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“Do you truly equate yourself to a droid programmed solely to fulfil a particular role, Ensign Vanto?” Thrawn's softly accented, velvety voice came out of nowhere, making Eli jump. Flustered, he got up from his chair in a rush and nearly fell over, to see Thrawn close the door again with a press of a long, slender finger. How had he not heard it opening? “How did you get in here?” he demanded. “The scanners on our quarters are programmed for the occupant’s hand only.” Thrawn walked slowly into the cabin, hands behind his back in what was by now, a familar pose. “I requested that my hand print be scanned into your door, as I might have need of you outside of our established duty hours. I have also had yours input on mine.” Eli felt a numb and helpless frustration bubble up inside him, like one of the tar pits back home on Lysatra. Another piece of his life Thrawn had casually taken over without his knowledge or permission, assuming he would simply accept it, as he’d been forced to do with his new assignment, the one hadn’t asked for. Because, as he’d snapped at Thrawn after finding his career had once again been forever altered, there were no handy translator droids with Sy Bisti in their programming. Thrawn regarded him with an unusually troubled look. “I assumed you would not mind continuing to work alongside me. I recall from our first days in the Academy that you said you did not dislike me. But as I asked, Ensign, is that how you see yourself?” “I don’t see myself as being on the level of a droid, sir.” “Ah. So you believe that I do?” asked Thrawn, one thin eyebrow rising slightly. |
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Eli turned away, feeling the embarrassingly familiar rush of heat to his face. Fuelling it was an astringent mix of anger, embarrassment, a desire to escape this conversation, and something he couldn’t, wouldn’t, put a name to. “Well, droids aren’t beings with wishes or feelings of their own. They’re there for people to do what they want with them, and to serve whenever someone needs them. Nothing else.” He faced Thrawn again, but found himself unable to look him in the eye. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t see an awful lot of difference in how you seem to view me.” Thrawn blinked, looked surprised, and seemed about to say something, but Eli held his hand up, and he remained quiet. "Yeah, I said I didn’t dislike you back then. And I didn't. I still don't.” Understatement of the year, thought Eli. But what were feelings like these in the face of a blank, unfeeling, slate who apparently didn’t even care what he might want for himself? “But I didn't -" he struggled to enunciate further, unwilling to open himself up to a living ice block (did the Chiss even have or understand feelings like normal people? The inscrutable, delicately chiseled face, that perfectly smooth and level voice - which definitely did not get under Eli’s skin at all, no - and relentlessly logical approach to everything made it impossible to tell) – “I didn’t mean that I’d be happy to throw my career away to be stuck with you, to perform a service you don’t actually need! Look, I know what you said about a translator potentially holding your life in your hands, but your Basic is well beyond the level where that’s a danger. You’re fluent. You don’t need me for anything.” He cursed his voice, which had been steady throughout, for breaking on that last sentence. Feeling compelled to prop up his defences, he adopted a cold tone that felt utterly foreign and made him feel hollow when he spoke again. “You misunderstood what I meant when I said that, sir. I just wasn’t willing to pretend to feel something I didn’t. I didn’t mean I liked you then, or now. It was what it was.” There was an uncomfortable silence in which Thrawn considered Eli, fixing those eerily (and yet, to Eli, strangely beautiful) glowing red eyes on him. Eli's discomfort grew - he felt they could they see right through him. He could not bear for Thrawn to see what he clearly wouldn't value. “If you will forgive me Ensign Vanto, I do not think I have fundamentally misunderstood you at all, although I admit I did not foresee you expressing what you feel in quite this way. You are, I think, upset for the very reason I wished you to remain with me. You believe, incorrectly, as it happens, that I do not value you as a person, beyond what is useful to me. That I see only a tool for me to use, and yet feel that you are not of sufficient use to me. This angers you far more than what you see as my, ah, manipulation of you.” Eli snorted. “It is manipulation, sir. That’s what getting