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It starts as a joke — one that Wes repeats well past the point where it's funny, of course. They've known each other a bare couple of weeks, and are getting along like a house on fire, in the sense that there's a lot of shouting and someone might die, and it's Skywalker who first glances at them, rolls his eyes, and says, "Kriff, you really didn't know each other before? You fight like you've been married forty years."
Wes breaks off in mid-sentence to sling an arm around Hobbie's shoulders, plants a kiss on his cheek, and beams sunnily back at Skywalker. "What can I say," he says, "it was love at first sight."
Hobbie shoves him off, glaring. "Hilarious," he snaps.
"Thank you," Wes says cheerily, and sketches a little bow.
Hobbie turns away, taking a deep breath; he knows he's turning red, and hopes it'll pass as anger. Yes, fine, he's good-looking, he tells himself firmly. He's also a tremendous pain in the ass and you wouldn't want him even if he had shown an interest, which he hasn't. Quit blushing. Act rational.
It doesn't help a lot — can't reason with the heart, he guesses. Or with the other organs. He'll just have to steer clear of Wes for a little while, let it pass.
Like most of the defectors, Hobbie isn't eager to talk about his time with the Empire. Not that a lot of people would ask — it's a simple rule, don't ask questions you don't want answered, and no one really wants to know if their new wingman was the TIE pilot who vaped their old wingman, so no one asks.
Well. Mostly no one asks. Wes does have the sense to avoid the big, dangerous questions, but he likes to pepper Hobbie with little ones, maybe because it annoys him enough to be funny but not so much that he'll stop answering. (He's known Wes long enough now to work out that, like a cat or a six-year-old, he shows affection by being as annoying as possible. By inference, this suggests that Hobbie is his favorite person on base, possibly in the whole galaxy.)
So when he takes a seat in the mess hall, he's not surprised by the usual barrage — the food at the Academy, was it any good? How about on board ship? ("Because if I have to eat one more plate of powdered eggs—" "For the last time, Wes, you can't 'reverse-defect,' they just shoot you." "Still sounds better than these eggs.") How bad exactly are the dress uniforms, comfort-wise? Sure look sharp, though, don't they? Are there rules about fraternization? Really, even at the Academy? Okay, but you broke them, right?
"I feel like you're driving at something, Wes," someone says from further down the table, and everyone laughs. Hobbie shoots a half-hearted glare that direction.
Wes, though, just grins and says, "Aw, you know me and Klivian — love at first sight."
Hobbie shakes his head and turns his focus back to his plate, and tries to ignore the hot flush creeping up his face, all the way to the tips of his ears. He has really, really got to get over this stupid crush.
It's not anyone's fault, exactly. There's just no privacy on Echo Base. Wes and Hobbie are bunked in together with four other pilots, so there's always someone in their quarters, and the base itself is so small there's hardly a room that isn't being used — if you want privacy, the options are to lock yourself in a refresher cubicle or find a temporarily-empty stretch of corridor and hope. So really, it's perfectly understandable for Wes and someone Hobbie vaguely recognizes as a Gold Squadron pilot to be making out like teenagers around a blind corner where he's all but guaranteed to trip over them on his way in off patrol, and it would be ridiculous to hold it against either of them.
He's annoyed about it anyway, for some reason he can't quite place — maybe just the reminder that the base isn't exactly overflowing with romantic opportunities for him. "'Scuse me," he says, louder than necessary, and is a little bit nastily pleased to see them both jump.
The girl from Gold Squadron — Celiss something? — looks embarrassed, and she hustles out of his way, letting go of Wes and pressing herself against the wall so he can get by. Wes, on the other hand, has clearly never been embarrassed in his life. "Hobbie!" he says, with apparently genuine cheer. "Back already? See anything interesting out there?"
"That depends," Hobbie says, starting to shove past him. "How interesting would you say an absolute shitload of snow is?"
Wes shrugs. "I don't know. Could be kind of interesting. Some of the guys from Blue Squadron were out there building—"
"Yeah, I saw it," Hobbie interrupts him. It comes out a little sharper than he meant it to, and he tries to soften it, "Anyway, you're obviously busy," with a half-nod toward Wes's lady friend.
That comes out kind of snide, which is even worse. What is your problem, he scolds himself, and forces a smile. "Sorry. I mean, I'm interrupting. Look, I just want to get some sleep, Wes, I'll catch you in a few hours."
