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Cassian really should be used to waking up in the medbay by now, but somehow opening his eyes to the dull ceilings still surprised him. He blinked slowly, his eyes burning as he tried to get his sluggish mind in gear to figure out why exactly he was on Yavin IV and not on his mission, as well as why his body felt like it was miles away on a cloud somewhere.
“Oh… Oh!” a voice beside him gasped, and Cassian tried to blink the blurriness from his stinging eyes to see who it was, “You’re awake! Holy shit, we were worried we’d have to dunk you back in the bacta tank, here…”
“W… W-Wh…” Cassian tried, but his throat didn’t seem to want to cooperate, and a face slid into his field of view with a reassuring smile.
“Hey hey hey, don’t try to talk just yet.” a hand brushed his hair back from his forehead, an easy gesture that startled him slightly, “Don’t wanna strain that pretty voice now, your throat was damn near torn out, you know.” Cassian’s sluggish mind finally connected a name with the face, and he recognized the friendly demeanor of Nurse Okuda, a chipper former imperial who was almost certainly a serial killer of some kind, but that was none of Cassian’s business. Okuda began shuffling around, checking his vitals and adjusting the bandages that swamped Cassian’s body, as Cassian tried to remember how he’d ended up here.
The last thing he remembered was being slammed against the wall by a gamorrean guard after the mission went dicks up, glancing to the side to see Kay charging towards them just as a door slid down between them with a thud of finality, separating him from Kay and leaving him alone at the mercy of a guard who hated him personally. He remembered fighting with everything he had, hearing Kay ramming at the door hard enough to dent it, but the gamorrean was huge and strong and Cassian was a string bean of a man compared to him. He recalled things getting a little fuzzy after his head had connected with the wall for the fourth time, remembered getting the absolute shit beaten out of him as he thought to himself oh, this pain is different, this is different pain before everything melted together into a blur of pain and pressure and the screeching of metal. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall how he’d escape or what happened to K-2.
“What… happened?” he winced at the sound of his own voice, hoarse and weak and sounding like he’d been dragged through a pile of broken glass, the mere two words taking nearly all his breath to get out. Okuda seemed to go quiet at the question, fidgeting with his hands slightly as he swallowed.
“Your uh… Your droid went crazy, man.” he finally said, and even as drugged up as Cassian was he could see the paleness of the man’s face and the nervous energy in his fidgeting hands. Cassian blinked slowly, the words taking a moment to fully register.
“…Kay?” his voice cracked slightly as he finally registered the absence of a certain looming menace in the empty medbay, “What… What do y… you m-mean?” He hated how breathless and weak his voice came out, his scowl deepening as he tried to catch his breath.
“D-Don’t worry about it right now, focus on-“
“Explain.” Cassian gave his best glare, but the effect was greatly diminished by his kittenishly weak state. Okuda had the grace not to say anything about it.
“I don’t know the whole story, just that one minute everything was fine and the next your droid showed up on base absolutely drenched in gore and carrying you like you weighed nothing.” he explained reluctantly, “You looked… bad. Like ‘death’s door’ bad, blood everywhere, dripping onto the floor, leaving a trail. My man, your body was mangled all to hell, I could hear bones shifting and your throat-“
“Focus… nurse.” he managed, nausea swooping in his gut at the image he painted, “Kay?” Okuda gave a high little laugh.
“He was acting kinda nuts.” he sang nervously, “Never thought I’d see the day where that dude’s silence was scarier than his rudeness, but hachi machi… We legit thought you were dead, Andor. We straight up thought the droid had lost it and brought us a corpse to fix. He didn’t say a word, just beelined for the medbay and didn’t stop for anyone, straight up kicked aside anyone who happened to be in his way, it was really scary.”
“I… see…” his mind was whirling with thoughts of damage control and worry for Kay. His absence from Cassian’s side was concerning, and Cassian’s mind helpfully supplied all the terrible things people could do to a droid that seemed a danger to others.