someone where you want them without their being aware of it is. Maybe I was wrong about you not needing a translator after all,” he gibed. Thrawn’s eyes flickered, the corners of his mouth turning up so slightly as to be unnoticeable, but not to Eli, whose mind had now been derailed into nervous incoherence by this rarest of phenomenons - he’s smiling at me he’s smiling at me he’s smiling at me no wait no I’m still mad at him stop caring but I can’t he’s smiling at me – Thrawn began to walk towards him, hands now entwined together in front of him. “The question is, Eli, why would the idea that I do not care about you obviously bother you so much, if you merely continued to simply not dislike me?” Eli’s face suddenly felt so hot he was sure it could have matched Thrawn's eyes in colour and luminescence. Eli. It was always Ensign Vanto, or Ensign. Never Eli. Thrawn was nothing if not extremely formal, from his speech patterns to the forms of address he used. The sound of his given name in Thrawn’s mouth set off an uncomfortable chemical reaction within him as if each nerve had gained the ability to fire turbolasers, along with a feeling he recognised as hope. He immediately acted to extinguish the tiny flame – he was just another puzzle Thrawn had taken pleasure in figuring out, he did not, could not mean anything to his unknowable, calculating superior officer… Thrawn now stood directly in front of him. Eli swallowed hard, the internal turbolasers now firing with increased intensity. “I am aware that the absence of antipathy does not necessarily mean the presence of affection,” continued Thrawn, his eyes wandering searchingly over Eli’s face. “However, given what I have observed from you – “ he raised a hand and, hesitating for a brief second, placed it on Eli’s cheek – “I do not think I am wrong in thinking you do feel some affection towards me?” “No,” Eli whispered. “You wouldn’t be wrong.” He gave a sudden, shaky laugh. “When have you ever been wrong?” “I am as capable of being wrong as anyone, Eli. I am simply correct far more often than most people. And I have, in fact, been wrong throughout our acquaintance, in not making myself clear to you.” He bent his head down and kissed Eli then, bringing his other hand up to cup the whole of of Eli’s face, parting Eli’s lips with his tongue. Eli closed his eyes, drew Thrawn’s tongue into his mouth and sucked on his lips, giving himself up to a sensation akin to drowning. How often had he dreamed of exactly this, and berated himself for doing so? He ran his fingers through Thrawn’s hair, wondering if it felt as silky as it looked and found that unlike the man it belonged to, its nature did indeed match its appearance. Slipping his other hand around Thrawn’s waist, he pulled them firmly together, with Thrawn giving a muffled moan in response. They parted a few minutes later, both slightly breathless. “But sir...” Eli began, only to find Thrawn’s finger on his lips. “Would it not be more appropriate for you to use my name in a situation such as this?” Thrawn murmured, smiling. “Yes…Thrawn,” Eli chuckled softly. “You should still have talked to me about it. Or at least warned me rather than let me find out like that when I was expecting the job I put in for. It wouldn’t have come as an unpleasant shock then.” Thrawn gave him a rueful look. “I am sorry it caused you to feel so badly, Eli, truly. I would never willingly or intentionally upset you. I hope,” he paused to kiss Eli, “you now know what you are to me.” Eli chose to affirm this by pressing their foreheads together, and running a finger along a razor sharp cheekbone. “But I cannot apologise for acting as I did,” Thrawn continued. “You do not see your own abilities clearly or value them nearly as much as you should as yet, and I believed it would have been difficult if not impossible to persuade you away from the route you had long since chosen for yourself.” He traced his finger over the freckles on Eli’s dark skin, making him shiver. “Though I will admit my desire for your…companionship played a role, I am not so selfish as to have taken you off your desired career path if I did not believe you could do far better on the path I have in mind for you than you would have done in supply.” Eli wondered how one could feel such a combination of exasperation and fondness for a person at once, and realised – no, plenty of time to sort out his feelings later. Thrawn would always feel he knew better, and Eli would have to work on that, knowing that most people, who already regarded Thrawn with contempt and suspicion, wouldn’t see this characteristic of his as benign.
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