctly?”
Eli nods. “Yes. And I’ve been granted two weeks of leave. I have some work to do.”
It is the way he phrases it — not “I have taken” but “I’ve been granted,” like it was an unexpected opportunity that spontaneously presented itself — doesn’t seem convincing.
Thrawn doesn’t need to clarify what work they are talking about, exactly. Over the past hour, he has noticed holomessages from Enoch twice on Eli’s questis screen: another question about the Defense Council, then a question about housing for the surviving stormtroopers, and another question, about any opportunities to learn Cheunh. Captain Enoch has been remarkably active since he received a questis.
Which is a good thing: Thrawn needs another skilled organizer to ensure that the remaining Imperials are given what they need in the Ascendancy. Eli, however, keeps saying that Thrawn does not have to do it all.
Sometimes Thrawn wonders if Eli is giving him more than he deserves.
When Eli walks into the kitchen again, he sees that Thrawn is almost done loading the dirty plates into the washer-box. Eli could have done it on his own — yet Thrawn offered, and in the moment, it seemed like a good idea to give him something to busy himself with.
Not that Eli doesn’t appreciate help with those small things that steal his attention; there have been far too many of them recently.
The holomails, the questions and concerns — everyone seems so kriffing concerned about everything that has anything to do with the Chimaera. The regular sky-walker program work: he has to turn in a forecast each quarter these days.
He can clean — you don’t survive serving in two navies without learning how to do that — but he does it without pleasure: he needs this space to be orderly.
The cooking part has been trickier. Takeout and delivery will have to do for now.
“I wanted to apologize,” Thrawn says.
This comes at the moment Eli least expects it, and at first, he is not sure how to react to that.
“What for?” he clarifies.
Thrawn pauses, as though carefully considering his answer.
“You seem to have gone out of your way to assist me,” he says. “And it is hardly the first time.”
Eli wants to chuckle at that. The ensign that he once was would have been delighted had he heard Thrawn actually admit such a thing.
(He is not that ensign anymore.)
“Perhaps I have not shown enough gratitude,” Thrawn says.
Eli scoffs.
“I didn’t do any of that for you to say thank you to me, Thrawn. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do,” Thrawn repeats, somewhat pensively.
Eli decides to be honest.
“I thought you were dead,” Eli says. There is a strain in his voice, of a barely noticeable kind. Thrawn notices it anyway. “For two — kriffing — years. I didn’t want to believe that, naturally, but the suspicion was there. There’s nothing you can say or do now, now that you’re alive—”
He breaks off.
“You know what I did,” Thrawn says.
Eli sighs. “Even if you didn’t try to make it right, I guess, I’d have helped you with that stormtrooper situation and everything else.” He pauses. “Let’s be frank here, I probably would have stopped talking to you, but I’d help.”
“Why?” Thrawn asks.
Eli’s gaze flickers to the washer-box. “I’ll finish the dishes.”
“Why?” Thrawn presses on.
He suddenly needs to know the answer to this question more than he has needed it for the past two decades. He suspects what it may be. He wants a confirmation, however, and he cannot quite explain it to himself.
Eli Vanto doesn’t remember the last time he wanted to backtrack on his decision so badly. There is only a limited number of situations where honesty works best.
Still, he doesn’t imagine he can talk his way out of that, the way Thrawn usually tries. He should at least try to be upfront about some things.
“I don’t think it’s the best moment to talk about that,” he says.
“I see,” Thrawn says, for the second time today. Then he adds that question, again. “Why?”
Eli appears to steady himself.
“All right,” he says, slowly, like he is trying to calm himself down. “Let’s start with the first ‘why.’ The answer is, because you are an important part of my life — which, I hope, is obvious. Now to the second one. We both have too much on our plates to…discuss this right now, okay?”
“Why?” Thrawn asks again, and Eli starts laughing.
Thrawn watches him.
Then Eli stops.
“Because if we get into details, it might get a little bit uncomfortable,” he says. “Especially given that we now share an apartment. And…I do like being your friend. Admittedly, it’s not easy sometimes, but I do like it. I want to have it in my life. If we—” Eli licks his lips, a clear display of hesitation, not something Thrawn has seen him do recently. “There are some things that can change a friendship.”
Once again, he chooses the words too carefully, as if there is an invisible line that he doesn’t want to overstep.
“I guess you understand what I’m talking about,” Eli says. “You must see it in the same way. Have seen, for some time.”