“He broke Draven’s hand.” Okuda supplied, and Cassian’s eyes widened as the breath left his chest just after he’d gotten it back.
“What?” The word sounded like it had been punched out of him, and Okuda fiddled with his IV to send what he assumed was a bit of calming medication his way. Thankfully it worked fast, and Cassian sank back into the bedding with a soft exhale as the world got softer, though his hands were still trembling slightly.
“Dunno what Draven was thinking, but he tried to reach out to take you from him.” Okuda continued, “Droid grabbed his hand and crushed it before it got within a foot of you.”
“No…”
“Your throat is injured, stop talking.” the nurse chided lightly, “But yeah, Captain Kallus had to talk the general down from decommissioning him right there. Can you picture that? Kallus having to play peacemaker?”
“What ha…” he had to keep taking breaths between words, frustration at his state growing, only strengthened by the disapproving look Okuda gave him, “What… happened to… Kay?” Stars, his chest ached, how badly had that gamorrean fucked him up?
“Well, Kallus is decent at talking down irate generals, but apparently not crazy lovesick droids.” Cassian bristled at that, but he didn’t have the breath to argue in Kay’s defense, “He said the wrong thing to your droid and ended up getting choked out, which got Orrelios leaping in swinging, which got Wren jumping in with a steel chair, which got Îmwe jumping in with another steel chair, which got Malbus involved, and it was a basically a full blown brawl until Rook showed up with his sweet voice and doe eyes and managed to calm everyone down.”
“Bodhi…?” Cassian blinked slowly, and Okuda nodded with a wistful little hum, flitting over to a nearby counter to start a cup of herbal tea for his disobedient patient.
“Pretty boy Bodhi almost managed to distract me from how scary it was that your droid could hold off five seasoned fighters at once while still cradling you like a rugged mustachioed damsel in distress.” he grinned as he worked, “But that’s why I’m a nurse and not a droid wrangler, and also not someone privy to important information that a pretty face could easily get out of me.”
“Focus, nurse.” he just barely kept from snapping, “What h-happened next?” Okuda finished the tea and brought it over to Cassian, smiling sheepishly as he slipped a hand under his head to support it, holding the cup expectantly to his lips. Cassian bristled, humiliated at having to be fed like a child, but he was not so prideful that he couldn’t admit that he’d not be able to hold the cup on his own. Better to be fed like an invalid than to spill tea everywhere.
“Whoopsie, so Rook managed to chill everyone out and even convinced your droid to set you down so the medics could get to you.” Okuda chatted as the tea worked wonders on Cassian’s sore throat, honey and herbs soothing the broken glass feeling, “Crisis averted, but like… it was a close thing for a while. We seriously worried we’d have to try to disable him to extract you. It was like he was running on autopilot.”
There was a very good chance that that’s exactly what happened, Cassian thought despairingly. When it came to protecting Cassian, stars forbid if Cassian was hurt , Kay slipped into a singleminded focus that blocked out anything and everything that wasn’t Cassian Cassian Cassian. Kay had shown in the past that his overriding instinct to protect Cassian Andor was powerful enough to overwrite any programming, no matter how deeply ingrained. He’d think it almost sweet, if it didn’t worry him so much. He’d spent many a night laying awake wondering what was going to happen to Kay when Cassian did die, if he would be treated well by others, if he’d be alright emotionally. He’d rarely brought it up with Kay, knowing the droid would rather avoid thinking about Cassian’s mortality and unwilling to rock the boat, so to speak.
“Is everyone al…alright?” he mumbled, proud that he’d managed to go nearly three words without having to stop. Okuda seemed less proud, tapping the bandages around his throat with a feather light touch that still managed to be chiding.
“Everyone is fine, minor bruising aside. But um…” Okuda seemed to consider his words for a moment, “So they let your droid accompany you to the medbay, and I don’t… want to alarm you or anything, but at one point I mentioned that we may not have the uh… parts to fix you. You were… it was bad.”
