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Kix jerked awake, a barely held-back scream on his lips.
“Kix?” a sleepy voice breathed against the back of his neck, the arm thrown about his waist curling tighter around him until a broad palm was pressed against his chest, gently pulling him back into the cradle of a warm body behind him.
Jesse, he identified with a breathless rush of relief. Of course he had managed to accidentally wake his ARC riduur with nothing but a jerk and a hitch of breath.
“Kix?” Jesse’s voice was more aware now, more insistent.
“I’m good. I’m fine,” he forced out, voice weak. “Just a nightmare.” The arm around him tightened a little more, Jesse’s nose nuzzling against his nape and shoulder.
“Battle?”
“No,” he breathed, a small frown settling on his face. “No, it was... weird. Not a memory. I dreamed you were long dead, you and all our brothers, and I was all alone. Just... listening to this recording of your voice, over and over again.”
Jesse’s other arm shifted, snaked under Kix’s head and over his shoulder until his arms were wrapped around him in a proper hug. Kix hummed shakily in acknowledgement, reaching up to clasp a loose hold over Jesse’s wrist. The kiss Jesse pressed to his shoulder was comfort. Kix returned it to Jesse’s forearm with gratitude.
They lay in silence for a little while, holding and being held, Jesse waiting until Kix’s breathing had evened before asking softly, “Did you ever read the report on the General’s vision?”
Kix frowned, unsure what Jesse was getting at. “Yeah. Why?”
“He said...” Jesse swallowed audibly, his breath feathering over Kix’s skin and causing it to tighten and prickle. “He said he stopped the war early. That it was supposed to go on for more than a year after the Vote.”
“Jesse, what-?”
“Do you ever wonder if we survived?”
Kix froze. Thought about the details of that report- what hadn’t been redacted, anyway. He shuddered. “I hope not,” he whispered. Jesse flinched, and he tightened his hold on Jesse’s wrist. Trying for a bit of levity, he weakly chuckled, “I bet you were trying to pull one of your ridiculous stunts, like usual, and I was trying to save your shebs, as usual. And we died together.”
Unlike that dream, where somehow, the galaxy had conspired to force both of them to mourn. Kix’s stomach churned at the thought, Jesse’s frightened voice cut off in the middle of ‘I love you’ ringing in his head.
Jesse shifted, inhaled, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by a thin cry from the corner of the room.
Kix huffed a chuckle as the moment broke. Jesse groaned, hiding his face against Kix’s shoulder. “Ad’ika...” he snarled, but there was no heat to it. Kix squeezed the wrist he still held, then released it, patting his arm.
“Off. Let me up.”
Jesse reluctantly complied with a grumble, letting Kix slip out of their bed and go tend their daughter.
As he moved, performing a cursory welfare check on the squirming infant in the soft light of a single lamp as he cooed at her and Netra wailed her displeasure, the disturbing dream began to leech away.
Details went fuzzy as the cause of her distress- a hungry belly- was discovered, and Kix easily retrieved a quick-warm pouch of infant nutrient from the conservator under her crib, cracking and shaking it until it was a pleasant temperature for her.
Wails trailed off into sniffles as her little mouth latched on to the pouch’s spout, and the major events of the dream faded to impressions.
Kix chuckled, contentedly nuzzling soft black curls as he carried her back to his and Jesse’s bed, and by the time he was settling against the headboard, Jesse curling close to press his face into Kix’s hip and place a possessive hand on his thigh, Netra going warm and heavy in his arms, Kix could barely remember anything specific about the dream save that Jesse was dead in it and a sense of incomparable loss.
He looked down at his riduur, Jesse meeting his gaze with a small, sleepy smile before settling down again with a sigh. “Love you,” he mumbled into Kix’s skin, barely audible, already half-asleep.
Kix smiled, running his fingers through Jesse’s hair as he felt himself slip back to sleep too and the last lingering echoes of the dream dissolved into nothing. “Love you too.”
In the morning, Kix couldn’t quite remember what his dream had been about.