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Chapter Text

They were in the middle of a mapping expedition in the Unknown Regions when the Chimaera’s climate control suddenly went on the fritz. 

It may or may not have had something to do with their recent covert skirmish against an alien warlord named Nuso Esva, who’d been plaguing their mapping expedition since the very start. Thrawn had chosen to keep the rest of his personal armada off the battlefield with an eye toward future conflicts, when the element of surprise might be the deciding factor between victory and defeat. This decision had left only the Chimaera and its fighters to win the attack.

And to take all the damage, too.

With a grimace, Faro stared down at the latest list of necessary repairs on her datapad. They’d run through all their backup power cells in the aftermath of the battle, and still hadn’t fixed the damage to the core or the coolant leaks below deck — couldn’t fix the damage, in fact, until they made it back to the Outer Rim. The crew was in no danger so long as they followed a new, strict set of rules on where they could and could not travel within the ship, but in the meantime, temperatures had dropped to barely-tolerable in some parts of the ships and unlivable in others, including some of the crew quarters. The areas with the coolant leaks had been sealed off temporarily, leaving some people stranded from their own cabins. 

She looked up from the report, facing the displaced men and women who now sat huddled in the galley. This morning, Thrawn had officially relaxed uniform standards, allowing crew members to wear whatever kept them comfortable and warm. Some of the officers before Faro now had blankets wrapped around their shoulders; others were wearing civilian sweaters beneath their tunics.

And almost all of them, despite these measures, were shivering. 

Sighing, Faro set her datapad aside, shoved her pockets deep into the cold-weather parka she’d borrowed from storage, and cleared her throat.

“New orders from the Grand Admiral,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “All crew members are now permitted double rations and authorized to double-bunk until the climate crisis is under control. Fraternization laws may be considered temporarily relaxed; find a bunkmate you’re comfortable with, keep it to yourself, and stay warm.”

The crew members turned to each other, already murmuring under their breath, and Faro turned on her heel and left. She was shivering beneath her parka herself, and she definitely couldn’t fault Thrawn for his decision to relax standards; most of the crew were already covertly sleeping with each other, anyway.

For warmth, of course, and nothing else, she thought wryly.

She made her way to the bridge, ears aching from the cold. Her breath fogged up before her as she walked, and she couldn’t help but notice that a few of the durasteel bulkheads were dusted over with frost; crews were hard at work keeping all the necessary technology from getting too cold. She wished desperately that she had a scarf or something to wrap around her nose and mouth; Thrawn had courteously loaned her a balaclava when the crisis first started, claiming his species didn’t feel the cold quite so acutely as humans — a noble lie — but Faro had since re-gifted the balaclava to an ensign, out of duty and a vague sense of guilt. Presumably, these were the exact same things that had motivated Thrawn to give her the balaclava in the first place, so he probably wouldn’t mind. She hoped.  

She looked around the bridge as she entered. In the crew pits, officers were huddled together for warmth as they worked, some of them bundled up in knit caps and Imperial-issue turtlenecks, others going for the blanket-cloak look that had been so popular in the galley. On the command walkway, Thrawn stood near the viewport, his white uniform obscured by a formal black peacoat Faro had never seen him wear before this crisis started.

She stepped up next to him, watching the starlines of hyperspace shoot by for a moment.

“Your double-bunking orders have been transmitted to the entire crew, sir,” she said.

Thrawn inclined his head. His face was unreadable, but his jaw was tight — probably to keep his teeth from chattering. “They didn’t mutiny, I see,” he said.

Faro snorted, then realized it was quite possible that Thrawn genuinely thought the crew would be upset about the order. “No, sir,” she said. “I don’t think anyone here could get mad over the sudden loss of fraternization laws. And besides, no one starts out with a Star Destroyer as their first command; most of them have had to double-bunk before.”

Thrawn nodded thoughtfully at that, confirming Faro’s suspicions that he’d truly been concerned. He wheeled away from the viewport with his hands in his pockets and walked back up the command walkway, moving slowly so as not to leave Faro behind. When they reached his console, he fired up his datapad with bruised-looking fingers and looked at the reports from medbay.

“No new cases of frostbite,” he murmured, touching his ear as he said it; there was a bandage there from where he himself had acquired a spot of frostbite trying to seal the coolant leaks in Sector YU-4. “That’s good to know.”

Faro eyed Thrawn’s fingers. “Are those chilblains, sir?”

He didn’t respond. He scanned the report in full and nodded to himself before signing off on it in sloping, calligraphic Aurebesh and sending it back to medical. With that done, he set the datapad to scroll at a slow pace through the rest of his datawork and tucked his hands back into his pockets for warmth.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be visiting medical about that, sir,” Faro said sourly, still hung up on the chilblains.

“I’m alright,” said Thrawn. His eyes were flickering back and forth, watching the datapad. “There’s not much they can do at present.”

Faro grimaced, but he was right on that account. At best, they’d probably bandage up the sore spots and tell him to keep warm — which wasn’t really an option for any of them at the moment. She stepped closer to Thrawn, reading the reports over his shoulder.

“Depressingly quiet out there,” she noted as the sensor data scrolled by. 

Thrawn made a soft huffing sound that might have been a laugh, though he didn’t smile. He watched the datapad for a moment longer before banishing the screen. “Two more weeks till we reach the Outer Rim,” he murmured. “We’ll have a hard time keeping up morale until then.”

Faro snorted. “Well, you’ve done a good job already, sir.”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“The fraternization laws,” she reminded him. Thrawn frowned, studying her face as if he thought she might be joking.

“While I’m sure some of the crew may welcome the change as you said, I would have expected some outrage on that level,” he said evenly. 

“You underestimate how desperate an Imperial officer can get for human touch while on deployment,” Faro told him — then, realizing this statement could also apply to her, she turned away from him and forced a neutral expression on her face. “I’m guessing you would be less pleased about the order, sir, if you were part of the crew?” she asked, deflecting the conversation back on Thrawn.

He considered it for a moment. “I would understand the wisdom and necessity of such an order,” he mused. “But that doesn’t mean I would comply.”

Faro glanced at him, unable to hide her surprise. “No?”

“Not for the sheer sake of insubordination,” he assured her. “Of course, I would follow any lawful order in a timely manner and without disrespect. But I suspect I would have had difficulty finding a willing bunkmate.”

Faro raised her eyebrows at that and studied Thrawn in her periphery, taking particular note of the sharp planes of his cheekbones and jaw, the aristocratic line of his nose, the intense, almond-shaped eyes and his athletic build. 

“I think you’d do fine, sir,” she said.

He glanced at her with a ghost of a smile and didn’t respond; he didn’t look like he put much stock in her opinion. Physicality aside, Faro supposed it was possible Thrawn had always been unpopular, at least based on his personality. She looked out at the crew pits, all of them too far away to hear her. She leaned a little closer to Thrawn anyway and lowered her voice.

“Out of curiosity, sir,” she said, “do you mind telling me who you’re sharing with now?”

Thrawn’s faint smile disappeared at once. He gave her a sharp look that made Faro instantly regret asking. 

“Forget it, sir,” she said, avoiding Thrawn’s eyes. “Sorry I asked.”

“No,” he said at once. “It’s fine. I’m not sharing with anyone, Commodore. I considered it in poor taste to ask, considering…”

He gestured at himself vaguely, and Faro nodded, filling in the blank.

“Your rank,” she said.

Thrawn blinked at her. “My species,” he said. “But my rank as well, yes.”

“Your species?” Faro turned to face him fully, unable to keep the frown off her face. “What does that mean, sir? You don’t think the crew is so biased against aliens that…”

“Certainly biased enough to make any such arrangement uncomfortable,” said Thrawn, without any rancor in his voice. “Besides which, Chiss run colder than humans, compounding the discomfort on the human side.”