“And?” he would probably be panicking more were it not for the drugs. Okuda at least had the decency to get to the point.
“And your droid proceeded to leave and then come back dragging some poor pilot behind him, shoved him at us and told me to take whatever parts we needed from him.” Cassian choked, instinctively trying to sit up only to barely move more than an inch before his body gave a firm no.
“H-He did what?” His voice was strangled and high, and Okuda fussed over his IV as Cassian tried to get his breathing under control, coughing hard enough to make his lungs seize. The three words alone had undone any help the tea had provided, and he felt dizzy as the coughing fit took a minute to subside, leaving him panting for air as he recovered his breath. Oh, his body was not happy with him. Oh, he was on thin ice. His body was gonna unionize and then he’d be boned.
“Obviously we told him we couldn’t do that, and he asked if the guy was unsuitable and if he had to go get someone else.” Okuda continued once Cassian could breathe again, “I was seriously afraid your guy was gonna kill someone like some fucked up Lysatran horror vid. He had to be removed after that, and boy wasn’t that a whole ordeal.”
“I’m sorry.” he whispered, reeling at the idea that Kay may care for him a little more than was strictly necessary, that he may possibly be a little more unhinged than he’d previously thought, “I don’t… h-he isn’t us…usually…”
“Oh, don’t apologize, it’s not really your fault.” Okuda patted his hand, “Everything ended up just fine, you included, although you only have one kidney now-“
“Wha-“
“-but the only reason your droid hasn’t been deactivated and scrapped is because the higher ups know you’d do something stupid if they tried, and because Rogue squadron is working full time to protect him.” Cassian’s heart lurched, and the only thing that prevented him from grabbing the nurse by the collar was the fact that he couldn’t lift his arms more than a few inches, the disobedient limbs remaining limply folded over the blanket as his mind whirled.
“Where… is he?” he rasped instead, trying and failing to control his expression.
“Brig.” Okuda answered, patting his hand absently, “Just in case you- I mean just until you’re better!” But Cassian knew exactly what he’d been about to say.
Just in case you died and he lost his fucking mind.
“Bring him here.” Cassian sighed, “He’ll calm down… when he sees I… I’m f-fine.”
“My man, you can barely talk without getting winded, are you sure-“
“He has a… vivid imagina… nation.” Cassian took as deep a deep breath as he could manage, trying to saturate his lungs with oxygen so he sounded less like a wheezing mooka kit when he talked, “It’s always more… horrible than r-reality. He’ll f-feel better if… he sees me alive and… and well.” Kriff, kriff he hated being so weak, he hated every second of this. That was what they would put on his epitaph when Kay inevitably murdered him. “Here lies Cassian Jeron Andor, he hated every second of this, and also he was devilishly handsome probably.”
“If you’re absolutely sure…” Okuda looked skeptical, but at Cassian’s nod he commed to have Kay sent up to the medbay. Thankfully he didn’t try to make any more small talk, a break that Cassian’s lungs and throat were grateful for. He passed the waiting time trying to gather enough strength to lift his arms more than two inches, brow furrowing when the traitorous limbs simply refused to obey him. He was so focused that he almost didn’t notice Kay’s entrance until Okuda’s quiet gasp alerted him.
“Hey, you’re here.” Okuda smiled as best he could as Kay loomed in the doorway like a dark cloud. It seemed that someone had cleaned Cassian’s blood off of him, and he sent a quiet thank you to the universe for sparing him that grisly sight. Cassian gave him an exhausted little smile, some of his anxiety easing at the sight of his friend. K-2S0 just stared at him, not saying a word, his optics bright and fixed on Cassian’s face without so much as a flicker, not looking away even when Okuda started nervously explaining Cassian’s various injuries and the intensive health plan he’d have to follow. This place was a kriffing nightmare.
