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“Tech! Tech, where are you!”
A painful cough forced its way out of your hollow chest. You rubbed the heels of your hands into your stinging eyes. Lungs full of smoke, you could barely see through the haze surrounding what remained of the communications tower. The blast from the Imperial gunships had caused the outlook to collapse during your escape, separating you and Tech when the debris fell.
You weren’t supposed to be looking for him. He shouldn’t have been far away. You recalled him standing right next to you when everything went to hell. He was right by you when the durasteel and concrete rained on your heads.
The memory of his hand pushing against your back yielded a gut-wrenching knot in your stomach. Everything had happened so fast, the memories were like scattered puzzle pieces… yet you remembered his voice; the panicked cry of your name before he shoved you out from underneath a falling metal beam.
You coughed again, furiously wiping the tears from your eyes as you limped around the debris. Desperation clawed at your throat as you wailed his name, screaming it over the sound of gunships flying over your head.
They weren’t firing. They didn’t need to. With the Death Star entering the atmosphere, there was no use in wasting plasma. The Imperials fled the planet, leaving you alive and anguished as you scanned the rubble for any sign of white and red armor.
“Tech!” You screamed past the smoke in your throat. Past the blood on your tongue and lips. You screamed his name until your voice was nothing more than a dry rasp, bleeding iron into your throat.
You screamed and screamed until you collapsed on your knees, unable to stop the pained wail that broke past your lips. Rocking your head up to the sky, you let the tears stream down your cheeks. Wet streaks glistening down your face of blood and ash.
Then you heard it - the faintest, broken whisper of your name from underneath the rubble.
It ignited a fresh wave of fear within you, dousing you with enough adrenaline to get you back onto your feet. You followed the sound, shaky fingers pulling at the concrete until you caught sight of a pair of yellow goggles - cracked and broken, lying beside a bloody hand.
The cry that left your lips was nothing short of panic. You were trembling violently as you pried the rubble away, clawing at the concrete until your fingertips began to bleed. An angry, panicked cry pushed past your clenched teeth when you used all of your strength to lift a scalding sheet of metal off of Tech’s body. It burned your palms, blinding your vision with white stars even after you tossed it to the side.
Your knees became weak and you collapsed to the floor the moment you realized what you were staring at.
A durasteel beam stuck out of his side, pinning him to the ground. The armor had fractured around it, leaving splinters of plastoid around your feet. You couldn’t wrap your mind around the amount of blood. There was too much to feel relieved that you found him. There was so much that you couldn’t help but cry, even as his bleary eyes flickered towards yours, brimming with a sorrowful mix of sadness and unspoken apologies.
His glasses, you thought immediately, trembling fingers reaching out to pick them up from the ground. He can’t see without them. He can’t see me.
Every step towards him was like walking on glass. The blood rippled underneath your boot as you crouched next to him, gently placing the goggles over his head, adjusting them on his face.
“No, no, no,” you whimpered, hovering your hands over his face. You wanted to touch him but part of you felt as if anything would break him into little pieces. He was the thin sheet of ice beneath your feet, cracking with every slight movement, threatening to throw you into a deep, cold abyss.
He blinked, flickering his eyes across your face with a dip in his brows as if he was struggling to recall who you were. When the realization came, his face relaxed and the corner of his mouth twitched into a brief, short-lived smile.
He looked at you as if you were an angel - big eyes of wonder flickering from eye to eye, down the curve of your nose to your lips.
“Cyare.”
The word left his mouth in a breathless whisper of astonishment, relief. Love burned in his gaze just as strongly as the blood that stained your knees when you fell to the ground, taking his hand in your own.
“T-Tech, we have to get you out of here.” You reached for the durasteel beam but froze when his hand lifted with a groan, fingers wrapping around your wrist.
“It’s t-too late,” he groaned, eyes shutting in pain before fluttering back open. The amber glow in his eyes dulled with each blink. “R-Removing the b-beam will only cause more blood-”
Your broken sob cut him off. “I can’t just leave you here to die.”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t matter anymore, my love,” he whispered, eyes flickering up to the sky.
You followed his gaze, biting down on your tongue with enough strength to draw blood.
Of course. The Death Star. How could you possibly forget the reaper that was there to take you both? Where Tech saw you as an angel that came to take him to his peace, you saw the Death Star as your angel, waiting to drag you to the depths where you would be left without him. Alone and damned to grieve for the rest of eternity.
“I-I’m so sorry,” you stammered, shaking your head side to side as you took his bloody hand and kissed his palm. “I’m so sorry, Tech. This isn’t- I can’t-”
You bowed your head, pressing your forehead against his pauldron as a sob violently wracked through your chest.
