Chapter Text
Was Pellaeon shaken by the fact that he’d seen Grand Admiral Thrawn stabbed through the chest by his own bodyguard? No, of course not. Why should he be shaken?
In the past, he’d seen close friends die in battle. That had shaken him, certainly. But Thrawn was neither a close friend nor dead. In the past, too, he’d been shaken by commanding officers who lost their courage or their dignity on the battlefield, but that hadn’t happened here. Thrawn had touched the tip of Rukh’s knife blade protruding through his chest the same way an entomologist might gently stroke a living specimen to make it unfurl its wings. He’d even smiled, and as the medical team surrounded him, he’d raised his head and continued giving orders as if nothing happened.
Well, it missed my heart, he said in the sickbay later, matter-of-fact.
They’d even won the Battle of Bilbringi, though not quite so spectacularly as they’d expected, and Rukh had been shot dead before he even made it to the door. No escaped assassins, no terrible failures looming overhead, no dead admirals. In sum, there was absolutely no reason to be shaken.
Pellaeon glanced down at his trembling hands and swore under his breath.
Thrawn was being released from sickbay today.
Ten a.m., four hours into morning shift, Pellaeon tucked his cap beneath his arm and entered the Chimaera’s medical suite. After that first frenetic week of bacta and surgery, it was strange to see the sickbay so docile. One medic was so busy with his crosshatch puzzle that he didn’t even stand to attention as Pellaeon walked by — but considering that he’d seen that same medic washing the bacta from Thrawn’s hair when he was unconscious, carefully combing each strand into the admiral’s usual style, Pellaeon decided to let it go.
He rounded the corner to Thrawn’s private room and found the door open, nurses bustling in and out to strip the room of any hint of personality Thrawn had hammered into it during his short convalescence. Thrawn stood near the bed buttoning his tunic with deft fingers as the medical officer spoke with him, but when he caught sight of Pellaeon, he looked up with a faint smile and touched the doctor’s arm to silence him.
“Captain,” he said warmly. “Come to walk me home?”
Pellaeon stopped short with a quick flush. “Ah, I’m here to brief you, sir,” he said gruffly.
“I’ve been keeping up with reports,” said Thrawn, indicating his datapad with a breezy gesture. “But I appreciate the gesture. Doctor.”
“Plenty of sleep, Admiral,” the doctor said in a warning tone as Thrawn stepped past him. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“I never do,” Thrawn assured him.
Pellaeon and the doctor shared a beady-eyed look. After a moment, Pellaeon turned and followed Thrawn, hurrying to catch up with him — he was already halfway down the hall.
“There are some things you don’t know yet, sir,” he said. “Some things that weren’t in the report.”
Thrawn raised one eyebrow. “Yes, let’s see,” he said. “Moff Disra will have made his bid for power by now, coaxing Moffs Hanley and Jopp to his side and using the instability of Kashyyyk to pull Moff Garan over as well.”
“Ah,” said Pellaeon, “well, yes, actually—”
“And I imagine Warlord Zsinj will have made his move by now,” Thrawn said. He studied Pellaeon’s face quickly and gave a stiff shrug. “Well, ask Captain Krill about it at our next meeting, I’m sure he’ll have the report. Zsinj will have targeted Krill’s sector first.”
“Ah, yes, sir,” said Pellaeon. “But actually, I was talking about the Chimaera.”
Thrawn’s face froze for a moment, but his step didn’t falter. “Something’s wrong with the repairs?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“Nothing’s wrong, precisely,” said Pellaeon. “It’s just that I was reviewing the reports yesterday and I saw a little detail that hadn’t been included in the original assessment. The men all know already — everyone who, ah, hasn’t been in sickbay for a week—”
Thrawn gave him a patient look that somehow managed to convey a ‘hurry it up’ vibe.
“It’s your quarters, sir,” said Pellaeon. He took a quick, steadying breath. “They took damage during the Battle of Bilbringi. Your command room as well. They’re uninhabitable.”
Thrawn’s face was still frozen. “My art holos?” he asked, his voice suspiciously toneless.
“You’re looking a little pale, sir,” said Pellaeon. He looked around for a workman’s bench set into the bulkhead, but there didn’t seem to be any nearby, and in any case, Thrawn waved him off.
“I’m fine,” he said. “My art holos?”