He starts moving again before Wes can answer, heading for his bunk. Patrol shifts out in the cold are draining; he was in a bad mood before running into Wes, and instead of cheering him up like usual, that's somehow made it worse. He needs a decent night's sleep, and a strong cup of caf in the morning, and hopefully that'll clear up this weird, snappish mood.
He can't get to sleep, keeps thinking about Wes and Celiss. "Kriff, not this again," he mutters to himself — he'd thought he was over this, that getting to actually know Wes had forced the crush to fade into the background. But apparently not, because his mind keeps coming back to the split-second view he got, Wes backed up against the corridor wall, Celiss's hand up under the hem of his shirt—
He feels a flash of anger at that image, and rolls his eyes at himself. Jealous? Really? Grow up.
The door panel beeps, and the room's lit up for a second as someone else comes in. It's too dark to see who it is, but their footsteps come Hobbie's way, past his bunk, and stop; after a second he hears the next bed over, Wes's bunk, creak, and then a whisper from just behind him, "Hey. You awake?"
"I am now," he whispers back, and hears Wes snort. "What are you doing back? I figured you'd be out all night."
"What, with Celiss? Nah, nothing that serious." There's a pause — he can almost hear Wes grinning — and then, "I save my nights for someone special. For my true love, my love at first sight—"
"Not the fucking time, Wes," Hobbie snaps at him, rolls over and fumes.
It's ridiculous, really. It must be the thousandth time Wes has made the same stupid joke — he's well past used to it, it's annoying, but now for some reason he's furious about it?
Never felt like making fun before, he thinks, and oh, fuck, that's it, isn't it? It's not a stupid crush, it's not jealousy that some Y-wing jock gets to touch where he can't, not exactly. It's much, much worse than that: he's in love.
He doesn't even consider saying anything. Wes is his best friend, not to mention the best wingman he's ever flown with; he'd have to be an idiot to blow that up. And maybe worse... well, it's a joke to Wes, isn't it? He has an awful feeling he'd be making himself the punchline.
He does start paying a little closer attention when Wes talks about old flames, childhood crushes, new interests. He's more or less resolved to stay quiet, but he can't help keeping one ear out for a hint of a chance. But it's a dead end — nothing, ever, that sounds even the littlest bit like someone like you, Hobbie, even with all the optimism he can muster.
Which isn't that much, because he knew it from the start, really. He knows himself, he knows his luck — it would have been ridiculous to expect anything else.
He's pretty sure he's dying.
The jammed ejector seat — just my fucking luck — finally clicked into place and triggered on the third try, so at least he's not in the crumpled little ball of foil that used to be his snowspeeder. And his seat did launch him clear, not straight into the side of the AT-AT, or sideways into the line of fire of its laser cannons. Small mercies: if he is dying, at least he'll leave a recognizable corpse.
Something hit him as he was launched clear, though — something big, a piece of the wing cowling off his speeder, he thinks. It sent the seat spinning, tangling up the chute so it didn't open all the way and he hit ground harder than he should have, and it hurt, too. He can see blood on the snow, and isn't sure whether it's from the hard landing or whether the piece of cowling cut him open somewhere.
He can't think straight, either. That might be blood loss, or it might just be the draining cold; it's too damn cold out here, even at midday, to be lying on the snow in just a flightsuit. He finds himself looking off into the sky, watching the flashes of light that must be capital ships firing on each other, thinking nothing but beautiful. Then suddenly it's blotted out, everything around him dimming, and he thinks oh fuck, I am dying before his eyes refocus and he realizes it's someone crouching over him, their shadow darkening the snow.
Whoever it is, they're talking to him, brisk and calm and steady, as they cut away the restraints still holding him into the wrecked pilot's seat and roll him free of it. A medic, then, which must mean his tailgunner got down safely — another small mercy — and called in a downed pilot. Whatever they're saying mostly just registers as noise, but it's comforting to hear, even if he can't muster the energy to answer.
There's a blast nearby, what can only be an AT-AT's cannons finding their range, and the medic swears and ducks away. Then a snowspeeder arcs across Hobbie's field of vision, spitting fire nonstop from its rear guns, and he hears a distant explosion, then a laugh as the medic reappears. "Someone's looking out for you, buddy."
He can feel himself fading, his vision starting to grey out around the edges, but he can just make out the markings on the snowspeeder. It's Wes, he wants to say, feels the certainty of it warm in his chest. Wes — fuck, I should have said something, I should have told him, I—
He wakes up in a bacta tank, which seems so implausible that it takes him a little while to convince himself that it's real, that he's not still lying in the snow hallucinating. But he's in there for a long time, floating motionless and trying to make sense of the distorted view through the curved wall of the tank, long enough that it can't be anything but real.