Thrawn thinks about seeing Eli in the CEDF uniform for the first time, and about that quick, rushed greeting that he had mustered after a year of not seeing each other, and—
“You have a habit of looking away.”
“For some time,” Thrawn repeats.
Fondness set aside.
Thoughts he consciously chose not to pay too much attention, as it would distract him from his goal.
The goal does not appear to be what it is anymore. The thoughts have remained the same.
He wants to put this into words, as such things should be — “some strategies need to be reconsidered when circumstances change” — but he finds it laughable, and he cannot come up with anything that sounds better.
So instead, after a moment of contemplation, he reaches out to Eli with his hand.
And Eli takes it.
When Eli sees this — Thrawn’s hand, the expectant and simultaneously hopeful look in Thrawn’s eyes — he chooses not to analyze it anymore. There is a feeling, soft and warm and strangely fragile, rising in his chest when he takes Thrawn’s hand.
He traces the wrist with his finger. There is a purrgil scar, broad and white, and a smaller, older scar likely left by a vibroblade or a weapon of a similar configuration.
Thrawn watches him.
When Eli brings Thrawn’s wrist to his lips, Thrawn doesn’t protest.
First, Eli kisses the purrgil scar.
Illustration by Fieldofheathers-stuff
In literature, such moments are often described as happening in a haze. Perhaps it is a narrative device, used to condense the plot, reduce the amount of unnecessary detail that may take away the reader’s attention from the purpose of the scene. In some cases, especially when it comes to art created by more repressed societies with more rigid customs — earlier Stybla reign-era works, Chandrilan classics — it may have been an act of censorship or self-censorship. Intimacy was only acceptable if it was ephemeral, overly focused on emotion.
Perhaps it is an honest description of how some experience it. Different species and cultures, different emotionality standards.
Yet when it happens to Thrawn — after decades of not being close in such a way with anyone — there is no haze, or blur, or any other metaphor beloved by Stybla and Chandrilan greats.
He is sharply aware of every little detail.
The subtle difference in warmth between Eli’s skin and his.
Eli’s lips pressing against his wrist.
Eli’s lips on his.
Eli’s breathing.
The stubble on Eli’s cheeks brushing against his skin.
Eli’s body pressing against his.
Eli’s hand wandering over his back.
Eli leading him out of the kitchen, to the bedroom — they have forgotten to turn on the lights, but it doesn’t matter.
The infrared glow around Eli’s face, intensified.
The rasp in Eli’s voice when Eli clarifies, once again, whether Thrawn wants it, or whether Thrawn wants it to happen this fast.
Thrawn nods: a confirmation, once again.
It has been more than a decade of looking away. He would much rather not add to the pile of unmade decisions.
“Eli,” he says, “I am in my right mind, and I wish to do this.”
Which makes Eli laugh, but this particular laughter comes across as a relief.
“Good,” Eli says; he takes Thrawn by the wrist again as he drags him inside the bedroom.
Past a certain age, few things are done in a whirl of passion.
No one tears clothes off anyone. Instead, Eli helps Thrawn out of his sweater, careful not to bother the scars on his chest and shoulders. They are already healing; still, Eli suspects precautions are in order — not to mention those little things you need to do to eliminate potential distractions.
“Shower first,” he says, when they are standing in front of each other naked.
Thrawn nods.
And here, Eli thinks, he resented the Defense Force for equipping officers’ apartments with sonic showers instead of units with actual running water. What used to irritate him proves to be a time-saver.
When they are done, he sticks fresh bacta patches over Thrawn’s scars.
“Ready?”
Only when he says it does it finally dawn on him that this thing — the him-and-Thrawn thing, the thing he had never imagined would happen — is finally happening.
“Ready?”
Thrawn has too many answers to this question.
He is — and yet he isn’t, and he doesn’t understand how these two lines of thought can coexist in his head, but he suspects there are things one might never be truly ready for. Which is completely normal. It shouldn’t be an obstacle.
“Turn out the lights,” he says.
This is the voice Thrawn has always used on the bridge, cold and commanding; Eli didn’t expect to hear it here and now. Thrawn seems to withdraw, suddenly, for a reason it takes Eli a moment to understand.
“Are you all right?” Eli asks.
“Yes,” Thrawn says. His tone is now slightly different, more relaxed, but it sounds as if he is forcing himself to relax, just because it would be more appropriate for the situation they are in. “Turn out the lights.”