“Well, they haven’t been recovered yet, sir,” said Pellaeon, not without sympathy. Thrawn gave a cool nod. “Of course, the men are still working to repair the area. They hope to have all damaged spaces online again within two weeks.”
“How many of our men have been displaced?” Thrawn asked. He switched his datapad on as he walked, and Pellaeon could see the screen just well enough to know that Thrawn was contacting the quartermaster about extra uniforms.
“I already had some made, sir,” said Pellaeon, staying his hand. “You’re wearing one now.”
“Of course,” said Thrawn. He stared at the screen a moment longer before turning it off, then glanced down at his pristine uniform, his hand hovering for just a second over his chest, where a massive tear would have been if this were the one he wore at Bilbringi.
“Sixty men, sir,” Pellaeon said, “to answer your question. Not many, in the grand scheme of things.”
“And where are they staying now?” Thrawn asked.
“They’ve been moved to shared quarters with men of the same rank and opposite shifts,” Pellaeon said.
“Ah,” said Thrawn. “So I’ll be staying with you.”
Pellaeon almost stumbled. He glanced at Thrawn and found the Grand Admiral watching him, a glimmer of amusement in his eye.
“Or did you think I would camp out in a conference room?” Thrawn asked.
“I — well, it’s your choice, sir,” said Pellaeon diplomatically. “I rather thought you might find a new flagship for the time being.”
“Of course not,” said Thrawn, voice brusque. He was heading for the bridge at a brisk pace, casual as could be, as if he hadn’t just assigned himself a roommate.
“We’ll be moving to opposite shifts, then?” asked Pellaeon. He could already feel the eye-strain that came with a sudden jump to night shift.
“I hardly think that will be necessary,” said Thrawn. “You have a sofa, don’t you?”
Eye-strain suddenly seemed small beans compared to the terminal back-ache that came from a night on the sofa. Pellaeon pursed his lips. “I do, sir.”
“Then that’s settled,” said Thrawn.
Any argument Pellaeon might have made died on his lips when they reached the bridge and their men, seeing the Grand Admiral alive and well, jumped to their feet in applause.
Thrawn’s endurance was a sight to behold. Pellaeon could still smell blood in the air from that day at Bilbringi, could hear Thrawn’s scratchy voice as he gave orders from the stretcher even as the medics carried him away. There’d been more than one field mission where Thrawn showcased his superhuman ability to keep going, no matter what the odds: in the deserts of Tatooine, when he’d led their men in the Killik Twilight training exercise, wearing the same heavy armor that their stormtroopers were expected to wear; in the snow fields of Hasan, where he’d gone without rations and still somehow retained so much stamina that he could carry the unconscious Ensign Tybalt for three kilometers over the ice.
It was close to midnight now. In his quarters, Pellaeon checked his chrono and then lifted his comlink to his lips.
“Still on shift, sir?” he asked politely.
There was a crackle of static before Thrawn responded, his voice tinny. “My meeting with Moff Leary just ended. I’ll be done shortly.”
He’d said that two hours ago. Pellaeon leaned back against his headboard for a moment, staring blankly at his own Imperial-issue slippers, and warred with himself. The urge to not look like a nanny droid fought against the memory of Thrawn’s doctor telling him not to strain himself. He lifted his comlink again.
“You’ve been on shift for fourteen hours, sir,” he said. There was a beat of silence. He glanced down at the datapad on his lap, opened to Thrawn’s medical file. “Am I on speaker?” he asked.
Another burst of static, this time a bit elongated, like Thrawn was shoving his comlink into his pocket. A few minutes passed with nothing but the occasional scrape of fabric against the microphone or a low murmur of unintelligible voices, then Pellaeon heard the distinct hiss of the bridge door opening and the static abruptly disappeared.
“Save your threats,” said Thrawn calmly, “and put the medical report away. I’m done.”
Pellaeon didn’t bother to ask how Thrawn knew. He clicked his comlink off and obediently closed the file on his datapad before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His hair was still damp from the shower, and he gazed longingly at his bed — king-sized, because captains were allotted a certain amount of personal choice in furniture, and covered in the most comfortable bedding he’d been able to find on shore leave. He took the topmost blanket (the most luxurious one) and brought it with him to the sofa.
With a slow sigh, Pellaeon lowered himself onto the flat cushions. It was colder out here than in his bedroom, more open, with better circulation. He draped the folded blanket over his lap and suppressed a shiver. It seemed louder out here, too — the bedrooms at least came with a thin layer of soundproofing to dull the roar of the engines, but out here, Pellaeon could hear every whir, buzz, and jerk of the Chimaera’s inner machinery thrumming through the floors.
