Chapter Text
Focus, Cassian thought grimly. Just think about the next step. Nothing else. Focus.
Kay, to Cassian’s surprise and shameful relief, didn’t say anything about the previous night. His injured shoulder was stiff, his eyes ached and itched with tiredness, his head was pounding, his neck muscles were horribly tight. Sleep had evaded him for the rest of the night, though that was hardly an unusual situation for him.
Focus. Out of the safehouse. Security sweep. Find the speeder, check it for bugs and trackers. Head back to the spaceport.
“That kind of day, huh?” said the bored-looking guard as he checked Cassian’s falsified scandocs. A couple of Stormtroopers lurked nearby, and after a quick glance both of them stood a little more to attention. Of course: an officer who had an assigned, personal KX-unit was someone to respect, even if said KX-unit was rather scratched and dented.
“It certainly is.” Cassian accepted his docs back and stowed them with a quick nod. Even that slight movement made his head pound even more.
They boarded the shuttle in silence, and prepped for takeoff with minimal discussion. The silence was becoming odd; it was not like K-2 to be quiet for so long. Cassian had expected to be peppered with questions as soon as he woke up, and this was disconcerting. There was a twinge of guilt in his stomach; he’d told Kay to forget it (the reassuring cadence of his voice; the solidity of him against Cassian’s side; cool, smooth metal against his lips) but he hadn’t meant it literally. What if Kay had taken it that way?
Surely not. Kay hardly obeyed direct orders at the best of times. He certainly wouldn’t remove any of his own memories because of a vague figure of speech. He complained about how imprecise Basic was, but he understood at least the concept of figurative language. And he knew how strongly Cassian felt about Kay having autonomy.
At least, he should know. He’d witnessed enough of Cassian’s arguments with Draven and fights with the droid techs, after all. But still… something cold slid down Cassan’s spine. He should be more careful. If he unintentionally ordered Kay to change a part of himself, he would never forgive himself for it.
It wasn’t that he wanted Kay to ask him about last night. If the droid had somehow discovered the concept of tact, Cassian would be endlessly grateful. He didn’t have the first idea of how to explain himself, and nor did he want to, but K-2 had always been the one person Cassian couldn’t truly lie to.
Once they made it to hyperspace, Cassian locked himself in the ‘fresher. Partly because he really needed it, but mostly to force his thoughts into order without K-2 right there. He scrubbed his hair one-handed, trying to think logically through the thrum of his headache and the fog of exhaustion.
It just couldn’t happen again. That was the only real conclusion he could come to. He had to be more careful, had to really lock this down. For kriff’s sake, he was good at this sort of thing. He could shut this all away in a strongbox in his head, and eventually it would be like it didn’t matter, and Kay never needed to know that it was more than an odd moment. He was injured, tired, still shaking off a nightmare… that was it.
Cassian’s eyes prickled, and he told himself it was the exhaustion.
Hours later, Cassian knew he could not avoid going back to the cockpit. After showering he had eaten, swallowed some pain meds, and managed a few hours of broken, agitated sleep. It hadn’t helped his headache much, or the heaviness that had settled in his bones. He had dreamed that he was stumbling across a desolate, foggy moon, K-2 calling his name from somewhere ahead, his voice getting fainter and fainter. Still, Cassian had eaten and slept. They were things that Kay would have nagged him to do anyway, but he knew that he’d only done them to avoid talking to the droid.
Which was ridiculous. Cassian had, on a few occasions, been held captive for days. He had survived torture. He had gone deep undercover in desperately dangerous situations. And now he was avoiding a potentially awkward conversation with his best friend? He gave himself a mental slap.
He paused in the entrance to the cockpit, steeling himself a little. Kay shouldn’t have looked at home in the pilot’s seat of their shuttle; he was too big for the space, his long legs barely able to fit beneath the controls, the bulk of his chassis dwarfing the seat, and yet somehow Cassian couldn’t imagine the space without him. His stomach clenched.
“You slept.” Kay turned his head slightly. “I didn’t even have to tell you. Are you ill?”
“I’m fine.” Cassian slid into the co-pilot’s seat, trying not to brush against the droid.
“Of course. You were only shot yesterday, after all.”
Cassian snorted, and rather gingerly rolled his shoulder. The bacta had been doing its job, but it was still stiff and sore. “I’ve had worse.”
“That is certainly true. This does not even enter the top percentile of your various foolhardy injuries.”
“Foolhardy?”
“Would you like to hear the list I’ve compiled?”
Cassian fought down a smile, his heart still heavy with guilt. “No thanks.”
“Are you sure? I think it would be illuminating.”
“I’m sure. How long do we have?”
“If we do not need to detour, we should reach Yavin 4 in three point five hours.”
Right. Probably not long enough to avoid an awkward conversation, unless Cassian came up with something to distract Kay. He should have just let him list all the worst of Cassian’s various injuries; that would have taken most of their remaining travel time.
“I have a question.”
Dammit. “What?”
“I think you will try to deflect, but I would prefer that you answer directly.”
Dammit. “I can try.”
“Hm.” Kay didn’t sound like he believed it. Nor should he; Cassian wasn’t sure he believed it, either. The droid’s fans were running harder than usual. “You kissed me last night. Why?”
Cassian closed his eyes. His heart seemed suddenly huge in his chest, filling up the space behind his ribs, suffocating him. He didn’t lie to Kay. He evaded, or editorialised, or ignored, but he didn’t truly lie. It was the one and only part of his life that felt honest. And he owed Kay some kind of explanation.
The truth, though? How could he explain this to a droid? He was a person, yes, but he wasn’t organic. No matter how much Draven complained that the reprogramming had made him erratic, and rude, and too opinionated for his own good, it hadn’t given him the ability to understand attraction, or romance, or…
“It’s a simple question,” Kay prompted. He was looking at Cassian now, his bright optics trained on him. “I understand that some organics use such gestures to express affection for their friends or family, but you have never done so, and I am not aware that it is common on Fest.”
“Kay…” Cassian had to force his voice out. “It’s - I don’t—” The truth burnt at the back of his tongue. He could. He should. “I was exhausted, and not thinking properly,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I did not ask for an apology, so that is unnecessary. I was curious about your motivation.”
He shrugged, not looking at the droid, staring straight ahead. “The nightmare. It… unsettled me. You helped. I was grateful, and I was very tired.”
Kay’s fans were working harder, and he was clearly struggling to make this fit into the various behaviour models he had built to understand Cassian. “That is not a satisfactory answer.”
Cassian stood up, his nerves jumping. “I need to write those reports,” he said shortly. “Draven will need them as soon as we’re back. Let me know when we’re outside atmo.”
He left, jaw clenched, guilt burning in every cell.