“Okay,” Eli says.
In the darkness, Thrawn appears to relax even more. He lies down on the bed, immediately — like it’s some sort of a threshold he is intent on crossing as quickly and efficiently as he is capable of.
Eli chooses not to ask questions.
Instead, he follows Thrawn.
Some of the sensations are the same as they were mere ten minutes ago: Eli’s lips on his, then Eli’s lips against his skin. Eli plants kisses down Thrawn’s neck, light and precise; Thrawn closes his eyes.
It does not feel the same.
Every sensation is magnified; it all oscillates between being too much and just what he had been hoping for.
Eli is half-hard against his hip. Thrawn trails a finger down Eli’s back, carefully; Eli buries his face in Thrawn’s neck, for a split second, and inhales.
Then he raises his eyes at Thrawn. The question he comes up with next is both vague and extremely precise — “How do you want this to go?”
Thrawn understands full well Eli isn’t pressing for particulars. He wouldn’t be, not now. What Eli is really asking is much simpler. Eli does not require a detailed instruction on what Thrawn expects him to do — he merely wishes to learn more about Thrawn’s…main preferences.
“I would like you to take the lead,” Thrawn says.
He does not imagine he is comfortable with being more specific, under the circumstances. It is the best way to put it in Cheunh, as Cheunh normally steers clear of overly graphic descriptions of sex (funnily, Cheunh has much richer vocabulary to describe acts of violence than any other language Thrawn speaks).
Eli nods, no clarifications needed, and leans to kiss Thrawn again, on the lips. The kiss is slow and deep.
Only when they break for air does he switch to Basic and asks, with a smile, “So you want me to fuck you, right?”
“Yes,” Thrawn says, in Cheunh. “That is precisely what I want.”
Eli laughs at that, but not unkindly, and drops a light kiss to his chin.
Chiss anatomy is a fascinating thing; it takes one more long kiss on Thrawn’s lips and several strokes of fingers along the slit, light and careful, to coax his cock out of its pocket. When it does happen, though, there is so much jelly-like, translucent purple slick that Eli doesn’t expect they will need lube for anything.
He marvels at the view for a minute or so.
“It was less exciting in that anatomy textbook, gotta admit.”
The response is an amused huff. “You studied an anatomy textbook.”
Now it is Eli’s turn to fake his bridge voice. “Purely for research purposes, sir.”
Thrawn chuckles at that.
“Research purposes.”
“Research purposes,” Eli agrees as he brings a slick-coated finger to his mouth.
Chiss pre-ejaculate tastes differently from human: the flavor is more intense, with a pronounced hint of saltiness. Eli feels Thrawn’s gaze on himself.
“The textbook didn’t cover that part either,” he says.
The response is another soft chuckle; then Thrawn reaches out his hand to touch Eli’s cock. “I too have some research to do, I believe.”
Thrawn slicks his hand once again and tightens his grip; Eli, it would appear, prefers a more intense kind of stimulation than any Chiss would. Thrawn squeezes his cock and caresses the head with a thumb — it feels leathery and also firmer than he is used to — as he gives Eli another stroke.
Eli’s heat signature flares; he squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip.
“If you keep doing this, I’m gonna come,” he warns, then, his voice just slightly out of shape.
“I apologize,” Thrawn says. “Please, proceed.”
In response, Eli spanks him on the hip playfully; it’s not something he gives much thought to — just a spur-of-the-moment urge — but when he hears a sharp hiss, he knows it was a good idea.
Thrawn spreads his legs before Eli can ask.
“Someone’s eager,” Eli laughs.
Thrawn gives him an impenetrable stare that doesn’t fool him.
“Can you move a little?” Eli asks.
Eli makes quick work of wedging two pillows under his back so that Thrawn does not have to remain propped up on his elbows. A gesture Thrawn is grateful for. He lies back, not taking his eyes away from Eli.
Eli smiles and kisses him.
This surge of tenderness is particularly intense.
One of the corners of Thrawn’s mouth is sagging: permanent nerve damage. There are wrinkles around his eyes; his features seem even sharper now that he’s lost so much weight.
Eli scatters kisses over his face, once again. Thrawn seems to relax under him. There is now less tension in his body, and Eli thinks they might be ready.
“All right,” he says. “Let’s get to it.”