He opened his datapad and selected a thunderstorm audio file. It sounded depressingly low-volume and artificial against the engines. He closed his eyes and tipped his head against the back of the sofa, tried to imagine lying here all night with his feet hanging off the end. It would be fine. Hadn’t he spent his first enlistment in the trenches of Korlon IV? Hadn’t he done his time hot-bunked on an old Garigos cruiser, just after the Republic fell? He’d endured plenty of field missions, slept beneath the stars more times than he could count, willingly eschewed a bedroll so he could feel the night breeze against his skin.
….Granted, he’d done all that before the age of forty.
The front door hissed open, interrupting Pellaeon’s thoughts. He sat up straight and tried to blink the sleepiness off his face.
“Good evening,” said Thrawn smoothly. He was looking around at Pellaeon’s quarters, studying his possessions rather than the man himself. “There was no need to wait up for me.”
Pellaeon bristled. “I didn’t,” he said.
“You’re usually in bed by ten.”
“I most certainly am not.”
Thrawn drifted over to a small shelving unit attached to the forward wall and examined a russet-colored figurine. An old flame had given it to Pellaeon when he made commander; he’d almost forgotten it was there. Now he watched Thrawn study it, his long fingers brushing over the figurine’s carved face, and felt a frisson of discomfort he couldn’t explain.
“Are you going to bed, then?” he asked, his voice coming out gruff.
Thrawn gave him a sidelong glance, eyes glittering. “I rather thought I might eat first,” he said. “As you said, it’s been fourteen hours.”
Pellaeon sat up, his jaw tight, and swallowed his exasperation. He punched an order into his datapad instead, hitting each button so hard that it sent a jolt up his index finger. Of course the bastard didn’t eat while on shift. Don’t strain yourself, the doctor said, and what did Thrawn do? A fourteen-hour shift with no rest, no food — and knowing Thrawn, nothing but caf to drink —
There was a distinct clink across the room as Thrawn picked the figurine up and examined its base.
“Do put that down, sir,” said Pellaeon, mustering up as much patience as he could. “Your food will be here in ten minutes.”
Thrawn tilted the figurine into the light, his eyes hooded as he read the inscription on its base. He placed it back on the shelf with care, in exactly the same spot he took it from. “My clothes?” he asked.
Pellaeon lifted the blanket off his lap and stood before he had time to remember he was in his pajamas. He stuffed the self-consciousness down deep into the hole where he kept all his war trauma and guided Thrawn into the bedroom, glad at least that he’d opted for the standard Imperial slippers and not the ones with Twi’lek head-tails. He stopped before his dresser and pretended not to notice Thrawn studying his shadowbox of medals as he opened the top drawer.
“Underclothes and socks,” he said flatly. Thrawn glanced down into the drawer, his hand hovering over a folded undershirt, and then froze as he spotted something else.
“Boxers?” he said, sounding as close to offended as Pellaeon had ever heard him.
“Yes, boxers,” said Pellaeon, goggling at Thrawn. “Don’t tell me you prefer briefs.”
“Surely the medics made a list of my possessions when I was stabbed,” said Thrawn. He unfolded a pair of boxers with the tips of his fingers, like it might bite him. “If you consulted that list, you would have seen that I certainly wasn’t wearing these.”
“No underwear was listed at all,” Pellaeon told him. “I had to improvise.”
Thrawn opened his mouth, perhaps to argue, then seemed to remember something and tossed the boxers back down with a reluctant nod.
“And what kind of lunatic goes commando in dress whites, sir?” Pellaeon asked.
“It’s good fabric,” said Thrawn curtly.
“What in seven hells has fabric got to do with it?”
Thrawn reached past Pellaeon and collected a pair of sleep pants and an undershirt which he folded over his arm. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said with careful dignity. “I’ll be quick.”
He marched past Pellaeon to the fresher. A moment later, there was a juddering noise of water spraying from the nozzle, and Pellaeon was left alone with the mental image of Thrawn in tight-hugging briefs and the painful, irrevocable knowledge that the Grand Admiral liked the feeling of his scratchy, stiff uniform trousers against his bare cock.
Day one of cohabitation. It was going swimmingly so far.