He took his right hand out of his pocket and rested freezing cold fingers against Faro’s wrist for a moment, giving her a sample. She did her best not to flinch, but she was glad when he moved away again; it felt like he’d been dipping his hands in an ice bucket instead of keeping them in his pockets for warmth. She clenched her teeth, fighting back a shiver.

“No wonder you have chilblains,” she said, prompting another slight smile from Thrawn.

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” he said. “And I do warm up eventually, if given enough time, but…”

He trailed off naturally, as if he didn’t think the sentence worth finishing, and turned back to his datapad with a shrug. Faro watched him for a moment, chewing over her words. She hadn’t quite decided what to say yet when Thrawn turned the conversation back around on her.

“Out of curiosity,” he said lightly, repeating her exact words, “who are you sharing with?”

“Ah…” said Faro. She felt her cheeks heating up a little. “Well…”

Thrawn’s eyes slid out toward the crew pits, following Faro’s gaze — a false lead, but he had no way to know that. Faro wasn’t staring at her future bed partner; she was only trying to avoid his eyes.

“Hammerly?” he guessed, scanning the crew. “Or Pyrondi?”

“Ah, neither,” said Faro with a grimace. “I’m flying solo.”

There was a beat of silence before Thrawn turned to look at her, nailing her with a thoughtful gaze.

“Does that seem wise?” he asked evenly.

“Wise enough,” said Faro, rankling a bit. “You’re certainly not in a position to lecture me. Sir.”

He gave this some consideration, his face blank, and nodded in agreement. “Your reasoning is a bit opaque to me,” he said. “But certainly, the relaxation of regulations to allow double-bunking is not an order, and compliance is not mandatory. You’re free to abstain if you so wish.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Faro a bit sarcastically. Thrawn cast his eyes out over the crew pits, perhaps taking note of which officers were huddled together and which were braving the shift on their own. 

“At least we have sonics,” he said absently. “Not all militaries do.”

Faro shuddered, imagining what it would be like to suffer through the cold all day only to pop oneself into an icy shower afterward. The stench of unwashed clothes and body odor would probably be unbearable by the end of the week. At least the sonics were neutral, if not exactly warm. She still came out of them shivering, though. 

She broke away from Thrawn, doing rounds of the crew pits more to get herself moving than because the crew really needed supervision. Hammerly and Pyrondi had set their stations up side by side for this shift, leaning into each other for warmth and sharing a blanket as they worked. 

Either of them would have bunked with her if she asked, she knew. But it hadn’t even occurred to her as an option until Thrawn suggested it; if he’d never mentioned their names, she probably never would have considered either of them. And now, looking at them closely, Faro figured it was probably too late. The bunks in the officers’ quarters were too narrow for three.

She glanced back at the command console and saw Thrawn watching her.

Perhaps loneliness was the default for both of them, she thought. They’d each chosen it without a second thought.

That night, Faro forced herself through an unpleasantly not-warm sonic shower and got dressed as quickly as she could, diving into bed with fleece leggings, a long-sleeved men’s undershirt, and thick, sherpa-lined socks with a garish holiday-themed pattern on them. Not the most flattering outfit she’d ever slept in, but at least it was warm. 

Theoretically, she knew, she was supposed to sleep nude and let her body regulate her temperature. She’d found that in practice, this just led to her shivering and clenching her teeth through the night, curled in a tight, uncomfortable ball and unable to sleep a wink.

Her thoughts wandered, tracking back over the last thirty-six hours. It was hard to believe it hadn’t been longer than that since the battle with Nuso Esva; the fight itself had seemed to last for days — as they always seemed to — and the hours of frantic muster calls and safety checks afterward had only made time stretch even further.

She remembered how Thrawn had barreled down the corridor when they first learned of the coolant leaks. Only two death troopers had managed to get past the bulkhead after him when the Chimaera started its automatic sealing procedure for the crew’s safety, and for a full hour, Thrawn and the death troopers had been trapped on the wrong side of the door. But they’d made it out before any real damage was done, and they’d achieved their goal, too — rescuing the ten crewers who hadn’t been able to escape before the doors came down.

Those crewers all had frostbite, according to the medical reports, but none of them were in danger of losing their fingers or toes — assuming the Chimaera got its climate back under control soon. 

She closed her eyes, an image flashing through her mind — Thrawn, his hair disheveled and his face hard, the tips of his ears and nose turned raw from the cold as he carried an unconscious and hypothermic technician out of the danger zone. He’d handled the tech’s weight as if it were nothing; he hadn’t sought treatment for his own, milder frostbite until hours after the fact. 

Faro remembered all this with a strange ache in her chest that she couldn’t quite identify — some strange mix of admiration and sadness that she didn’t know how to address. She pulled the blanket over her head and her knees up to her chest, letting her breath warm her hands.

She tried to sleep.

Hours later, eyes itching from lack of sleep and shivering hard, she gave up. 

Maybe the temperature had dropped; maybe she just wasn’t capable of dealing with the cold anymore, after prolonged exposure, but either way she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Not if she slept alone. She thought of Hammerly and Pyrondi again, no doubt fast asleep by now, and grimaced.

There was really only one option available to her, she knew.

Faro eased out of bed, teeth chattering, and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders tightly before slipping her feet into her boots and heading down the hall. She didn’t meet anyone on her way to Thrawn’s personal quarters; his stormtrooper guard had been dismissed before their mission started, as he almost always dismissed them when the Chimaera was in transit. 

She stopped outside his door, steeling herself, and knocked.

It was a long moment before he answered. Faro waited, shivering beneath her blanket. When the door finally slid open, she saw that the lights were off inside and Thrawn stood before her in Imperial-issue winter athletic gear — thick black sweatpants and long-sleeved tee to match. He wore a fleece jacket over the shirt, the high collar turned up to protect his neck from the cold. His hair was tousled, but he was shivering just like Faro was, and didn’t look like he’d recently been asleep.

“Commodore,” he said, looking her up and down before raising one eyebrow.

“Admiral,” said Faro calmly. “I’d like to propose we share a bed.”

He stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing.

“Platonically,” Faro rushed to add. 

She felt like an idiot the moment she said it, and it didn’t help that Thrawn’s left eyebrow now seemed permanently stationed a centimeter above the right. It was a completely unnecessary thing to say. She didn’t even know if he liked humans — and if he did, it was entirely possible he had a gender preference, and that that preference didn’t include her. And in any case, it was insulting for her to even insinuate that he might try to take advantage. She endeavored to change the subject before Thrawn could shoot her down.

“I brought my blanket so we can share,” she said, hitching one shoulder to show the blanket off. “It’s pretty heavy. I bought it at a market on an ice moon years ago.”

When Thrawn didn’t budge, she looked past him and said, “Can I come in? Or have you already rented the room to someone else?”

Silently, he stepped to the side to let her pass. He shut the door behind her and padded after her, his footsteps silent except for the whisper of his socks against the durasteel floor. 

“The bed’s this way,” he murmured, coming up beside her and gesturing to a closed chamber on the starboard side of the room. Faro nodded, suddenly finding herself too nervous to speak, and followed him in.

The bed was narrow, with a single military-issue blanket folded neatly back on top of it. Faro sat on the edge of the mattress and watched as Thrawn crossed the room, rooting around in his locker and coming up with a spare pillow, which he tossed her way. Faro barely got her hands out of her blanket fast enough to catch it.

When Thrawn crossed the room again and sat beside her on the edge of the mattress, he was shivering. 

