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Avar was restless. She, Stellan, and Elzar had promised to spend the evening studying together as each of them had things to work on, and they figured they could keep each other motivated if they sat together in the Padawan common area. The problem was that Avar absolutely couldn’t force herself to care about the inner mechanics of Vector engines.
She also couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that Elzar—who sat in the leather armchair to her right, enthralled in his research project on his datapad—was sitting in what looked like the most uncomfortable position. He had slumped incredibly far down so that his spine didn’t even touch the back of the chair except right at the base of his neck, which meant that his chin was practically tucked into his chest. He’d also pulled up his right leg so that his heel rested on the edge of the seat and his right elbow found a perch atop his knee; his left leg was sprawled in the opposite direction, towards Avar, and he held his datapad loosely in his left hand as he scrolled through documents.
When Avar had mentioned to him that he looked uncomfortable, he had merely slid down further in the chair. It was both endlessly frustrating and strangely adorable.
Elzar’s left foot was directly in front of Avar, taking up space on the floor that her own feet could have occupied if they hadn’t been tucked up under her. For no reason in particular, Elzar’s foot commanded her attention like a picture hung on a wall that was slightly askew. Their identical chairs might have been touching, but that was still her space. Avar shifted to free one of her legs, extending it slowly to the ground until she was able to very subtly nudge Elzar’s foot forward with her toe. She glanced at his face, hoping for a reaction, but Elzar didn’t look up from his datapad. In fact, his expression remained fairly neutral, a fact which Avar was suddenly annoyed by.
Avar pushed Elzar’s foot forward a little more, and then a little more, moving it mere centimeters each time, until he finally slid his foot back to prop it against the leg of his chair. But his face wore the same neutral—if not slightly bored—expression as it had before.
Avar slumped back against her chair and returned her focus to the Vector schematics on her datapad, feeling more restless and slightly defeated. She had lost interest in the material ages ago. Honestly, she was never going to take apart and reassemble a Vector, and she knew how to maneuver it well enough based on feel, so what was the—
Elzar’s left elbow had slid over the armrest and was now touching her forearm as it rested on the edge of her chair. Avar stole a glance to the place where their arms now touched, and then flicked her eyes quickly towards his face, where she saw that his expression still hadn’t changed except for the barest ghost of a smile playing on the edges of his lips.
She looked back at her datapad, feeling both triumphant and a bit reckless. Elzar’s eyes hadn’t met hers, and she sensed that he was just a little bit proud that he hadn’t let himself get distracted. Avar was suddenly determined to change that.
She tossed a glance at Stellan to see if he had caught any of their subtle interactions. He sat across from them, leaning forward slightly on his forearms as they rested on the table, very intently writing his report and clearly unaware of whatever game Avar and Elzar were now playing. Perfect.
Avar slowly slid her right arm back, barely skirting Elzar’s elbow, before lifting her hand to the collar of her tunic. She fiddled idly with it for a moment as she slowly tilted her body sideways to rest her elbow right next to Elzar’s without touching him. She leaned her head on her hand, letting her hair cascade over her shoulder, when a delightfully irresistible idea occurred to her.
So as not to draw too much attention, Avar paused in her thoughtful pose for a minute or so. She stared at the datapad in her left hand with unseeing eyes, reminding herself to breathe normally and not giggle. When she felt a sufficient amount of time had passed, Avar shuffled the datapad from one hand to the other so that her left hand was free. She then slowly reached around behind her and gathered up her loose hair in one hand, sweeping it back over her left shoulder. She left her hand there for a moment, rolling a few strands of hair between her fingers, while slowly tilting her head to one side and stretching.
If Avar could get Elzar to so much as glance in her direction, he would see the delicate length of her neck, and that might be enough to break his concentration. So she gently nudged his elbow with hers, wondering if he, too, would think about pressing his lips to the soft skin under her jaw…
Elzar instead prodded her foot with his, a bit more forcefully than she had done earlier, and if Avar didn’t know him so well she might have been upset that what he was trying to convey translated roughly to “knock it off.” But Avar did know him well, and she knew that what he really meant was, “Stellan is watching.”
Avar’s eyes darted up more quickly than she intended, hoping she’d misunderstood the signal, but sure enough Stellan’s eyes were on her.
“You okay, Avar?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
Avar sighed and let the datapad fall into her lap perhaps more dramatically than normal. “I’m so done reading about Vectors,” she replied, attempting to cover the flush that was trying to work its way to the surface.
Stellan gave her a sympathetic nod. “I know. I’m glad to be done with that. Flight mechanics was not exactly my strength either,” he said with a short laugh.
Stellan returned to his work just as quickly as he had let himself to be distracted, and Avar returned her attention to the Padawan who was trying futilely to ignore her. Dropping her right arm to the armrest of her chair, she allowed her forearm to press up against Elzar’s and her hand to dangle limply over the edge.
She did, however, pick up her datapad and attempt to continue her reading. As much as she was enjoying this little game, deep down she knew that there was work to do. That’s the whole reason they were here, trying to keep each other on task until Avar had made it her mission to do otherwise.
But a smile tugged at the corners of Elzar’s mouth as he twitched his fingers to graze hers, and it was like he’d placed sparks in the palm of her hand. Encouraged, Avar slid her foot to where Elzar’s rested against the chair, and slowly wedged her toe between his ankle and the soft leather of the chair’s base. As she managed to knock his foot loose from its perch, Elzar gently grasped her hand with the very tips of his fingers.
Slowly—painfully slowly—Elzar began to skate his fingers over Avar’s palm, and Avar felt a gentle warmth begin to pool in her abdomen. She stilled her movements, focusing on the trickle of electricity that Elzar was unfairly generating with very little effort, and wondering if Elzar could sense what she was feeling. Part of her hoped that he could.
Avar inhaled as deeply as she dared, running through a micromeditation in her head in one last attempt to refocus herself on the task she had at hand, but Elzar allowed his foot to slide up her ankle and she knew she wasn’t going to get any more work done. She spared a glance at Elzar’s face.
Elzar’s eyes finally met hers, echoing her conspiratorial delight, and the warmth in her abdomen became an undeniable pressure in her chest. They shared a knowing smile.
Stellan huffed an annoyed breath. “Oh for void’s sake,” he mumbled as he stood. He circled around the table and passed directly behind them, saying emphatically, “I think that’s enough for one evening, I’m going to bed,” before moving towards the exit of the room. “You’re not that subtle,” he added over his shoulder as he left.
Avar and Elzar, now alone in the common area, fell into a fit of laughter.
Elzar took Avar’s hand and pulled her towards himself. Avar followed his lead, eventually settling herself in his lap before leaning down to kiss him. Predictably, Elzar broke the kiss to run his lips down her neck, nipping at the soft skin and pressing kisses as he went.
“I think this means I won,” Avar said with a contented sigh.
Elzar snorted. “You’re the one in my lap. Think that means I won.”
Avar smiled and shut him up with another kiss. She could allow him to be wrong for the moment.
Finally, with a less-than-subtle glint in her eye, Avar asked breathlessly, “My room or yours?”