The day they let him out, there's a lot of rigamarole to get through: an exam before they'll clear him to return to duty, getting his cybernetics reattached (they don't handle bacta immersion well) and calibrated, finding some clothes. It takes a while, and he's still shirtless and toweling blueish goop out of his hair when half the squadron — maybe all that's left of it; he didn't want to ask the medics how many of them made it off Hoth — bursts in on him.
It's a noisy reunion, everyone laughing and cheering and clapping him on the back, and he's grinning back at them and starting to relax when Wes shoves through the crowd, grabs him in a bear hug and says with feeling, "Sithspit, it's good to see you in one piece."
Hobbie hugs him back, lets himself lean into him. Easy enough to pass off as a little lingering weakness, if anyone says anything, and he only means to allow himself a couple seconds. Wes holds on to him a little longer than he expects, though, and he can't help thinking of the snowspeeder circling protectively above him, the thought that crossed his mind as he watched it — I should have said something.
The stupid thought. The kind of dumb impulse you have when you think you're dying. But he's fine, he's not dead, and he's not about to drop a thermal detonator into the best friendship he's got. Not on the strength of shooting an Imp gunner off him and one little-too-long hug.
"Hey," he says instead, pulling free of Wes's arms and giving him a grin, "I couldn't deprive you of your soulmate."
"Love at first sight, baby," Wes answers with a laugh, and claps him hard on the back. "Come on, are you cleared to leave medical? First round's on me, I liberated a bottle of Churban brandy on the way off-planet."
By the time they're training pilots together — after Endor, after Coruscant, after knowing each other what feels like a hundred years — it's an old joke, worn-in and comfortable like a pair of old shoes. Hobbie's given up blushing about it, and the ache that used to pull at him every time Wes said it has faded to a distant pang. He loves Wes — he always will, probably — but they're not kids anymore, and what used to be a tender spot has mostly healed over, long years of friendship growing over and around it.
They probably should know better than to say it in front of the pilot candidates, though. They're coming out of the simulators, all the trainees laughing and cursing about their mean little score-swapping trick, complaining about how unfair it is. "I mean," one of them grouses, "come on, we can't all be you two. You fly like you're reading each other's minds."
"I don't need to read his mind anymore," Hobbie says soberly, "there's so little to it that I just memorized it."
"See, that's what first drew me to you, your excellent sense of humor," Wes says, and Hobbie can see it coming, the usual little performance — the arm around the shoulders, the big sunny grin, the sloppy kiss on the cheek. "I mean, that and your rear end. Talk about love at first sight."
Hobbie rolls his eyes and gently shoves him off, playing his part — "Not in front of the kids, Wes." But he doesn't miss one of the trainees, down at the far end of the line of sims, whispering "They're so cute" to her wingmate.
Even more alarming, the wingmate whispers back, "How long do you think they've been married?"
If she answers, he misses it. But as soon as the last of their pilots are out of the sim room, he turns to Wes, ready to make a joke of it, and freezes, because Wes looks horrified.
He really had thought he was over it, that he was past minding that Wes didn't feel the same as him. But fuck, to think it actually offends him—
"Did you hear that?" Wes demands, and Hobbie tries not to wince.
"What, that she thinks we're married?" He shrugs, keeps his voice carefully casual. "Kind of brought it on yourself."
"No, the other one! She said fifteen or twenty years!" Wes shoves past him, toward the locker room at one end of the hall. "How old do they think I am?"
For just a second, Hobbie's speechless; then the combination of relief and absurdity catches up to him, and he cracks up, laughing so hard he has to grab at the nearest sim cockpit for support.
"It's not funny," Wes calls back from the locker room, where he's peering into a mirror, apparently scanning for grey hairs.
"Maybe they think you were a child bride," Hobbie offers, and then doubles over into helpless laughter again. He's still not about to say anything — he knows better than that — but it could be worse.
It's the destruction — the supposed destruction — of Rogue Squadron that finally forces him out of cover.
He's numb for most of the flight to the hidden base, disbelieving. It's not — ten years in a starfighter, it's not as if he's never realized before what kind of danger they're putting themselves in, that he or Wes or his friends are as vulnerable to the right shot at the right time as anyone else. But at the same time, ten years — maybe they've defied the odds long enough that he's started to believe a little bit, secretly, that it wasn't possible. That they couldn't be killed, or that he could, maybe, but not—
Not Wes. It's all he can think. Not this. Not Wes.