“Which side do you prefer?” Faro asked him, trying desperately to read his face. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell if he was pleased she’d come to him or upset. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Thrawn said softly, not meeting her eyes. Then, when Faro only continued to stare at him, he looked over his shoulder at the bed and said, “The outside, away from the wall.”

Faro pulled her legs up onto the bed, ready to scoot to the far side, and then hesitated and turned to face him instead.

“You’re okay with this?” she asked, scanning his face. 

He looked back at her calmly, his expression inscrutable. “I’m not complaining.”

She studied him a moment longer, trying to reconcile the blankness of his face with the gentle tone of his voice. Eventually, she let it go, scooting back on the mattress until she was sitting up against the wall. She pulled the heavy blanket off her shoulders and handed it to Thrawn, who folded it over his arm and reached down to un-tuck his own blanket. Faro lifted her legs silently, watching as he pulled it out from the corners of the mattress and fluffed it and the top-sheet.

He fanned both covers out with a deft flick of his wrist, letting them settle over Faro’s legs. Then he unfolded the blanket she’d brought with her, examining the thick material for a brief moment before adding it to the pile. 

For a moment, they stared at each other, Faro under the covers and Thrawn still standing beside the bed. He seemed to be studying her face, but what he was looking for — or what she was supposed to say — Faro didn’t know. When she only stared back at him, something in Thrawn’s eyes seemed to shift and he pulled the blankets up, sliding into bed next to her.

The bunk was narrow enough that they couldn’t help but touch each other a little — but Thrawn seemed determined to go no further than was absolutely necessary. His arm bumped against hers as he got settled, and there was a moment when his foot touched hers, sending a jolt up Faro’s spine even through the double layers of both their socks. She rolled on her side, turning to face him, and saw the faint glow of his eyes staring up at the ceiling. 

“It kind of negates the whole purpose of sharing a bed if you stay over there, sir,” Faro whispered. “We’re both adults here. I won’t get offended or misinterpret things if you touch me; remember, this was my idea, not yours.”

He turned to look at her, his face unreadable. After a moment, he adjusted the blankets and curled toward her, silently urging her to roll back over the other way with his hands on her shoulders. He settled down behind her, his chest — broad and muscular — pressed against her back, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist and pulling her close to him.

Faro’s breath caught in her throat as she felt Thrawn’s hips slot against hers. He was still wearing his fleece jacket and sweatpants — thank God, she told herself fiercely — but he shuddered against her, and pretty soon she realized that this arrangement was, for now at least, far more beneficial to him than it was to her. She could feel his cold hands soaking up the heat from her body, his fingers twisting convulsively in her shirtfront as he tried to suppress another shiver.

Faro reached up, keeping one hand pressed over Thrawn’s and using the other to adjust the blankets again, pulling them down around her feet and tucking herself in as much as possible. She elbowed Thrawn, silently ordering him to do the same on his side, and he obeyed. With the blankets no longer venting their body heat to the rest of the cabin, Faro finally started to relax.

A few minutes later, Thrawn finally stopped shivering behind her. She could feel his breathing, deep and even, against her back, and felt her own breathing sync with his automatically. When she squeezed his hand, her thumb running lightly over his palm, she felt a faint warmth radiating from him — nowhere near the same level of body heat she was putting out, but better by far than the icy touch she’d felt earlier today on the bridge.

She could cope with this, she decided. In fact, she might even grow to like it.

Within minutes, she was fast asleep. 

She woke to find herself sprawled over Thrawn’s chest, his fleece jacket missing and his undershirt riding up to his ribs. Faro stretched her legs out, relishing the warmth beneath the blankets, and felt the jacket crumpled near her feet. He must have taken it off at some point in the night and bundled it up beneath them to keep it warm; perhaps he intended to wear it beneath his uniform in the morning.

The blue skin of Thrawn’s stomach was practically blazing with heat; she moved her hand down the hard planes of his abdomen, sleepily seeking sensation without really thinking about it, and felt the ridge of his hips where his sweatpants had been tugged down a little as they both tossed and turned in the night. She could feel the shallow dip of his navel and, beneath that, the sensitive area of skin that would have been covered with hair on a human male, but on Thrawn—

Belatedly, she realized what she was doing and snatched her hand away. Her leg was thrown over Thrawn’s and she pulled it back slowly, trying not to wake him as she rolled onto her back. The fabric of his sweatpants shifted against her thigh, and as soon as she pulled away, she felt a draft coming in beneath the blankets and had to move back again. 

She pressed herself against Thrawn, her arm wrapping around his bare waist, her hand tucked beneath his back to soak up his warmth. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, soothed by the even up-and-down movement of his chest beneath her.

A moment later, his alarm sounded and ruined the moment completely. Faro groaned into his chest and felt Thrawn go still beneath her as he woke and took stock of the situation. His hand came up to touch her shoulder, heavy and clumsy, and then he seemed to remember who was on top of him and moved his hand away. 

His eyes opened, red slits zeroing in on her in the dark. After a long moment, he blinked and reached for his comlink, shutting the alarm off. A blast of icy air invaded the bed at once, making both of them tense up.

“What time is it?” Faro murmured, raising her head a little to look at him. 

He pulled the blanket over both of them and gazed at the comlink, the blue light of the display reflecting off his eyes. “Zero three,” he said, his voice hoarse from sleep.

Faro blinked, then put her hands flat on Thrawn’s abdomen and pushed herself up to look in his eyes, earning a soft grunt from him. “Zero three?” she said. Gently, Thrawn put his free hand on the inside of her wrist and slid her hand off his abs and onto the mattress instead. “We’ve only been asleep for two hours!” Faro said.

He switched the comlink off and tucked it beneath his pillow, relaxing back against the mattress. “I prefer to wake early.”

Faro eyed him, noticing that he didn’t seem particularly inclined to get up. After a moment, she settled back down against him. “Did you set another alarm?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Zero seven.” After a moment, almost apologetically, he added, “I set my alarm before I realized I would not be waking alone.”

Faro rested her head against his chest again, listening to his heartbeat as she processed this. “Do you always get up at zero three?” she asked.

He hummed; she felt the vibration of it going through his body and into hers, from his chest to her ear and then down to the rest of her. “No,” he said. 

He didn’t go into further detail than that. Did that mean he was annoyed at her for changing his sleep schedule? Would he put up with it for another two weeks, or would he decide it wasn’t worth it? Did he need less sleep than she did, or was he just in the habit of getting up early? Either way, it seemed wrong to force him to conform to her needs; yet at the same time, Faro thought of sleeping alone after this — alone and horribly, bone-achingly cold — and found that even imagining it made her miserable. 

She opened her mouth to question him but felt his breathing deepen only thirty seconds after he’d last spoken. She lifted her head, squinting at him suspiciously; his eyes were closed.

“Are you asleep already?” she whispered, scandalized.

He didn’t answer. His face was relaxed; his lips were slightly parted.

“Oh, you bastard,” Faro said, settling down again.

Chapter Text

Two weeks could pass very slowly, Faro thought, when you were living in an ice-coated Star Destroyer and the only heat you got was when you joined your commanding officer in bed. Not that she was complaining — it always took Thrawn a good hour or so to warm up, but once he did, he was a surprisingly skilled cuddler. 

And, despite what he’d said about preferring to rise early, he was always willing to sleep in to normal human standards. This, of course, could be more for selfish reasons than anything else, Faro supposed — the Chimaera had no pressing business until it received repairs, and Thrawn could transmit orders to the rest of the armada from his bunk as easily as he could from his office.