When Eli enters him, slowly and carefully, it hurts; Thrawn is not surprised by this. It is always that way. The burning, stretching sensation.
“You okay?” Eli asks.
Thrawn nods.
Nevertheless, Eli stills, as though giving him time to adjust.
It’s a peculiar mix of feelings: the way Eli’s heart drops when he sees that sagging corner of Thrawn’s mouth, even though this is hardly news, even though he is seeing it for the hundredth time, and the way Eli holds his breath when he looks at Thrawn.
How can you want to protect a man so much and yet marvel at him at the same time?
Eli’s gaze travels from Thrawn’s half-lidded eyes to his cheekbones, his thin lips, his neck, clavicles and chest and shoulders and stomach and—
“Do you realize how long I’ve wanted this for?” he asks.
Thrawn fixes him with a look that is almost amused — but Eli notices it’s a sad kind of irony.
“I can tell,” Thrawn says. “I noticed.”
“You bastard,” Eli laughs.
He presses inside further.
His eyes dart from his cock sinking into Thrawn’s body to Thrawn’s expression, in an attempt to check for any signs of pain or discomfort; as Thrawn’s body engulfs him, he curses quietly.
For a moment, Thrawn allows himself to focus on what is happening, the sheer physicality of the experience. Eli’s eyes flutter shut; Eli grips his hips; Eli’s body is warm, and he is moving slowly in and out of Thrawn.
“Good?” Eli asks, then, opening his eyes.
Thrawn nods.
It already feels better than most of the experiences he has had before. Not that there have been many, however. Most of them weren’t terribly different from each other: a cantina night, his old Kivu name instead of the actual name he went by, an attractive man that Thrawn was sure had no military ties. The experiences were quick and impersonal; when it was over, Thrawn would dress up and leave.
This is anything but impersonal. At the same time, it is not nearly as intense as Thrawn is used to.
Eli rolls his hips once again — and strokes Thrawn’s cheek.
“You can go harder than that,” Thrawn whispers.
The heat signature around Eli’s face grows brighter. He flashes Thrawn a brilliant smile. Then he leans over to kiss Thrawn on the tip of his nose.
“Aye, sir.”
Thrawn is twenty-one, and it is happening for the first time; his eyes are glued to the wall of the cramped cantina bathroom.
He would have much preferred a more private environment than a bathroom stall, naturally. But that would mean either inviting his partner for the night into his quarters — which is not something he can do — or leaving together with the partner in question.
Thrawn quite likes the man: there is something familiar about the wide smile or the low voice, or the casual, relaxed way he moves and talks. A cargo pilot from Bogo Rai, who likely told Thrawn his real name. Yet Thrawn doesn’t think he can like any man enough to spend the night — or even a few hours — at his apartment.
“Harder,” Thrawn says.
It’s not really voicing his desires as much as it is curiosity — about the limits of his body, about what this all should and can feel like.
“Are you sure?” There is a flicker of concern in the pilot’s voice.
“Yes,” Thrawn says. “Harder.”
Afterward, Ziara asks him how it all went, and he says the experience was “underwhelming” because it’s the easiest way to describe it without going into much detail.
He would not have been able to explain to himself why he rushes Eli. Perhaps he is used to a different kind of stimulation. Perhaps it seems only fitting for their act of intimacy to matter. Perhaps Eli may also enjoy this more; Thrawn does not imagine Eli derives any pleasure from holding himself back as much as he is at this moment.
A sexual act, Thrawn supposes, can be directed, just like a military operation or an intel-gathering mission. The comparison may seem ironic, but Thrawn thinks it is not far from the truth; it’s about control and planning.
Neither warfare nor art nor sex can be directionless.
Sex has a very clear end goal.
Thrawn wants Eli to enjoy what is happening.
He himself is beginning to enjoy it, too.
Eli is thrusting so hard that Thrawn spots beads of sweat on his forehead and his chest, and when Thrawn pulls Eli closer and embraces him, he likes the sensation of damp skin against skin more than he thought he would. He ruffles Eli’s hair. Eli moans.
“You may bite me,” Thrawn whispers.
Eli gives another, even deeper thrust before he does — and stifles another moan that almost resembles a howl.
A second later, his cock hits a particularly good spot inside Thrawn. Thrawn hisses; Eli’s teeth sink into his shoulder.
This is good, he thinks as he stares at the ceiling. This is very good.