Hobbie throws himself into the TIE-D's with a vengeance. It's something to occupy his mind, for one thing — anytime he's not in the simulators, not too busy flying to think, he catches his thoughts turning back to Wes, and he can't take it, can't bear the way it hits him all over again each time.
But there's the mission itself, too. The end of Krennel, of his Hegemony. The end of every scumsucking aide and officer who had even the slightest part in planning the ambush, if he has any say in it. He'd throw himself into it anyway — any chance at destroying what's left of the Empire — but fuck, if this mission is what Wes died for, for the freedom of this stupid handful of systems, what can he do but pull it off or die trying?
He gets away with it for a while, slipping away from the rest of the squadron every chance he gets, stealing extra simulator time when he ought to be sleeping. He doesn't think anyone's paying much attention to him; the rest of them have mourning of their own to do, and when they're not busy with their own grief they're mainly focused on Gavin, keeping him upright and functioning.
He should have been keeping a closer eye on Tycho, apparently. He's slipped out of his quarters again, made his way through the darkened base to the simulator room, and he's just congratulating himself on his stealth when the lights flick on and Tycho straightens up from where he's leaning against the closest sim cockpit.
Brazen it out, he decides. "You too, huh?" He grabs two of the sim-equipped helmets from the shelf, tosses one of them to Tycho. "What do you think, team up against the program or try it head-to-head?"
"Hobbie," Tycho says, and crosses past him, puts his helmet back up on the shelf. "Go get some rest. The sims will be here in the morning."
"I couldn't sleep." It's not a lie, exactly. It's the same every night — switch off the light, start to drift off, and then his idiot half-asleep mind will throw out can't wait till Wes sees these fighters or something like that and all the air goes out of the room and there goes any hope of getting to sleep.
"Every night this week?" Tycho reaches for Hobbie's helmet, too, tugs it out of his hands. "So what's the plan? You don't sleep for a month, you spend every spare second in the simulators, and when we get to Ciutric you're so exhausted you fly right down some Imp's torpedo tube?" He pauses, just for a second, before adding, "You think Wes would thank you for that?"
That lands like a punch, almost rocks Hobbie back physically onto his heels, and for a second he's too breathless to answer. When he manages it, his voice comes out low and strained. "That's a cheap shot."
"Got your attention," Tycho says. "Look — Hobbie, I'm sorry. I know you were closer than any of us—"
He reaches out as if to squeeze Hobbie's shoulder, maybe pull him into a hug, and Hobbie feels himself tense up — he's barely holding it together as it is, he's not sure he can take sympathy. "Don't," he says quickly, and when Tycho keeps coming he takes a scrambling step backward and says, "Tych. Please."
"All right." Tycho stops, hands up, a foot or so away from him. "I won't push it. But tell me what you think you're doing."
"I've got to get to know these fighters better, that's all." Hobbie shakes his head. "I— we lost good people for this. I owe it to them to get it right. And if Gavin's on his feet, what business do I have doing any less?"
Tycho seems to study him for a second before saying, "Gavin's also eating and sleeping occasionally. If you're trying to match him, match that."
Hobbie shuts his eyes, nods. "I will," he says. "Let me just—"
Tycho intercepts him as he's starting toward the sims again, catches him by the shoulder and turns him bodily back toward the door. "Now, Hobbie. Go rest. That's an order."
He's a little surprised that he makes it off Ciutric. If he's perfectly honest, he's a little surprised any of them make it off Ciutric. But they've pulled it off somehow, made it to their rendezvous and back to New Republic territory and nearly through the endless wait in isolation (since no one is taking chances with Isard's idea of tactical planning), and—
—and then a ghost appears at their window.
Hobbie freezes. He can't take his eyes off Wes's face, doesn't even want to blink in case he disappears again. Around him the rest of the squadron is whooping and celebrating; outside, Wes leans against the transparisteel wall, rests his forehead against it for a second before straightening up with a grin, and it occurs to Hobbie that, if he's somehow been alive this whole time, he must have thought he was the sole survivor of the squadron.
Back from the dead, he thinks. He's numb, dizzy, and he finds himself trying to poke holes in what he's seeing, prove to himself that it's real, because it's impossible—
"Hey," Tycho says in an undertone from just beside him, drops a hand onto his shoulder, and Hobbie jumps a mile. "You okay?"