There were, however, two major issues with the arrangement — issues Faro hadn’t bothered to address yet because she simply wasn’t sure how. The first was that, during the day, Thrawn’s behavior toward her had shaded somewhat to the cool side; gone were the faint smiles and occasional dry traces of humor. Gone, too, was the sense of casual almost-intimacy they’d built up over time — the unspoken permission he’d once given her to invade his personal space whenever necessary, looking over his shoulder at a datapad or brushing against his arm as she reached for something across the way.

Perhaps the more important issue, though, was the fact that every night while Faro was sleeping, Thrawn got out of bed.

He didn’t get up to do anything in particular — at least, not that she could tell. But at least once a night — and sometimes as many as three times — he would quietly leave his bunk, and the cold air would rush in to wake Faro even though he always tucked her in as quickly as possible. She’d roll over to see him sitting at the small desk across the room, his legs pulled up to his chest for warmth, his eyes staring sightlessly at nothing.

He’d stay up for some length of time — at least thirty minutes, usually no more than an hour — and then, if she was still awake, she’d hear him take a deep breath through his nose and join her again. She couldn’t figure out his motivation; maybe he was sensitive to heat and could only stay in the bed for so long before he had to leave to cool down, but it didn’t seem likely, considering how badly he’d gotten frostbitten compared to the death troopers who had been trapped in the coolant-filled corridor with him. Of course, the death troopers had climate control in their armor, so that wasn’t really a fair comparison.

She eyed him, standing far away from her on the bridge. He was wrapped in the same black coat he’d been wearing since the coolant issues started, and as Faro watched him, he turned and met her eyes with an arch, questioning look.

Quickly, she glanced away again.

“He must be miserable,” Hammerly muttered.

Faro’s head whipped around to stare at the commander. “Sorry?” she said. She told herself Hammerly wasn’t talking about Thrawn — that she only assumed that was who Hammerly meant at first because she herself was thinking of Thrawn — but when she turned around, she saw Hammerly studying the Grand Admiral with a thoughtful frown. 

“Why should he be miserable?” Faro asked, keeping her voice light even though she was fairly sure she knew where Hammerly was going with this. 

Hammerly scoffed. “Well, you know he’s sleeping alone. He’d never ask anyone to share with him. And I think the cold affects him worse than humans, so…”

Deflect, Faro’s mind insisted. Deflect deflect deflect!

“Ah, no, I’ve heard he’s bunking with—” Her mind raced. “—Skerris,” she blurted out.

No, absolutely the wrong thing to say. Hammerly did a double-take and looked at Faro as if she were crazy. 

“Skerris?” she repeated. “No way. He’d be more likely to sleep with Darth Vader. Besides, Skerris is sleeping with Xoxtin and, like, has been. For a while.”

Faro wrinkled her nose. Of course Skerris was sleeping with Xoxtin. “Well, maybe someone on the bridge crew…” she said, but Hammerly interrupted her with a snort.

“Please. Everyone on the bridge crew is already doubled up,” she said. Then, absently, “Except you, of course.”

Faro said nothing, her face a wooden mask. She crossed her fingers in the hopes that Hammerly wouldn’t go any further than that — but after a long moment, Hammerly furrowed her eyebrows and turned to look at Faro with a look of consideration on her face.

Faro held her breath, waiting for the inevitable moment that Hammerly put the pieces together.

“I mean, you’re not bunked up with anyone from bridge crew,” Hammerly said apologetically, putting the pieces together all wrong. “Who are you bunked up with, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ah, a civilian from galley crew,” Faro lied at once. “Uterik.”

“Uterik?” Hammerly repeated. The line between her eyebrows deepened even further; across the bridge, Thrawn turned away from the viewport and started ambling their way. “Is he the extremely photogenic one who runs the omelet station in the morning?”

“Ah, yeah,” said Faro, though she was fairly certain there was no one in the galley named Uterik and she personally never had omelets for breakfast. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“Oh, wow,” said Hammerly. She looked at Faro with newfound respect. “That’s quite a snag. Look at you, sleeping with the hottest guy on the ship.”

Thrawn, now within earshot, froze and shot Faro a mortified look. Faro fixed her gaze on her datapad and waited for him to move away. 

Aloud — once Thrawn had left the bridge entirely — Faro said to Hammerly, “He’s not really the hottest guy on the ship.”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that,” said Hammerly promptly, “the next time I get an omelet.”

Faro made a face. Hammerly wrapped her blanket tighter around her shoulders and shifted her stance slightly, glancing around before lowering her voice.

“Really, though,” she said gently, “I’m glad you found somebody.”

“Hm,” said Faro, voice toneless.

“For a while there,” Hammerly said, “Pyrondi and I thought we might have to set you up with the Grand Admiral. Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Uh-huh,” said Faro, wishing the bridge would vent to space and kill her outright.

“Now I guess we just have to find somebody for Thrawn,” Hammerly continued cheerfully. She checked the calendar on her datapad. “Still a little more than a week left till we reach the Outer Rim,” she said. “I’m sure we can find him somebody, right?”

“Mm,” said Faro.

Hammerly looked sideways at her, forcing Faro to put her face back into neutral. She stared back at Hammerly blankly, daring her to say something. 

“Maybe he has a space heater,” Hammerly mused. She turned and looked at Pyrondi, jostling her shoulder. “I’d kick you out of bed in a heartbeat if I had a space heater.”

Pyrondi only scoffed.

Faro had almost forgotten about the conversation with Hammerly by the time her shift ended. She was so cold that she headed straight for Thrawn’s quarters, grateful that she’d had the foresight to leave her sleep clothes there; she could already envision herself nestling up in bed for hours, doing her datawork beneath the covers if necessary, so long as she could stay warm.

But Thrawn, it turned out, wasn’t in his quarters. All three rooms — his bedroom, his small kitchenette, and the living area — were empty. Faro looked around, feeling strangely deflated, and then lifted her comlink to her lips.

It took her cold fingers three tries to comm him.

“Commodore Faro to Grand Admiral Thrawn,” she said formally. 

“Sick bay,” Thrawn responded at once, his voice clipped and matter-of-fact. 

Dread settled over Faro all at once, setting her whole body tingling. The ten crew members who’d been caught in the corridor with the coolant leak — she’d been so caught up in her own thoughts of comfort that she hadn’t bothered to check on them before ending her shift. Cursing herself, she pulled her parka tighter around her and hurried to the lift.

It seemed to take forever to reach the sick bay, especially with all the detours she had to take around closed corridors, but she assumed Thrawn was still there by the time she burst through the door; at least, he didn’t comm her to tell her he was leaving. To her surprise, the ten crew members all appeared fine; they were huddled up together around a card table, playing a game of holo chess, and only glanced up briefly when she came inside.

“Ah, the Grand Admiral?” Faro asked, drawing herself up a bit awkwardly.

The crew members gave her ten identical blank stares. Faro glanced around, spotted a med droid rolling down a corridor toward the private rooms farther aft, and hurried after it.

“Excuse me,” she said to it, jogging to catch up. “I’m looking for the Grand Admiral?”

Before the droid could give her a reprimand about doctor-patient confidentiality, the curtain over one of the private rooms slid back and Thrawn stuck his head out, eyebrows furrowed. He covered his nose at the sight of her — an odd reflex, Faro thought — and then, after some consideration, waved her in.

She found another med droid inside the cramped room with him, a series of small bacta patches and bandages aligned before it on a durasteel tray.

“Your frostbite?” Faro asked, taking in the scene.

“Yes,” Thrawn said. He uncovered his nose and Faro saw a faint indigo flush to it — not quite the rawness she’d seen when he first rescued the crew members outside, but worse than it had been the last few days. She sat down next to him, covertly examining the shells of his ears, where the same indigo color could be seen.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

Thrawn’s eyes shifted her way, looking faintly amused, but before he could answer, the droid chirped, “Lean forward, sir.”

