Chapter Text
Eli awoke with the pleasant, familiar soreness in his muscles that followed a night in Thrawn’s bed — it was more pronounced today, last night had been…fiercer. More intense even than usual. He stretched, enjoying the reminders of where Thrawn’s hands had gripped, where Eli had been held down…he lifted a hand, examined the faint, finger-shaped bruise on his arm, just above his wrist.
“My apologies.” Eli sat up to see the man responsible, sitting stiffly in a little-used chair by the bed.
“What are you still doing here?” Eli said, reaching for the right intonations, still feeling half-asleep. They spoke only Cheunh when they were alone, now. “Wait—“ he scrabbled for his chrono. “What am I still doing here, I’m late for—“
Thrawn put down the datapad he had been holding and came over to the bed. He was still undressed. “You are not late for anything,” Thrawn murmured, pushing Eli back down into the bed, gently. “You have symptoms of the Coruscanti influenza, and have been advised to stay off active duty today.”
“Oh yeah?” Eli said, “And you’ve been advised to play my medical droid, I guess?” He had to revert to Basic for that, and Thrawn shot him a look of disapproval. “Sarcasm doesn’t come across in Cheunh,” Eli muttered.
Thrawn inclined his head in agreement, and continued in the Chiss’s native tongue. “I am busy working on a research brief for Governor Pryce concerning her Rebel issues. As you can see, I am currently in my office, having given orders not to be interrupted or disturbed for any reason save a full-scale attack on the Fleet.”
The idea of Thrawn playing hooky was more than a little ridiculous, but Eli could only manage a half-smile. “Thank you,” he said, a little more plaintively than he’d intended.
Thrawn wasn’t usually one for casual physical affection, but this morning, things were different. He lay down atop Eli, covering his body, caressing his face. Eli threw his head back into the pillows, letting his own hands map Thrawn’s chest, his arms, his smooth, cool skin, so different from Eli’s own.
“Everything is prepared for tomorrow,” Thrawn said, into Eli’s ear, trailing his mouth over Eli’s jawline.
Eli shivered. “I know, can we not—“
“We will not, hisbin’t bo ch’eo vu’er.” Thrawn said. He hissed the Cheunh endearment into Eli’s ear. The night he had first used it, he had defined it as beloved, but it was more than that. Keeper of my honor, was the best Basic translation Eli could come up with. The intent behind it was simultaneously lover, friend, partner, comrade, respected-one…it covered everything they were to each other, and more.
True to his words, Thrawn didn’t talk about tomorrow — or much of anything else — as he and Eli repeated their actions from the previous night. Eli’s mouth on Thrawn’s, Thrawn’s hands pulling at Eli’s hair. Eli thought the Cheunh words for faster, harder, don’t stop, I’m coming were the ones he was the most-practiced at, by now.
He didn’t anticipate having much of a need for those in the Ascendancy.
Where he would be, this time tomorrow.
They spent the day — the last day Eli would spend on the Chimera — in and out of bed. Always speaking in Cheunh, as if a final day of practice would do Eli any good.
“You still have a Lysatran accent, even in Cheunh,” Thrawn said, brushing Eli’s hair away from his cheek.
Eli sighed. “Good,” he said. “It’s where I’m from, might as well carry it into the Unknown Regions.”
“Eli…you do not have to do this,” Thrawn said. “You do not have an obligation to me, to my people.”
There was a long pause.
“And you don’t have an obligation to the Empire. Especially after what we just saw on Batonn. What you saw on Coruscant, the Emperor’s planet-killer. You can’t want to stay, to be a part of tactics like that. To work for Pryce? You should come back with me,” Eli said, finally.
Thrawn’s hand stilled. “You know I cannot,” he said. “I do have an obligation to my people. This is my appointed task, to observe the Empire, to become a part of it. To bring it to bear on the threats that are to come.”
“Don’t we have an obligation to each other?” Eli said. “Tiscut'san'in'ci, remember, on Vria? Or am I the flaw in the plan?”