Then Eli lifts up on his elbows. There is a sudden change to the way he moves — the pace is different now, more erratic. Eli snakes his hand between their bodies; his fingers close around Thrawn’s cock.
“Damn,” he whispers. “I’m—”
He does not need to finish. Thrawn can see that he is close.
Eli Vanto is here, happy, tired, looking a good decade younger, looking at Thrawn like Thrawn is the only person in this galaxy, and suddenly, this experience proves…a little bit too much.
Eli is just about to ask Thrawn what they are going to do next — or rather, where Thrawn would like him to come: inside, on the stomach, on the face — when he notices this: a barely perceptible change in the way Thrawn looks at him, the way Thrawn’s body feels under his.
The tension is here, again.
“Thrawn?” Eli asks. “Are you—”
“I am fine,” Thrawn says, too quickly, and gives him this impenetrable, unblinking stare that wouldn’t be able to deceive him. “Please, continue.”
Eli stills.
He can’t tell what exactly must be off about the whole situation, but—
“Be honest,” he says. “If I’m hurting you, I need to know.”
Thrawn still cannot bend his right arm properly, and they are fucking like they are both twenty. Worse yet, Thrawn’s usual attitude — every injury is minor as long as he is not reduced to a pile of dust and his head isn’t shot off by a heavy-duty blaster rifle — must keep him from saying anything.
“You are not hurting me,” Thrawn says. The metallic notes in his voice grow more noticeable, like he is giving an order. “Continue.”
Eli sighs.
“I’m not doing this like that,” he mutters as he pulls out.
This is when Thrawn knows he has made a mistake.
Perhaps he should have asked Eli more about his preferences. Perhaps he should have communicated what he wanted in a different way. Or perhaps he is not suited for…this all, and it was not a good idea to start.
He has never had a romantic relationship. This particular type of partnership is a skill — it would be unrealistic to assume he’d possess it.
Thrawn remains on the bed, not moving, as Eli sits down before him.
“Thrawn?” Eli calls.
Thrawn gives a small nod but doesn’t say anything.
“I think we need to discuss this,” Eli says.
Thrawn’s reaction is something Eli had anticipated: he knows this cryptic stare, and he knows these moments when Thrawn falls into silence that has nothing to do with his mind cooking up yet another scheme.
Eli is not buying this.
When he was much younger, he’d think of this sight as mysterious and enigmatic: a dangerous being from Lysatran legends, impossible to read, impossible to understand. Experience has taught him, though, that some beings, however dangerous, like to pretend they are harder to read than really is the case.
“I can see something I did was too much,” Eli says.
“I asked you to do it.”
It’s like Thrawn is blaming himself for a nonexistent mistake, or for something that is no mistake at all.
“So what?” Eli asks. “If you see it’s not working for you, you can tell me to stop any time.”
“It is supposed to be a…mutually enjoyable process.”
“You do realize I can’t enjoy it if I’m hurting you?” Eli asks. Then he adds, realizing, “No need to make sacrifices for me.”
“I apologize.”
“For what?”
“For failing to communicate properly,” Thrawn says.
He is about to withdraw once again, this much Eli can tell. Maybe they are past the stage where they need to mince words, he decides.
“Thrawn. I need you to take what I’m going to say next really seriously.”
Thrawn raises his eyes at Eli. Eli moves closer to him and lays a hand on his knee; he hopes this gesture proves calming enough.
“I love you,” he says. “Even when you don’t say what you mean. Even when I disagree with your choices. Even when I don’t understand you.” He stifles a laugh. “But it would be a bit easier for the two of us if you just…told me what’s on your mind. From time to time.”
Thrawn freezes when he hears it. This head tilt — Eli used to think it made Thrawn look regal and unapproachable. Now he sees it for what it is: nervousness.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Eli says. “You can just nod if you want.”
After a brief pause, Thrawn nods.
“You keep doing this to yourself,” Thrass says.
He must have noticed the bite mark on Thrawn’s neck at the beginning of the day, but he only raises this subject when they are in the privacy of his Csilla home.
(Wearing civilian clothing was a mistake; the CEDF uniform’s collar does a much better job at concealing such things.)
Thrawn suppresses a surge of irritation. He is a grown man. He may do whatever he wishes in bed, no matter what his brother may think about his personal life situation.