Thrawn crossed his arms and leaned forward on the examination table, eyes sliding closed as the droid carefully applied a swab of bacta and a fresh bandage to the tip of his nose. Faro bit her lip, trying to convince herself that the bubble of concern in her chest wasn’t there.

“With frostbite, ma’am, there is swelling, itching, and pain whenever the frozen tissue thaws,” the droid informed her cheerfully. “Turn your head to the right, sir.”

Thrawn obeyed, tilting his head so Faro couldn’t see his face. The droid dabbed more bacta gel over his left ear and then adhered another small bandage. When it was done, Thrawn turned his head the other way, made awkward eye contact with Faro, and grimaced.

She gave him a weak smile in return. 

“All set, sir,” the droid told him. Then, lowering its voice to adopt a more stern tone, “Do not remove the bandages prior to your next appointment.”

“Which is…?” Thrawn said, sitting back.

“Tomorrow morning, eight a.m. sharp,” the droid said. “I’ll see you then, sir.”

Thrawn looked like, if he had less self-control, he might have grumbled over it. He nodded to the droid and stood, gesturing for Faro to follow him out. They did their rounds with the crew members, Faro standing by while Thrawn politely checked on them and made conversation in his peculiar way — mostly keeping them updated on their various sectors, which Faro suspected was the kind of conversation Thrawn would want if he were the one stuck in sick bay. 

Luckily, it didn’t last long. The crew members were happy enough to see Thrawn, but it was clear they wanted to get back to their holo chess game more than they wanted to speak with the two highest-ranking officers on board, and after a moment, Thrawn and Faro ducked out of the conversation graciously and headed away.

They didn’t speak the entire way back to Thrawn’s room.

As soon as the doors slid shut behind them, Thrawn turned to her, took a deep breath, and said very mildly, “I assume you came up with some sort of cover story when talking to Commander Hammerly?”

Faro flushed. She avoided his eyes by crossing to his locker and pulling out her sleep clothes, folded neatly atop his. They were cold to the touch. “I figured you’d just assume we were talking about you, sir,” she said, remembering how he’d stopped and stared at her when she was talking to Hammerly.

“You’ve felt my skin,” said Thrawn, raising one eyebrow. “I’m likely the coldest person aboard the Chimaera. Certainly not the warmest.”

Faro’s mouth fell open and she started to correct him instinctively, before deciding it would be best to just let him labor under the delusion that the term ‘hot’ always referred to temperature. She grabbed his sleep clothes out of the locker and held them out to him, and after a moment of consideration, he took them.

“Who did you tell her you’re sleeping with?” asked Thrawn.

“Uterik,” said Faro. She unzipped her tunic and slipped her sleep clothes inside, forming an awful-looking lump over her stomach. The first time she’d done this, she’d been mildly embarrassed, but Thrawn had been so surprised and curious about the human ability to warm up clothes by holding them against their skin that the embarrassment had mostly faded. 

His eyes slid down her open tunic front. After a long moment, he wet his lips and held his clothes back out to her.

“Can you warm mine, too?” he asked.

Faro huffed out a gentle laugh and took the clothes back, zipping them up inside her tunic. Thrawn watched her a moment longer before looking away; he ran one finger over the ridge of the bandage on his nose, a self-conscious gesture Faro thought she might come to like if it weren’t causing him physical pain.

“There’s no one onboard named Uterik,” he said.

Faro crossed her arms over her stomach and laughed. “No,” she said. “But Hammerly didn’t notice, so I think we’re in the clear.”

Thrawn didn’t share her laugh. He stared at the bed for some time, his face slipping out of neutral and into something harder, something almost grim in nature. Faro watched him, remembering the night before — how she’d woken once when he got out of bed to sit at the desk alone, and how she’d woken again hours later to find him up again and already sitting with his back to her. 

“Sir?” she said.

He glanced sideways at her, his face unreadable. After a moment’s hesitation, Faro unzipped her tunic again and handed him his clothes, now at least warm enough that changing into them wouldn’t cause actual distress. 

“Thank you,” he murmured as he took them. “You may change in the fresher.”

It came out sounding less like a polite offer and more like a command. Something in Thrawn’s face flickered before it turned to stone, as if he recognized that he’d used the wrong tone but didn’t regret it — and certainly wouldn’t apologize. Faro blinked at him before she nodded; she noticed that Thrawn didn’t move once as she retreated to the fresher. He stayed utterly still, the clothes folded in his arms and his eyes fixed on nothing, until she disappeared through the door.

He had the right to command her, she told herself sternly once she was alone. They were sharing a bed, yes, but that didn’t make them lovers; it didn’t even make them friends, not on its own. She was still his subordinate; he was still her commanding officer.

She changed into her fleece leggings as quickly as possible and then paused, frowning at her reflection in the mirror. Thrawn’s fresher was almost embarrassingly tidy — it seemed un-lived-in at times — and the glass of his mirror was so assiduously clean that it sometimes jolted Faro to see herself in it. She took a deep breath, thinking back over the conversation and the events of the last few days.

He was her commanding officer, yes. On the other hand, they were off-duty — and the very nature of what they were doing changed their relationship. Perhaps that was what Thrawn was trying to avoid by being so cold to her; he hadn’t been the one to suggest they share a bed, after all. It was possible he suspected her motives — or saw potential for a change that he didn’t want to see between them.

If so, the best thing for Faro to do would be to assume an air of coldness right back, reassuring him that she didn’t have any romantic inclination toward him. So that was the smartest thing. So that’s what she would do.

So that’s what we’re going to do, Faro told her reflection.

Her reflection stared uncertainly back at her. She let out her breath in one long sigh and was still giving herself a pep talk when Thrawn rapped his knuckles against the door.

“Commodore?” he said.

“Ah,” said Faro, looking down at herself in her sleep pants and uniform tunic. Quickly, she shrugged out of the tunic, heedless of the cold, and pulled her undershirt over her head.

“Are you alright?” Thrawn asked, and Faro realized she hadn’t really answered him the first time. She scooped her uniform items off the floor and hit the door release, causing Thrawn to take one measured step back. He studied her face as she brushed by him.

“All yours,” said Faro roughly. 

She shoved her uniform into his locker, giving herself a moment to calm down — her heart was beating rapidly and her face was flushed, for reasons she couldn’t entirely explain. But she could see out of her periphery that Thrawn hadn’t moved, and when she finally glanced over at him, she saw that he was already in his sleep clothes. 

“Oh,” she said. “You already changed.”

He frowned at her. “Yes,” he said. He studied her a moment longer before letting his eyes drift away; absently, he touched the bandage on his nose again, then seemed to realize what he was doing and translated the gesture into a lazy point toward the bed. “I intend to work a while longer,” he said, his voice oddly formal. “If you wish to sleep, you are of course welcome to.”

“Of course,” Faro echoed. She eyed him for a moment, trying to read his face, and then marched herself over to his bed and pulled the blankets back. She arranged them around her shoulders with her hands free so she could use her datapad. Thrawn, meanwhile, went to the small desk across the room and sat there instead. He pulled his peacoat on over the fleece jacket he always wore to bed and sat with his knees curled to his chest for warmth — but there was no sign of discomfort on his face, only intense concentration as he read.

Faro found herself completely incapable of concentrating, personally. Her eyes flickered up from her datapad periodically, studying Thrawn as he worked. She could see his breath fogging up the air before him and subtle shivers wracking his body from time to time. After an hour — maybe more — she glanced up and saw his jaw clenched so tightly that it worried her.

“You can sit in bed, you know,” Faro told him a tad dubiously, patting the empty space on the bed beside her. “You don’t have to stay over there.”