Thrawn closed his eyes at Eli’s use of the term. A type of partnership forged between equals, under duress, a true bond of respect and attraction both, was how he had defined it on the planet Vria, when they had first made their true feelings toward each other known.
“I release you from that obligation,” Thrawn said.
“You can’t release me from anything, Admiral. You can’t order me not to—“ Eli sat up, pushing away Thrawn’s hand. His dark eyes were blazing with insulted pride.
“Eli,” Thrawn said, holding out a hand in a human gesture for calm. “I am not ordering you.” He sighed. “Do you recall the night at the Academy when we were attacked?”
Eli’s body language relaxed slightly. “And you knocked me into the bushes?” he said, dryly. “Yeah, I remember that. You ended up wounded, remember?”
“I knew I was walking into a trap,” Thrawn said. “I knew the potential danger. And yet, I judged it worth the risk to uncover the identities of our enemies. However, I judged the risk worthy only to myself. Not to you.”
Silence.
“I don’t think it’s a risk worth taking,” Eli said, finally, but without heat.
“If you are to remain here,” Thrawn said. “I do not judge the risk worthwhile to you. You will be better served by my people than your own. And you will be my counterpart — I, the Ascendancy’s representative in the Empire, you, the Empire’s representative in the Ascendancy. It is the most logical course of action. And it is the one that protects…hisbin’t bo ch’eo vu’er. The one who keeps my honor.”
“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious,” Eli quoted, with a sigh. “You taught me that, too.”
“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “Let us move the battlefield to one of our own choosing.”
“And let me provide you with an escape route,” Eli pressed. “If things go bad. If the Rebels unite. If they find leadership. If it looks like it’s not going according to plan—”
“I will assess the situation accordingly,” Thrawn said.
Eli pulled Thrawn’s hand back to his face, to his mouth. Kissed the palm of it. Thrawn shuddered at the touch on the sensitive flesh.
“Make sure that you do, hisbin’t bo ch’eo vu’er,” Eli said.
#
The two shuttles were prepared. One would carry Eli to a preprogrammed set of coordinates, to rendezvous with Thrawn’s Ascendancy contact. The other, on autopilot, would suffer a fatal malfunction when it was far enough away from the Chimera.
Lieutenant Commander Eli Vanto, aide to Admiral Thrawn of the Chimera would die today. Eli would have to find out who he was without the title, without the role he’d held for the past ten years, instead.
He was wearing his uniform, though. He was unwilling to part with that, yet.
Eli handed Thrawn a folded piece of flimsi. The letter to his parents, the only people who were to know that he hadn’t died in the coming “accident.” Eli hated the thought of his friends — Karyn Faro, the other senior staff members, mourning him, but it couldn’t be helped.
“You’ll deliver it in person?” he said.
“I said that I would,” Thrawn said, gravely. “I will see to it that your parents will not believe you dead for long.”
He handed Eli a datapad. “The coordinates for the dead-drop message relay are here,” he said. “It is how I have communicated with the Ascendancy these years, without betraying their location. I will check it when I can. I have also included some…personal notes.”
Eli smiled. “I’ll look forward to those.”
They would have to step out of the office, soon. To where they wouldn’t have any privacy, and would have to pretend this was any other routine trip. “Eli,” Thrawn said. “I do, truly, release you from your obligation to me. We do not know if we will see one another again, and I do not expect your loyalty at such a distance—“
Eli cut him off with a kiss, desperate, not a prelude to anything further, though it still inflamed them both. “That’s a load of krayt spit, sir,” he said. “I’ll stay obligated if I want. And I do. But I don’t expect that from you—“
“Let us not deceive each other then,” Thrawn said. “It is unlikely, very unlikely, that there will be others…”
“…but if there are, we won’t hold it against each other,” Eli finished.
“Indeed,” Thrawn said, entwining his fingers with Eli’s. “It has been an honor to know you, Eli Vanto.”
“It’s been a pleasure to serve, Mitth'raw'nuruodo,” Eli said.
A final touch, a final kiss, and Eli was gone.
Thrawn returned to his office, alone. He really did have work to do, and intended to apply himself to it. Forcefully, in fact. To the exclusion of all else.