Work Text:
It happened far too fast for Gilad Pellaeon to discern where the shots had come from. All he saw was the flash of green, and then Thrawn crumpling to the ground, doubled over and gasping with pain.
They were supposed to have been on vacation, just the two of them. The port was quiet and deep in the heart of Imperial Territory - there was no reason for them to have been disturbed, and yet…
“Gilad…” Thrawn wheezed as Pellaeon sank to his side, “we… need… to go.”
“We can’t go back to your shuttle,” Pellaeon said, checking Thrawn over for wounds. It wasn’t good - it looked like the blaster bolts had gone straight through his tunic, doing a fair amount of damage. Pellaeon bit back a scathing remark about battle armour - they were on vacation, after all - and continued his assessment of Thrawn’s injuries.
“Hrm,” Thrawn gruntled, letting out a soft hiss when Pellaeon peeled his tunic away from the burns. “Can’t… return to… the hotel.”
Pellaeon sighed - they also couldn’t stay in the open street, just waiting until whoever it was came back to finish the job - but that also likely meant that they would run into more trouble at the medical centers as well - Thrawn’s would-be assassin would be watching them carefully.
“We… might need… to steal… a ship,” Thrawn wheezed. “Seek… aid off world.”
Pellaeon let out an even longer sigh. “I might have an alternative.”
“How so?” Thrawn asked. They would need to move quickly, Pellaeon realized as he looked down at Thrawn’s pale skin.
“I… have a ship here,” Pellaeon admitted. “We can use that.”
“You… have a… private craft?”
“Yeah… listen it’s from a long time ago, and I need you to be cool about it.”
“I will… ‘be cool’… about anything… that is… not dying… in the streets.”
Somehow he wasn’t entirely convinced, but Pellaeon nodded anyway. “The spaceport isn’t far from here. I think we can make it.”
Thrawn nodded, taking a moment to collect himself. “Let… us… go.”
Pellaeon half-carried, half dragged Thrawn through the back alleys until they reached his ship. Thrawn did his best to stay conscious and lucid, but Pellaeon could tell it’s a fight he was losing.
“I’m going to go grab the emergency kit,” he said once he had maneuvered Thrawn on board. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hm…” Thrawn nodded slightly, sinking deeper into the plush bed in which Pellaeon had deposited him.
It was not lost on Pellaeon the reason his emergency kit was so well stocked on this ship - and in any other situation, it would have been funny. Right now, though…
The existence of Pellaeon’s “Pleasure Craft” - he refused to call it a sex yacht, even though that’s what it was - had never come up before in his relationship with Thrawn, and he hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about mentioning it. It wasn’t that he minded , per se - Thrawn was well aware of his history and his record - so much as he didn’t particularly want to hear Thrawn’s commentary on his sex life based on the way he had chosen to decorate the ship.
Pellaeon allowed himself a precious moment to collect himself - no inane comments about his carpet preferences were worth the cost of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s life - and headed back into the bedroom.
“Do you want stims first or bandages first?” Pellaeon asked, setting everything down on the side bed. “We’ll have to get you back to the Chimaera as soon as possible to see a real doctor, but I should be able to patch you up for now.”
“Bandages,” Thrawn replied, opening one eye. “But… we… need not… hurry back.”
Pellaeon gave him a flat look, waving the portable scanner over him. “According to this, one of your kidneys has melted , Thrawn. I’m not a doctor.”
“Hm,” Thrawn said, letting his eyes close again as he sank into the bed. “Then perhaps… you will… show me… around your… sex yacht… some other time.”