He glanced at her briefly, cupping his hands over his mouth to warm them up. “It’s my bed,” he said mildly. “Of course I can sit there.”

Chagrined, Faro turned back to her datapad. She felt Thrawn’s eyes linger on her. After a long moment, she heard the scrape of his chair against the floor and turned to watch him stand.

He shrugged out of his peacoat and carried his datapad over to her, folding himself onto the bed. Faro shifted closer to the wall, opening her blankets to him, and for a moment Thrawn only sat there, cross-legged on the edge of the mattress, and stared at her with a hard, closed-off look on his face. 

Finally, a tad reluctantly, he moved closer to her and allowed her to drape the blankets around his shoulders. He was so much taller than her that it made the entire arrangement awkward — neither of them could wrap the blankets around them without depriving the other of some warmth — and eventually, they realized the solution at the same time. Faro hesitated, checking Thrawn’s face, and found him just as unreadable as always. He stared back at her, his eyes cold, and opened his arms slightly, nodding his assent.

Faro climbed into his lap. He closed the blankets around both of them, with her back pressed against his chest and his legs spread to accommodate her. When he wrapped his arms around her waist and lowered his chin against his shoulder so he could see his datapad, Faro felt paradoxically farther away from him than she ever had.

She leaned back against him with a sigh, keeping her own datapad close to her so she could see it. He placed one hand flat against her stomach, pulling her closer and soaking up the warmth from her skin at the same time. 

They worked in silence, the combination of Faro’s body heat and the blankets slowly working to warm them up. But even when the shivers stopped, Thrawn didn’t relax. He remained rigid behind her, his posture upright; when Faro glanced back at him, his face was always a wooden mask. 

She sighed. She couldn’t concentrate like this. She twisted her head, forcing Thrawn’s chin off her shoulder, and when he realized she was staring at him, he drew back a little and met her eyes with a calmness that made her temper strike.

“You hate this, don’t you,” said Faro, her voice flat.

Thrawn’s expression didn’t change. His eyes shifted down her face, studying her silently. “What’s your reasoning?” he asked.

Faro huffed out another sigh and twisted around completely, putting one hand on Thrawn’s chest and pushing him down. He refused to budge for a moment, scanning her face to figure out her intent, and then slowly lowered himself onto his back. 

“Good,” Faro said, her voice clipped. “Now stay there for a moment.”

Thrawn shifted against the mattress, setting his datapad off to the side. He didn’t blink when Faro slid off his lap, curling up next to him so she could look down into his face. She was hyper-aware of the vulnerability of Thrawn’s position — lying supine beneath her with his arms up above his head — and she suspected he was hyper-aware of it, too. She was taking a gamble, hoping the position would spark some honesty in him instead of making him defensive.

“I’m going to ask you something,” Faro told him, making sure the words came out level and unemotional. “Not as Commodore Faro and Grand Admiral Thrawn. As two people who happen to be sharing a bed every night.”

He nodded and slid his arms beneath his pillow, resting his head on them. “Go ahead.”

Faro hesitated a moment. She shifted a little, pulling her knees up and accidentally brushing against Thrawn’s ribs as she did so. She watched the slight relaxation in his face fracture and slip away.

“What is it about this arrangement that makes you so uncomfortable?” Faro asked.

Thrawn glanced down at her knees. When she didn’t immediately move away from him, he rocked his shoulders a little, shifting sideways until her knees were no longer touching his ribs. Even as he moved away from her, he said, “Nothing about this arrangement makes me uncomfortable, Commodore.”

“Karyn,” she corrected him.

He studied her face for a moment, then gave a tiny nod. “Karyn—”

“But you’re lying,” she said before he could go on. She hesitated briefly, steeling herself for what she’d already decided to say. “If you’re worried that I’ll see you romantically—”

“Don’t you?” he said softly.

Karyn froze, her mind spinning, her cheeks flushed. Thrawn watched her, his face no longer closed-off but not exactly easy to read, either. When she didn’t respond — couldn’t respond — he tilted his head to the side.

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” he said. 

Karyn stared down at him, her face pinched. “What does make you uncomfortable, then?” she asked, shelving the new topic he’d opened up. Then, before he could protest again, “You’ve been unusually distant to me ever since we started — and we haven’t even done anything. And…” She hesitated, unsure she really wanted to address it. “And you leave the bed at night when I’m asleep,” she said. “But all you do is sit at your desk and stare at nothing. I’ve wracked my brain over it and I can’t figure out any possible motivation for that.”

Thrawn had maintained eye contact with her steadily until she mentioned this habit; now he averted his eyes, staring not at Karyn but at the wall. She watched him, waiting for him to respond, and when he didn’t, she reached for him slowly, telegraphing each movement, and brought her fingers to the bandage on his right ear.

His eyes slid closed. She ran the pad of her thumb over the bandage, gently pressing against the covered wound, and saw his chest rise and fall in a sharp but silent inhale. She reached his earlobe and pulled her hand away for a moment, meaning to start over again — but before she could, Thrawn extracted one hand from beneath the pillow and grabbed her wrist, his grip firm.

“Don’t,” he said, meeting her eyes again.

She tried to move her hand to his chest, but he wouldn’t let her touch him there, either. He only let go of her hand when she drew away, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“You don’t like to be touched?” she guessed.

A quick, barely-noticeable frown touched his lips. “It’s not quite that,” he said.

“What is it, then?”

He sighed, shifting against the mattress. For a full two minutes, Karyn waited for his answer. He met her gaze flatly, giving no indication that he wished to speak. 

“Is it something embarrassing?” Karyn asked.

He gave her a humorless smile, which Karyn could only assume was a yes. And she was pretty sure she could guess what the problem was. She had, after all, slept with men before. She studiously avoided looking at Thrawn’s crotch.

“Would it help if I told you something embarrassing first?” she asked.

“I certainly won’t stop you,” Thrawn said, one eyebrow raised.

Karyn huffed, casting about for something appropriate to say. Only one thing entered her head; she bit her lip, trying to figure out the best way to word it, but everything she came up with seemed inadequate. 

“You asked earlier if I see you in a romantic light,” she said slowly.

Thrawn’s other eyebrow hitched up. “I didn’t ask,” he corrected her. “I made a statement.”

Karyn shot him a sour look. “Well, you were right.”

“And this embarrasses you?” he asked. His eyes traveled quickly down her body and then back up to her face. “We have been sleeping together,” he pointed out mildly. “For several nights now.”

“It was meant to be a platonic thing,” Karyn said, a bit scandalized. “You’re my commanding officer.”

“You’re the one who said it was platonic,” Thrawn said, shrugging slightly. “I have, naturally, complied with your request so far.”

“Is that why you leave the bed?” Karyn asked, sitting up a bit straighter. “To keep it platonic?”

The traces of humor left his face. “No.”

“Then why?” He didn’t answer right away, and Karyn tapped him on his chest, hoping to get a response. “I told you something embarrassing.”

He grabbed her hand to stop her from tapping him. “You’re embarrassed by your feelings for me?” he said, rephrasing his earlier question more seriously, his tone neutral.

“No, it’s—” Karyn shook her head, suddenly feeling like she’d stumbled into a trap. “You’re my commanding officer, Thrawn. For me to fall in love with you is … it makes me into a walking cliche. If people found out—”

He squeezed her hand once, gently … and then moved her hand off his chest and onto the mattress again. “People won’t find out,” he said.

Karyn stared at him, her heart aching. She couldn’t be sure if he meant for that to be reassuring or more like a warning — that people wouldn’t find out because nothing would ever happen. She was still mulling it over, her heart pounding in her ears, when Thrawn said something that made her blood cool at once. 