“-in addition to that, he’ll have to be on strict bed rest for at least two months, and he shouldn’t try to use his voice too much until the scarring is healed. We can formulate a plan for vocal training so he doesn’t end up with a permanent rasp but as of now…” Cassian could tell that Kay was carefully cataloguing Okuda’s words and filing them away for later, and he privately bemoaned the torment he’d be subjected to for the foreseeable future, but the droid didn’t dignify the poor nurse with a response. Cassian found his silence to be unnerving. A silent Kaytoo was a dangerous Kaytoo. An upset Kaytoo.
Okuda trailed off once his spiel finished, and Cassian didn’t dare break the silence with his chain-smoking kitten voice. The room was quiet for a good long moment before Kay finally spoke.
“I wish to be alone with Cassian.” was all he said, and Okuda barely paused to shoot a sympathetic smile Cassian’s way before he was bolting out of the room like the Emperor himself was on his heels. Cassian made a mental note to apologize to him later for all Kay had put him through, maybe see if he could get him a date with Bodhi, but his attention was quickly drawn back to Kay, his brow furrowing when the droid didn’t make a single move to sit beside him.
He just stood there, staring intently at him, and Cassian fought the urge to fidget. He couldn’t imagine what kind of picture he made, pale and wan and weak as a kitten in a too-big medical bed, his frail body threatening to sink into the white blankets and whiter bandages as the tubes and IV kept him from slipping off this mortal coil like water off an ithorian’s ass.
“Kay…” he started, raspy and small, but Kay spoke over him.
“You did this to me.” he said simply, his voice loud in the silence of the medbay, “You broke me.”
“I… I did?” Cassian’s heart flipped unpleasantly in his chest, and he rapidly flipped through his memories for any error he may have made while repairing Kay, any mistake he may have overlooked, any programming he’d tampered with. As if sensing his thoughts, Kay finally stepped towards his bed, reaching out and wrapping long fingers around his wrist, his grip solid and unbreakable in a way that comforted Cassian like nothing else could.
“You warped my very being merely by being near me, by being my friend.” he said lowly, the light of his optics a bit brighter than normal, though that could have been the head injury talking, “In doing so you wrapped my code and my processes around you like a blanket, and you tangled yourself up so thoroughly that I could never hope to break free. If you could see my code, you’d see your name in every line break, sometimes repeated like a skipping record. You’re everywhere. You monster.”
“Kay…” Cassian’s voice was softer than he’d intended, nearly breathless as he stared up at his best friend of so many years. Kay didn’t have facial expressions, but the near-imperceptible tightening of his grasp said more than words ever could.
“But the thing is, Cassian.” there was something dark in his tone, something that made Cassian’s stomach flutter, “It goes both ways. I cannot extract you, but you cannot be extracted. In ensuring my devotion, you sealed your fate.”
“What are… you saying?” he asked with more calm than he felt, his heart feeling like it wanted to leap from his chest and flee the planet. Kay made an aborted crackling sound, seeming displeased with the breathy croak of his voice, and his free hand lifted to press lightly at Cassian’s throat, not enough to cause any real pressure but enough to be impossible to ignore. Kay leaned in closer, until his face was mere inches away from Cassian’s.
“I’m saying that you are mine.” his vocoder hissed slightly, and Cassian felt a shiver that he hoped Kay couldn’t detect, goosebumps rising at the possessiveness lacing his words like venom, “So neither of us goes free. If I can’t have you, no one can. If you can’t have me, then I break whoever and whatever I have to until you can. You did this to me, made me need you, so you have to take responsibility.”
“I…” he swallowed roughly, and Kay’s thumb brushed against the hollow of his throat in silent reprimand. So instead of speaking, he simply nodded.
“I have downloaded and memorized Nurse Okuda’s recovery plan for you.” Kay continued, making it sound like a threat, “You will follow every last rule he has set, to the letter.”
“Kay-“ that hand tightened for a second, the unspoken threat enough to silence him again.