“Don’t cry, cyare,” he muttered, moving his hand to palm your hair.
Gentle fingertips raked the blood-matted strands. Tech would do that every morning when you’d wake together - silently running his fingertips through your hair. Sometimes he’d get flustered, blushing deeply whenever you’d catch him in the act. Other times, he’d simply smile and begin peppering your face with kisses - nose, eyes, cheeks, and chin, just to get you to giggle in the early hours of the morning.
Now here he was, running his hand through your hair for the last time.
Tech gazed at you through the cracks in his goggles. Dreamy eyes met your own, trapped in a haze of bliss after being bled out. His breath hitched and he grimaced before relaxing with a sigh.
“Don’t cry,” he repeated softly. “It will be alright.”
No, no it wouldn’t, but you didn’t have the heart to tell him that. So you simply looked to the sky, letting the tears trickle from the corners of your eyes as you watched the Death Star beginning to glow red.
Pressing your lips together to stifle another stop, your broken gaze met Tech’s when he cupped your cheek. His thumb wiped away a falling tear, lips curling into a tired frown.
“You’re too beautiful to cry, mesh'la.”
You couldn’t help but duck your chin to your chest, eyes clenched shut to hide the fresh wave of tears caused by his voice. He sounded so tired, words slurring together like he barely had the strength to speak. You placed your hand atop his own, leaning into his palm.
Cold fingertips gently caressed your temple. You knew he couldn’t feel anything in them, even as you turned your head to press another kiss into his palm. Teary eyes met his and you managed a choked, forced laugh.
“I was going to ask you to marry me when we got back home.” The admission caused a look of surprise to drown away the painful adoration in his gaze. Sorrow burned in your chest but you forced yourself to speak, unable to withhold anything as the sky flashed red and the ground began to rumble.
“I figured you’d take a while and I was getting impatient,” you said with a grieving smile, pressing your forehead against the back of his hand. Your shoulders shook as you sobbed out a laugh. “Gods, I had your brothers involved and everything. You should’ve seen how excited Omega was when I told her.”
The violent rumble that echoed through the ground caused you to snap your head towards the horizon. A mushroom cloud rose into the atmosphere and you didn’t need to squint to see the monstrous cloud of fire and smoke washing over the land.
You turned when Tech exhaled shakily, facing the sky with misty eyes and a sad, sad smile on his lips.
“I had so many things planned,” you whispered brokenly, voice hitching as you began to cry again. “Can you believe I even had baby names picked out? I-I was so excited to have a life with you a-and now…”
You couldn’t help but stifle your sob behind your palm, clenching your eyes so tightly they began to hurt.
“I want nothing more than to have a future with you.” Another shaky press of your lips to his cold, cold fingers. “I love you, Tech. So much that it hurts. Please don’t leave me…”
Silence.
You didn’t want to look at him, even though you knew that he was no longer staring at you. Every fiber in your body begged you to keep your eyes closed, to pretend that he was still listening to you speak.
But you couldn’t stop your head from lifting, eyes flickering from the pale fingertips to his face.
Eyes staring at the sky, the corners of his lips were curled with the faintest trace of a smile. The color had left his cheeks, eyes lifeless yet lingering with the ghost of happiness - the last fleeting emotion that crossed his face when he heard you profess your love.
There was no soft rise and fall of his chest. No quirky arch of his brow. His lips didn’t part and mutter something sarcastic - no witty comment to get a rise out of you or a sly wink to make you blush.
His hand slipped from your own, falling limply to his side.
You blinked repeatedly, frozen in a state of pure disbelief before your chest began to rapidly rise and fall with short breaths. Your throat constricted, sending painful waves of grief throughout your body as you shakily rested your palms on his cuirass. Hunching over until your forehead leaned on the cold plastoid, you drew your eyes shut, lips parting to release an anguished wail from the pit of your chest.
The planet began to fracture. Your mourned cries bellowed into the sky even as the heat dried the planet’s oceans and overturned the landmasses. Grief burned in your chest hotter than the blistering heat that rolled over your skin. The shockwave of the blast threatened to rip you away from Tech but you kept a white-knuckled grip on the edges of his armor, refusing to let the galaxy take him from you again.
Flames licked your skin as you gently ran your fingertips through his hair. Leaning over his motionless body, you placed a delicate kiss against his cold lips, tears falling from your eyes onto his pale cheeks.
“Goodbye, my love,” you whispered to the ears that would not hear. You gently removed his goggles, draping your fingertips down his eyelids to shut them. Lowering your head, you placed your cheek against his chest and closed your eyes.
And as you were torn away from Tech for the second time, turning your body into dust, you heard the faintest whisper over the deafening roar of the dying planet.
Goodbye, cyare...
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