“I haven’t touched anyone since I was exiled,” he said. His chest was still; he was either holding his breath or breathing so shallowly that Karyn couldn’t tell. “That’s why I leave the bed at night,” he said, studying her face.

She studied him back, trying desperately to read him. “You mean you haven’t…?”

“I’ve carried people who were unconscious,” said Thrawn, his voice quiet and oddly flat. “I’ve subdued opponents in battle when necessary. Other than that, no. Nothing.”

There was nothing self-pitying about his tone. Instead, he seemed almost defensive, watching her to see how she would react. 

“So you leave the bed because…” Karyn started, hoping he would fill in the blanks for her. 

“Because,” Thrawn said, and paused. He took a breath, his expression like stone. “Because it’s…” he said haltingly.

Karyn didn’t interrupt him. After a long moment, he averted his eyes and spoke to the wall.

“Because it’s a lot,” he said simply, emotionlessly. 

Karyn watched him, not touching him. Only after a long moment did she lower herself onto the mattress next to him, resting her head on the pillow and forcing him to look her in the eye. He hesitated, his eyes flickering from her hair to her cheeks and down to her lips before he finally made eye contact again. 

“Is it unpleasant?” she asked. “To be touched? Or is it just … overwhelming?”

Thrawn studied her a moment longer before turning his head away, staring up at the ceiling instead. “You told me recently that I underestimate how desperate an Imperial officer can become for human touch while on deployment. I don’t suppose you meant for that statement to apply to me.”

Karyn said nothing at first, chewing this over. “So you’re not just putting up with it because of the cold?” she checked.

She watched a faint smile touch Thrawn’s lips. 

“I’ve grown accustomed to the cold,” he told her. 

Slowly, without looking her way, he lifted his hand and found hers, twining their fingers together. Karyn’s breath caught in her throat; hearing this, Thrawn gripped her hand a little tighter, his face unreadable, his expression not entirely relaxed. He took a deep breath.

“I’d like to try being warm again,” he said.

Chapter Text

As soon as he was warm enough — and Commodore Faro was asleep — Thrawn unhitched his arm from around her waist as gently as he could and rolled away, putting some space between them. This arrangement, in retrospect, wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had — or rather, acquiesced to. His chest rose and fell as he took a series of quick, shallow breaths through his nose and stared up at the ceiling, trying to get himself under some semblance of control.

He hadn’t touched anyone like this since before his exile. 

He touched the column of his throat, easing his hand beneath the collar of his jacket, trying to massage away the ache there. It was in his chest, too — and there was a strange, almost electric buzz in his veins, making his every limb uncomfortably tense. It wasn’t pleasant, he decided, to share a bed or be touched like this. He’d never been able to accustom himself to close contact, and now, after so long without anyone making an attempt, he suspected he never would.

He made himself as small as he could, elbows tucked in in an effort to avoid touching Faro, and felt the cold settle back into his bones. The shivers started again a moment later, and Thrawn endured them for only thirty seconds before biting out a curse in Cheunh and turning back to Faro, wrapping his arms delicately around her and pulling her close. 

Once, in exile, — he squeezed his eyes closed at the thought — he’d killed an animal for food and then he’d sat in the snow with it, unable to take his fingers out of its fur. He’d cradled the corpse to his chest, his thoughts turned off in self-defense, allowing himself to think and feel nothing except the weight and warmth of it against his chest. Until the animal turned cold and stiff, and then he’d let his grip on it loosen and he’d simply sat there, the cold seeping into his skin, staring at the corpse in the snow.  

The association made him loosen his grip. He turned away from Faro again and stared up at the ceiling, the area beneath his eyes raw from lack of sleep. He could tell she was awake; he suspected she’d woken first when he began to shiver, and more thoroughly when he turned and gathered her in his arms again.

Now, she reached out to him in the dark, but her hand dropped on the sheets between them, not on his chest.

“Alright?” she asked.

He’d held more than his fair share of people as they died. Meeting Faro’s eyes, he gave her a gentle smile and let that serve as his answer. It didn’t seem to bring her any relief; her eyes darted over his face, and what she saw there brought lines of concern to her own.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” she said.

Thrawn nodded. He waited until Faro had closed her eyes and turned her head slightly downward to face the pillow before he shifted.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he murmured.

She didn’t open her eyes, but she nodded, and as Thrawn slipped out of bed, he shucked his outer layer of clothing off and pushed them under the blankets with her before tucking them in. Perhaps already half-asleep, perhaps entirely conscious of what she was doing, Faro drew his jacket to her face and inhaled his scent.

He studied her a moment, her eyes closed, and wondered if she knew he was watching.

Quietly, he slipped into the fresher.

Faro surely thought he was taking a sonic, he thought, otherwise she would have stopped him. And of course, he understood why she would do so; in fact, he was quite aware that the choice he’d made was not without harm — but it was without permanent harm, and it was the only method to address the situation at hand, so it would have to do.

He removed his undershirt and socks, folding them on the counter. Only as he slipped his underwear off did he remember to reach over and engage the fresher’s seldom-used lock. Then, with Faro safely shut out, he reached into the shower stall and turned the water on.

It would be freezing, he knew. Not just lukewarm, but genuinely cold. He remembered the feeling of a truly cold shower all too well, both from Taharim’s initiation program and from his childhood, when he and Thrass had initially struggled to pay bills after their parents died. The sting of cold water against one’s skin could be — and frequently was used as — torture.

He watched the spray of it hit the shower wall, the water pressure strong enough to hurt. His eyes were narrow; the chill in the air was already making him shiver, but he knew that would stop after a minute or so beneath the water.

He took a breath, knowing the water would drive it out of his lungs anyway, and stepped inside.

Faro was half-asleep when Thrawn tucked her in, but a moment later, when she heard the rhythm-less jet of water from the shower, she jolted straight up in bed.

What the hell was he doing?

She stared at the closed door, trying to convince herself the sound of the shower was anything else. She knew for a fact the Chimaera didn’t have the capacity to heat water; she knew even more firmly that even if it could, Thrawn wouldn’t be using that capacity to take a comforting shower — he’d be hard at work rerouting that energy to the climate control system instead.

So he was undoubtedly taking a cold shower, or—

Or he was just letting the water run to mask some other sound, she realized. She remembered sharing a room with other cadets at the Academy; some of them had run the shower while they locked themselves in the bathroom to masturbate, letting the jet of water drown out the sound of their gasps or the vibrations of their toys. Others had used the shower to mask the sound of crying.

She tried to imagine Thrawn doing either, decided immediately which one she preferred, and sank back down against the bed with her eyes narrowed. She pulled the covers back around her, burying her nose once more in Thrawn’s jacket. She found herself straining her ears to hear the sound of flesh on flesh beneath the shower spray, but it was too difficult to make anything out.

Reluctantly, she reconfigured her expectations and listened for the sound of crying instead, but still, there was nothing.

Well, she told herself, it was Thrawn. He wouldn’t have chosen the shower to disguise what he was doing unless he knew it would work. She let her eyes drift shut — and let her mind drift over more pleasant things. 

Like how Thrawn was touching himself.

Or what he was imagining.

Or—

Inside the fresher, only five minutes after it began, the shower stopped. Now, Faro could hear with utter clarity how the last few drops of water dripped onto the shower floor. She could hear the rustle of the shower curtain — and harsh, gasping breaths that, on reflection, did not at all resemble post-climax breathlessness — and—

And the slam of a cabinet door rattling on its hinges, bouncing off the wall. The sound of someone fumbling for a towel.