“If you attempt to overwork yourself, or strain your voice, or push even a centimeter past your body’s limits, I will tie you to the bed myself.” Cassian shivered despite himself, but Kay was on a roll, “I don’t care if you hate me, so long as you are alive and well. Get as angry as you wish, I will take it. Don’t think I am above carrying you around base like a child, and don’t think I will not hold you down to make you rest.” Cassian’s expression must have been one he didn’t like, because Kay released his throat and opened his palm between them, his image projector starting up to display a fizzy picture. The image was glitching. It always did when he was emotionally compromised, no matter how he insisted that he didn’t have emotions the same way organics did.
“Look at yourself, Cassian. Look what I have to put up with.”
The image was of Cassian as he was now, clearly being recorded as it happened real time, and Cassian fought back a reflexive swear at the image he made. The Cassian in the recording looked like death warmed over, pale and tiny and drowning in tubes and bandages in a bed that seemed too big. There were dark shadows under his eyes, exhausted and hazy with drugs, strained with lines of tension and pain that he hadn’t even been aware of, and he could see that the guard had left him with some serious bruising that painted the entire left side of his face like a Sabine Wren painting, the colors blooming down his face and vanishing into the bandages that covered the wound on his throat. Most disquieting to him was the sclera of his left eye, the white completely overtaken with the red of broken blood vessels in a ghoulish display.
No wonder Kay was acting like this.
Cassian didn’t dare speak, but the impulse to comfort Kay was too strong to ignore. Instead of risking his ire by speaking, he forced his hand to lift just enough to brush his fingers against Kay’s arm, holding it as long as he could before it dropped back down again. Kay’s grip on his wrist tightened slightly, really more of a spasm, before his large hand slid down to tangle his fingers in Cassian’s, making a sound of displeasure at how chilly they were. Cassian only had time to curse his weak body yet again for a second before Kay was taking his other hand, the larger appendages making his own slender hands seem positively tiny in comparison.
“You frightened me.” he said quietly, his fans whirring a touch louder as he directed his internal heaters to focus on his hands, Cassian sighing in relief as the beautiful warmth chased the chill from them, “No doubt you’ve heard what happened by now. How I behaved. Nurse Okuda is not known for keeping his mouth shut.” Cassian hesitated, but he couldn’t deny it. He nodded, and Kay squeezed his hands lightly, as if Cassian would break if he applied any real force. It was embarrassing, but he pushed down his instinctive irritation for Kay’s sake. There was very little he wouldn’t do for Kay’s sake.
“I don’t regret it. If it saved your life, I would do anything. Anything. I will never give you up.” he said with an air of finality, bringing their hands up to press them flat against the metal of his chest plate, holding them there as his internal heaters worked overtime to keep Cassian warm like it was his sole purpose, “Even if I have to toss you over my shoulder and abduct you. The Rebellion may hold your body and soul, but I hold your heart, and I could hide you away so thoroughly that even their best agents would never find us.”
“You b-been reading… Baze’s t-terrible p-poetry?” He knew he’d regret being contrary, but Kay’s words were sweet and just the right side of scary, and Cassian felt a little like a maiden in one of those cheesy romance vids Solo liked, swooning and delicate while his big strong paramour held him close and swore to keep him safe. He was surprised to find that it wasn’t an entirely unwelcome feeling, but that might have been the drugs talking.
“I told you not to speak.” Kay sounded annoyed, but he didn’t let go of his hands, “You have a grievous throat injury that must be allowed to heal.”
“I-“
“One more word and I will gag you.” he threatened, “Lay still, shut up, and let me handle everything. Let me take care of you, Cassian. Or so help me Force I will shave that ridiculous mustache and you’ll look like an adolescent and everyone will laugh at you and you’ll die.”
Cassian laughed, he couldn’t help it, but ay his throat didn’t appreciate him doing so, and his lungs joined in on its displeasure by complaining loud enough to make Okuda come running back to the sounds of hacking coughs and wailing machines. But it was all worth it to feel Kay’s strong arms wrap around him to hold him still, to be held against that warm chassis and know that there was nowhere in the galaxy he’d be safer and more loved than right here.