(“Personal life” is not even an accurate description. Thrawn does not have a “personal life.” It’s merely an occasional release of tension that doesn’t affect what he does in the CEDF or for the Mitth—)
“I’ve noticed you feel worse every time you try to release tension like this,” Thrass says. “It doesn’t have to be a self-annihilation tool, you know.”
“My life choices upset you.”
“No,” Thrass says, in his soft, polite syndic voice. “But I am worried, Thrawn. Sometimes these choices of yours are…shall we say, very much in line with many other things you do. What I find concerning is that those things are becoming increasingly risky. Sometimes I wonder how much risk you really need in your life.”
“Perhaps,” Thrawn just answers; he considers changing the subject.
Thrass watches his face closely.
“Thrawn,” he says. “I want you to know that you are my brother, and I love you more than I could ever be ‘upset’ with your choices. There is nothing you can do that can change it.”
There are things Thrawn has never been able to put into words. Instead, he covers Eli’s palm with his. Eli smiles.
Thrawn gestures at the bed — “Please come here,” he wants to say. Eli nods.
They spend some time like that, by each other’s side, quiet. Eli caresses Thrawn’s shoulder. Thrawn keeps stroking Eli’s hair. It is only now that he notices some things — how different it feels to touch than his own hair, much lighter and softer.
At one point, Thrawn drifts off to sleep without even noticing. When he opens his eyes, the room is still dark. In the window, he catches a glimpse of deflector shields, glowing against the night sky. Eli nuzzles at his cheek.
Thrawn kisses Eli on the top of his head, hesitantly. Eli presses his body, lean and warm, against Thrawn’s. Thrawn breathes in.
“So,” Eli murmurs against his neck. Thrawn can hear wry humor in his voice. “Do you think we could do it again?”
“Indeed,” Thrawn says quietly, after taking a minute to consider his answer. “How would you prefer it?”
Eli places a light kiss on his chin.
“How would you?”
Thrawn sounds pensive.
“I am…out of practice. I trust you.”
“All right,” Eli says. “All right. But if there’s something that makes you uncomfortable, you must tell me — or we’re not doing this again.”
“Understood,” says Thrawn quietly.
When Eli starts trailing kisses down Thrawn’s chest, then stomach, pointedly avoiding the bacta patch stripes, Thrawn understands where this is going — and he considers saying no, because being pleasured orally has never done much to him. Being on the receiving end in this regard is not his usual preference.
Nevertheless, his curiosity wins — as well as the thought at the back of his mind that he can always say no.
Eli licks along the slit a few times, waiting for his cock to evert. Thrawn keeps carding his fingers through Eli’s hair, which Eli seems to enjoy greatly.
When Eli’s lips close around Thrawn’s cock, it’s as if a jolt of electricity runs through his body. His knees twitch, an involuntary movement that he doesn’t quite notice until he hears Eli’s satisfied hum.
Good sex, from Eli Vanto’s experience, requires contradiction. Tenderness and roughness — he has noticed that Thrawn does enjoy it, but he figures you need to dose such things.
He drags his tongue up the shaft of Thrawn’s cock, swipes it along the head — and then takes all of Thrawn in his mouth, until he gags. There is too much slick, and Chiss cocks seem to grow in size slightly with more stimulation even when they already look fully erect, but it’s something Eli finds himself enjoying.
He lets the tip hit the back of his throat, once, twice, and hears Thrawn snarl. Thrawn’s grip on his hair tightens.
When Eli raises his head — he could use some air now — and wipes his mouth, Thrawn fixes him with a look so displeased Eli wants to laugh.
“More.” Thrawn’s voice is as hoarse as it has ever been.
Eli pays no attention to his words for a second or two. Then he drags Thrawn’s cock along his cheek. Thrawn tilts his head back and snarls again. Inadvertently, his toes flex — another thing his body does that he doesn’t notice until a moment later.
He closes his eyes when he feels Eli’s fingers ghost along the rim of the slit once again.
Eli stops.
“Thrawn,” he says. “Can we try something?”
Thrawn’s mind — scattered, sex-addled, which is not a state he is used to — only registers what Eli means as Eli’s slick finger presses against his entrance.
He has only seen this done to anyone once in his life, in a porn holo he’d watched in his Taharim years for research purposes. It did not look appealing. Still, Thrawn figures, it would appear that this — everything that is happening between him and Eli Vanto here and now — asks him to lose track of what he thought he knew.
“Yes,” he says.