Faro jumped out of bed and rushed across the room so fast that she nearly stumbled and slammed her nose against the floor. She smacked her palm against the fresher door twice, loudly, and heard the unmistakable noise of teeth chattering inside.

“Did you really just take a shower?” she demanded, her voice high and incredulous.

There was the sound of Thrawn’s knee hitting the cupboard door — shuddering breaths and the click of teeth against each other — and a few quick, shuffling steps. She heard his palm hit the lock and stepped back as the fresher door slid open.

Thrawn stood before her with a towel wrapped around his waist, his entire body trembling severely. The tips of his ears and nose were livid with frostbite, and his hair was soaking wet, tangled over his forehead and sending streaks of icy water down his nose.

His eyes burned into her. His jaw was set. He shivered, but he didn’t ask for help.

Silently, Faro stepped inside and let the fresher door close behind her.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” she asked quietly, not unkindly. 

Thrawn tried to answer, but his teeth were chattering too hard for anything coherent to get out. Faro edged past him, crossing to where the cupboard door hung open. She grabbed a second towel out of it and turned to Thrawn again, unfolding the towel with a shake a moment before he lowered his head and she touched the soft material to his hair.

Careful of his ears — and careful to be gentle, too — she grabbed fistfuls of his hair beneath the towel, letting the fabric soak up the water before smoothing out each tuft and moving on. Gradually, the severity of his shivers lessened somewhat, and he reached up to take the towel away from her. In response, Faro grabbed the one around his waist instead, untucking it economically, and with no complaint, flinch, or self-consciousness from Thrawn.

While he dried his hair and face, she dried his shoulders and arms, moving quickly but thoroughly down the planes of his chest and abdomen to his hips, to his thighs, to his calves. She stood, pointedly refusing to look between his legs for more than a second, and circled around to dry his back. 

“I’m ready now,” Thrawn said, his voice even, his body still shaking from the cold.

Faro froze, her hands against the towel and the towel flat between Thrawn’s shoulder blades. He looked back at her and she caught a glimpse of the indifferent expression on his face.

“Ready to be touched?” asked Faro, remembering their earlier conversation. A note of disbelief crept into her voice.

Thrawn nodded. “Now would be optimal,” he said. He reached for his folded clothes and Faro let the towel drop, glad that his back was turned and he couldn’t see the expression on her face.

“I’m trying to follow your reasoning here,” she informed him. Thrawn pulled his undershirt over his head with jerky, uncontrolled movements. As he moved onto his underwear, Faro glanced away. “The train of logic is just a little opaque to me, sir. We’re both cold, so we share a bed. You’re unaccustomed to touch, so you pull away. You get cold again, so you pull back for warmth — and then the touch overwhelms you, so you … go take … a cold shower?”

Confusion slowed her down toward the end. Thrawn pulled his underwear up over still damp thighs; the fit of the underwear was snug, Faro noticed with a dry mouth. He turned to her just as she reached up, and both of them paused for a moment, Thrawn’s eyes darting toward her raised hand. When he met her eyes a moment later, waiting to see what she would do, Faro finished the gesture. She touched the rim of Thrawn’s ear, where the frostbite seemed to have worsened.

He didn’t flinch. Gently, his fingers circled her wrists.

“I understand it’s an unusual course of action,” he said evenly. “But my temperature is … suboptimal. I would appreciate it if—”

He gestured toward the door and Faro nodded. She led the way out, noticing even as she did so that Thrawn grabbed his socks from the counter as he walked by them, but didn’t stop to put them on. When she reached the bed, she slowed down, turning questioningly toward him, but Thrawn breezed past her and burrowed himself into the blankets at once. He shifted over onto Faro’s side of the bed — either soaking up her warmth or revealing that he’d lied about his preference when she asked him days before.

Faro couldn’t be sure which.

She lifted the edge of the blankets and slid into bed next to him, wasting no time before she reached out. Her hand found the flat edge of Thrawn’s stomach, his undershirt riding up against his ribs, and she pressed herself closer, until her legs were entwined with his.

Which were bare, she realized.

Which were bare for a reason, she realized as he shuddered against her.

“Here,” she murmured, wiggling away slightly so she could tug her leggings down. “Hang on.”

Thrawn scooted closer to the wall to give her room and then moved back almost before Faro had kicked her leggings off. He made an almost inaudible sound, something like a hiss, as her warm skin touched his.

She felt like his skin was burning her, it was so cold. She suspected he felt the same way about her, although for opposite reasons.

Wrapping her arms around his waist, she said, “A cold shower?”

Thrawn hissed again, leaning hard against her. “Overriding my body’s sense of overstimulation by establishing a physical need for warmth,” he said.

Faro processed this, tamping down on a surge of anger. She recognized it for the thinly-disguised concern it was. Dislodging one hand from Thrawn’s waist — he had his hand clamped tightly over her own, which made this task almost impossible — she reached up and touched his ear again.

“And this?” she said.

Thrawn shivered. “An acceptable risk,” he said.

An acceptable risk. He’d said the same thing hours after rescuing the ten crewers from Sector YU-4, when Faro had joined him at his command station, and her eyes had drifted over his face as he spoke to her, and she’d noticed the rawness on his nose and ears and asked him if he was okay — if he’d sought medical treatment — if he ever thought about it before throwing himself into situations like this.

An unfair statement. She knew he thought about it. He thought too much.

With a sigh, she buried her face against the back of his neck and clasped her hands around his waist again. He was still shivering so violently that sometimes it seemed more like a flinch, his legs jerking or his grip on her arm tightening against his will. Small hisses — the pain of reheating — escaped from between his teeth.

“We need an acclimation system,” Faro decided.

Thrawn said nothing, but something about the way he leaned against her seemed like nonverbal agreement, or at least an encouragement for Faro to go on.

“Something to help you get used to it again,” she clarified. “Small touches throughout the day. Hand-holding—” She squeezed his hand and heard him huff out a breath, but couldn’t be sure whether he meant it as a laugh. “—quick hugs,” she said. “Whatever it takes.”

Another huff, marred halfway through by a tremor. Definitely a laugh.

“Not a good idea,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice even as he shivered. “Hammerly—”

She squeezed his hand again and he leaned more firmly against her by instinct. She could feel his skin shift from freezing cold to blazing hot without any in-between, and his breath hitched in response to the change. He broke her grip on his hands to scratch his arms, which had to be itching from the sudden rush of circulation.

“Hammerly would be,” he said, then paused to choose his words. “Very smug. Over winning the bet.”

He switched from scratching at his arms to rubbing the heel of his palm over the irritated skin instead. Faro shifted position a little, re-establishing her grip on his waist with one hand on his hip and one flat against his stomach.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say anything about a bet,” she said, and Thrawn let out an amused-sounding hum.

“Of course,” he said, voice neutral. He adjusted to the rush of blood through his limbs and gradually stopped shivering; when he curled his fingers around Faro’s hand, his skin was hot against hers. “Gambling is illegal aboard Imperial ships,” he continued.

Faro snorted, then shook her head. “It is a good idea,” she said firmly. “The acclimation system. We’re not in front of the bridge crew 24/7. We can make time for it — in your office, in your quarters—”

“Scheduling a time to hold hands,” Thrawn said, the note of amusement still there, but turning into something else. “How very Imperial of you, Commodore.”

He was insufferable, Faro decided. She tightened her grip on him, forcing herself to turn a surge of irritation into affection.

“We’re doing it,” she said, her voice tight.

“I’m not objecting,” said Thrawn. He ran his thumb over her knuckles once, twice, and then settled again with his palm against the back of her hand. She could feel his breathing against her chest — even, measured, but not relaxed or deep. 

Had the shower worked at all? she wondered.

Or was he, despite the temperature of his skin, still cold?