Chapter Text
It was the pain that woke him, again. Pain in his legs, running like live wires from the soles of his feet up through his knees, radiating outward from deep inside his bones.
Ruescott Melshi groaned and rolled onto his back, his fists curled and his jaw set, his whole body tense and rigid as he waited for the burning to pass. His room was small, barely more than a closet with a bunk and a small space to stash his gear, but it was dark and quiet for the most part. It was really meant for two people, but for now it was just him. He lay in the dark with his teeth clenched as he waited for the fierce pain to die down.
Outside, in the hall, he could hear the sounds of other people passing, going about their duties. There were more muffled noises from above and below, and in the distance the sound of ships as they came and went in the darkness. The temple base on Yavin IV was never even close to being empty, yet somehow he still felt terribly alone.
It wasn’t so awful, he told himself. A sense of privacy was something he had come to value deeply, but this? Riding out waves of nerve pain in a dark, cramped bunk by himself was not something he particularly enjoyed. It passed after a short while, leaving him sweaty and breathless. No use in trying to sleep again, so he stared blankly at the dim shapes of the ceiling above and tried to rub feeling back into his calves. He’d never say a word about it, of course, but laying awake, alone and restless felt pathetic.
It was the damned steel floor, the doctor had told him. Multiple doctors, multiple times. The electricity coursing through his body again and again had done its work, leaving him with these bouts of agony. There was a treatment, apparently, but not one he had the time or resources for. He had medication for the pain and the shaking, and bacta patches he was supposed to wear when he wasn’t busy, but mostly he just did this. Waited until it passed. The only thing he’d ever had the luxury of doing.
It wasn’t just his legs. His hands still hurt frequently. They were stiff, aching deep in his wrist, beyond the muscles and tendons, the sort of pain that wound its way into your bones. A reminder of what the Empire had done to him and countless other people.
On nights like this, everything about the Rebellion seemed rather hopeless. He hurt, almost constantly. They struggled and ran and hid, endured hardship after hardship and for what? A few small victories and a vision of a better future that was sometimes extraordinarily hard to picture.
He did believe in the Rebellion, and he didn’t. At least, he didn’t really need to believe in it. Fighting the Empire was the only thing he could do, it was the only thing that made sense. Part of him thought that someday, somehow the Rebellion would win. The empire, they couldn’t exist forever. Didn’t mean he would live to see its downfall, though.
It wasn’t necessarily a fatalistic outlook, merely a practical one. He’d been in the Empire’s clutches once, in an Imperial prison. He wasn’t sure he could do it again.
The Rebellion was still something. Despite the slow, desperate slog of it all, he could at least say he was doing something to stand against the empire. The path that had led him here was strange and circuitous, and on nights like this it felt stranger still. He could trace his path all the way back to the beginning. Thinking about the Melshi of way back then was like looking at an entirely different person, one he hardly recognized.
It was Keef, of course, who had played a large part in bringing him back to the Rebellion. Not in person, but rather the memory of who he was and what he had helped accomplish. Keef, in many ways, was responsible for so much of who he’d come to be.
He’d liked Keef from the moment he saw him. Or, not quite ‘liked’. More so recognized somebody he would respect. He’d been frightened when he came down on the floor. Frightened and confused like they all had been. But there was a current of frustration in his movements, and his eyes were keen, taking it all in.
He immediately felt that Keef was somebody he would understand, and somebody he could trust, if he got to know him well enough. So, understandably, leaving him on that beach on Niamos had been difficult.
Then, in some small, strange, unexpected stroke of fate, they’d found each other again. He’d then discovered that Keef wasn’t Keef at all, but rather Captain Cassian Jeron Andor of Rebel Intelligence, because of course he was. After he’d gotten over the initial shock, their crossing of paths felt oddly natural, as if it had been meant to happen. Whether it was luck or destiny or something else entirely, Melshi was still quietly thankful.
Cassian had been happy to see him, his words and movements betraying an honest relief. They’d been drawn to each other quickly, falling into one another’s orbit with little difficulty.
Perhaps it was a matter of shared experience. Plenty of people had been in imperial prisons, but there had been only one Narkina 5 prison break. Five thousand men swimming for their lives, less than that making it to shore and fewer still getting all the way to the canyons. There was only one Cassian who had run with him, climbed with him, huddled on the floor of an ancient quadjumper with him. Only Cassian, out of all the people in the galaxy, would really ever understand what went on in his head.
It wasn’t just that, though. He trusted Cassian in a way he couldn’t quite articulate, and he had from the beginning. So they spent time together, as rebels, as friends. Parting ways and crossing paths again and again, enough times that eventually, seeing Cassian was one of the best parts of coming back, and he quietly realized that the man was one of the things he was living for. He didn’t know what to do with the feeling: Cassian was always in danger, and he was too. He couldn’t act on it, but the feeling was there. He cared about Cassian, very deeply.
It wasn’t terribly shocking. Cassian looked good. Even in that awful prison, when he’d looked at the man it was one of the first thoughts in his head. He had a bright smile. It was rare and closely guarded, but if you got him to smile it was the best feeling in the galaxy. He was clever, too, and brave. You couldn’t help but admire him.