At first, Thrawn tenses a little at the intrusion, which is an odd contrast to what they did in this bed a mere hour or so ago.
Eli’s finger goes further; he angles his wrist. This part is not that different from doing the same thing with human men, really.
Thrawn’s body jolts. He gasps and curses — in Rentori? This doesn’t sound like Cheunh.
Eli repeats the motion as he lowers his mouth back onto Thrawn’s cock.
He doesn’t only lose track of what he knew.
He loses track of who he is, which is simultaneously intriguing, terrifying, and exhilarating.
As Eli lets him go — with a wet pop and a string of slick and saliva landing on his hip — Thrawn struggles to remember some of the most basic things: his name, the name of the planet they are on, the name of his ship.
(For an inexplicable reason, this fact feels important.)
Another second later, Eli asks a thing no Chiss would: “Want me to swallow?”
Thrawn looks startled by the question.
“It is not…typically…done,” he manages, and the contrast of his choice of words, his face, flushed purple — Eli can see it even in the half-darkness of their bedroom — and the way his cock twitches under Eli’s fingers is most amusing.
“Okay,” Eli says. “You’ll come on my face, then.”
Eli says it like it’s the most mundane thing imaginable.
It fascinates Thrawn that they are having this discussion like this: there are stains of his slick on Eli’s face, Eli’s finger is still inside him, and Eli places no more importance in his words than he would in a phrase like “I’ll make caccoleaf.”
Just what else do I not know about you, Thrawn wonders.
Chiss ejaculate is a slightly thicker substance than Eli is used to, jelly-like, and there is more of it than he had expected. Which is not a problem at all, he decides. He quite enjoys how it feels on his skin.
Thrawn’s muscles flex. He hisses.
Eli licks his lips, somewhat demonstratively, and presses his finger further. Thrawn yelps, in the most undignified way; his back arches. It takes him a few minutes to catch his breath. Then he seems to make an effort to return to reality.
“Eli,” he manages then, and makes a vague gesture that likely means, “Come here.”
A kiss is, more often than not, a perfunctory gesture. The meaning it holds is purely symbolic: a punctuation mark, a display of affection.
Yet this particular kiss feels anything but perfunctory.
Thrawn tastes Eli’s lips and he also tastes himself — salty, earthy, the taste is more pleasant than he had expected — and at this moment, it becomes unclear where he ends and Eli begins and, and, and—
It feels good. Right.
Eli brings Thrawn’s hand to his cock. The implications are clear, but Thrawn doesn’t think he wants to end the night this way.
“Perhaps you could take me,” he manages.
Eli raises an eyebrow. “A tempting offer.”
“What is the pillow for?”
“I need you to lie down on your stomach,” Eli says patiently. “I think it’s going to be easier.”
It’s more of an intuitive guess — but he feels there are limits to the amount of intensity Thrawn can handle.
“I think you might like it more,” Eli adds. “Just relax.”
Thrawn nods. In this nod, Eli doesn’t see much reluctance anymore. When Eli enters him, it seems Thrawn’s entire body melts.
At one point, Thrawn feels his cock harden again; he raises his hips, and Eli grabs them.
At one point, Eli falls off the bed; he curses first in Basic, then in Cheunh, and starts laughing, and this makes Thrawn laugh too.
At one point, Thrawn grabs the headboard — and also demands that Eli grab his hair.
Eli keeps laughing.
“Aye, sir.”
Afterward, they lie beside each other, too exhausted to talk, until Eli raises on his elbows. “We should have some dumplings left.”
Thrawn opens one eye; for a minute or so, he answers nothing. Then he nods.
“I noticed Shihoni peppers on your counter. We may add them.”
“We may,” Eli says, teasing; Thrawn snorts — really snorts, and it is the first time Eli has seen this man do it in his life.
“Good,” Thrawn says. After a moment of contemplation, he adds, “I love you, Eli Vanto, but we are not eating Rentori dumplings in bed.”
I love you. It startles Eli how easily Thrawn says this — like it’s a fact of his life he has been aware of for years.
“I love you too,” he says.
Thrawn watches him closely. “You’ve already told me.” Then he asks, “I don’t suppose you have cig-sticks?”
Now it’s Eli’s turn to snort. “Never took you for a smoker.”
“I am not, but it seems fitting now.” Thrawn shrugs. “I imagine…one never stops learning things about himself.”