"I'm—" His voice is ragged, shaky. He looks back at Wes, swallows hard and tries again. "Either I'm hallucinating or I've never been better."
"Take some deep breaths," Tycho advises, and squeezes his shoulder. "I say this because I care about you, and also because if you pass out that's at least another week in quarantine for all of us."
Hobbie nods, managing a half-smile, and Tycho grins at him and heads for the group clustered at the window. Hobbie stays put, watching them — watching Wes, really; even if he tries to focus on someone else, his gaze keeps turning back to Wes, like a plant toward the sun.
It's four more agonizing days before the doctors agree that they don't appear to be harboring any plagues and let them out. Hobbie spends them trying to figure out what to say, how to say it — he doesn't want to give himself away, it'd be more than enough just to go back to normal, but he's not sure he'll be able to pull off 'normal' when it comes down to it.
When the door slides open, Wes is waiting outside, a broad grin on his face, and once again a cheer goes up from the squadron as they rush him, Wedge in the lead.
Hobbie hangs back — at first he's just thinking let Wedge have a minute with him, but then the rest of the squadron is mobbing Wes, cheers and hugs and laughter all around, and he doesn't dare get in the middle of it for fear that once he has his hands on Wes he won't be able to let go. He ducks down, makes a show of very slowly gathering up the few effects they were allowed to keep with them in the isolation unit. By the time he straightens up again it's just Wes and Tycho left in the room; then Wes catches sight of him, grins and claps Tycho on the back and turns to face Hobbie, and all Hobbie's carefully-composed scripts go out the window as he grabs Wes by the shoulder and pulls him hard into his arms.
"I thought you were gone," he says, muffled, into the side of Wes's neck. His hands are shaking — he curls them into fists, holding tight to the fabric of Wes's shirt, to try and stop them. "I thought—"
"Call it payback for Hoth," Wes says, lightly, though there's just the slightest roughness in his voice. "Which means I only owe you, what, two more near-death experiences?"
"Shut up," Hobbie orders him, holding on tighter. He can feel his heart pounding, knows he's ruining everything, but he couldn't stand it, thinking he'd lost his chance without ever taking it, can't stop himself from taking it now. "Wes — oh fuck, Wes, I love you, I don't know what I would've done, I love you—"
He's not surprised, exactly, when Wes straightens up, pulling back from his arms. But he doesn't completely pull away, doesn't push Hobbie off him as he's half-expecting, and when Hobbie finds the guts to meet his eyes, the look on his face is more bewildered than anything else.
"You're shitting me," he says, which is not in the range of possible responses Hobbie was prepared for. "Hobbie, what— I've known you for ten years, you—"
"I know." Hobbie shakes his head. "I never wanted to risk it — Wes, you're my best friend, I don't want to lose that, and I know this might ruin it. But I can't— I thought I'd lost you for good, I had one chance at something good and I lost it, and—"
"Oh, sithspit," Wes says, grabs him by the back of the head and kisses him.
For just a split second, Hobbie's too stunned to react. Then his brain catches up — this is what you wanted, idiot, don't screw it up now — and he brings his arms back up around Wes, leans into him and kisses back, hard and raw and needy.
When they break apart they stay close, both of them holding tight to each other, breathing hard. They're both silent for a moment; then Wes shakes his head and says, "'Ruin it,' un-fucking-believable. Like you could get rid of me if you tried."
"If this is a joke," Hobbie says — he's sure it isn't, he knows it isn't, but there's something in him that still has to double-check — "I have to tell you, it's in really poor taste."
Wes lets out a startled laugh, pulls him closer and buries his face in Hobbie's shoulder. "Never," he says. "Never, Hobbie, haven't I been telling you for years? Love at first sight, I was a goner the day I met you."
"They're calling me 'the darling one,'" Wes says, years later, on Adumar.
"Who is?"
"The court, the crowds. They have tags for us all now, and I'm the darling one." He grins. "Hobbie, you're 'the dour one'. Not much romance in that, I'm afraid."
Wedge snorts, and tries unconvincingly to cover it with a cough. From his seat lounging across the couch, Hobbie shrugs. "I don't know," he says, reaches out to catch Wes by the belt and pulls him down into his lap. "Seems to be working for me so far."
"Oh, no," Wes says, with wide, solemn eyes, "see, by the time I found out about your terrible personality it was already too late. Love at—"
"I know, love at first sight," Hobbie cuts him off, and leans in to kiss the stupid grin off his face.