But he could be cold, as well. Intense, guarded: skills that made him a good spy. He didn’t speak of his past frequently, and Melshi got the feeling that he carried it around like a heavy burden. Much of the time, there was a sadness to his gaze. Melshi couldn’t judge him for that, he had his own burdens of course, but it sometimes made things difficult. Cassian was flighty, always in motion, always working. He rarely rested, constantly moving from one mission to the next, and it wasn’t unusual for him to only be on Yavin IV for a few days at a time.
Despite it all, they’d grown close to one another. Maybe it was the desperation of their situation, but when they were together things changed quickly. First they were reunited, then they were talking for hours with barely any space between them, then one night he found himself back in Cassian’s bare room clutching each other like it was the only thing keeping them both upright, lips hot and heavy on each other’s mouths, Cassian’s hands working at the waistband of his pants.
That was how it went. They came back to one another and fell into each other, communicating with words and touches, never asking much about what the other did while they were gone. He didn’t quite know what they were to one another: there was trust, and he was comfortable considering the man a friend. But beyond that…was he just another warm body to Cassian? It never came up in conversation, so he didn’t bring it up and just left it at…whatever had developed between the two of them.
His feelings for Cassian were one of the only certain things in his life, and even that wasn’t much. Cassian was gone for long stretches, and it was rare that Melshi was privy to the details of his work until after his missions were over. He’d never say it out loud, but he worried incessantly. He could accept the uncertainties and danger present in his own life, but when it came to Cassian, it was much more difficult. He worried that Cassian would be hurt or captured or killed, worried that for whatever reason, he wouldn’t return.
Like now. His own most recent mission, successful as it was, had been stressful. It had ended abruptly, he and the Pathfinders had been called back with little warning and instructed to rest for a day or two before being sent out again on an extraction of ‘utmost importance’. Now that he had a few quiet days, he finally had time to let his mind wander again, to let himself worry. He could hardly close his eyes without being haunted by images of the prison or of an injured Cassian or of other, worse things.
His worries were not just in his head, he was sure. Something had been off with Cassian the last time he had seen him, which had been nearly three weeks prior. He’d become increasingly grim and withdrawn, and then the two of them had been separated on different assignments. Melshi had noticed the change and couldn’t help but feel concerned, even if he knew his concern was most likely misplaced.
What did he really know about Cassian, when it came down to it? He couldn't even define what they were to each other. He fully understood the risks they both took, the uncertainty they lived with, and here he was pining or moping or whatever it was.
He watched Cassian. He couldn’t help it. He was good at watching. Noticing things, remembering things. Always had been. He had a good intuition, and would often realize things long before other people did.
When he saw something that didn’t make sense, or was wrong, frustration would build and build until it came out in a flash. He’d snap, say something raw and unfiltered. This facet of his personality had gotten him in trouble more times than he could count. It had gotten him shipped off to Narkina 5 in the first place. On the inside, it had rubbed Kino wrong on multiple occasions. The man would turn on him, rough him up before he could say anything truly stupid, and Melshi couldn’t say he blamed him.
A shudder ran through his body, one that he didn’t try to stop. Thinking about Kino was still hard. He hadn’t liked the man, but he hadn’t disliked him either. He’d gotten them out, after all.
Melshi could still see the haunted, defeated look on his face as he’d backed away from the edge where tungstoid steel met open air. He’d watched him get swallowed up by the crowd until he and Cassian had been cast from the precipice and been swallowed by water.
His life had changed a great deal in a short amount of time, but the memory of the prison was slow to fade. That place had left its mark on his mind and body in a way he couldn't quite escape. The pain he could manage, but the memories, the dreams? That was something else entirely.
Sometimes, at night, he’d sit up in his bunk and stare into the darkness, certain he could hear the faint, persistent buzzing of the floors. He knew it was in his head, but a powerful uncertainty would take hold, and he could never bring himself to touch the ground, at least not when he was alone.
In his dreams, he was back on the floor, doing those same repetitive motions he’d done for nearly three years. Round and around the table, over and over. He often woke up shaking from these dreams, his arm shuddering all the way up to his shoulder. On nights like this, when the pain came and he was haunted by these memories, he was often seized by a raw fear that he’d roll off his bunk and onto the floor, and a blazing current would burn right through him.
It was stupid, he knew. But as far from Narkina 5 as he got, he could never quite outrun those memories, certainly not with Cassian around. The rebellion kept him busy. Gave him a purpose. He’d never really found out how many prisoners had escaped, but there wasn’t good sense in letting that be his purpose. Trying to track down those men would only end in tragedy, so he’d more or less given up on it. Didn’t mean it wasn’t always circulating in the back of his head.
After several long minutes of wallowing in his own anxiety, he pushed himself into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his knees. No use in trying to sleep any more.
Putting on a rumpled shirt tossed at the end of the bunk, he stretched, yawned and got to his feet, only wincing a little when his feet made contact with the cold floor.