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Eli had never been so happy to see water in his life.
They had been wandering the ruins for what felt like days - Thrawn insisted they weren’t lost, confident that he knew exactly where they were, but Eli was fairly sure they had passed that particular toppled column three times already. Thrawn had been describing the various pictographs etched into the stone - curiously, they appeared to be Lysatran - but the droning of Thrawn’s voice combined with the heat had resulted in a pounding headache. Eli was ready to collapse when he caught the glint of sun off water - real water, not another wavering heat-mirage. He had struggled more than Thrawn had on this outing, which was odd - the Chiss seemed to be taking the heat of the desert in complete stride, uniform unrumpled and not a hair out of place, while Eli himself had been sweating heavily and could barely keep himself on his feet from exhaustion.
He rushed to the water, dropping down onto his knees on the sand at the water’s edge; he tore his heavy tunic off and dunked his head down into the liquid. Blessed coolness spread over him, the sensation better than anything he could remember experiencing in a long time. When the need for air overpowered his need to remain submerged, Eli pulled himself out, groaning in satisfaction. “Sorry Thrawn, but I don’t think I’m gonna..”
He trailed off, puzzled; there was a neatly folded pile of white clothing nearby, golden epaulets gleaming brightly atop the cloth, but there was no Chiss to be seen. “Thrawn?”
Eli looked around when the quiet splash of water droplets falling back into the pool pulled his attention back to the water, and he felt a blush spread across his cheeks as a very blue, very naked Thrawn rose from the water. He swallowed heavily as Thrawn approached, stopping over him and setting his hands on either side of Eli’s face. He drew Eli up into a long, lingering kiss; his long hair surrounded them in a cool, wet curtain that hid them from the heat of the sun and sand and the rest of the world until only they remained, and only that moment existed.
Eli had been wrong; this was a sensation better than anything he could remember experiencing in a long, long time.
The sun had set, leaving the sky painted with yellows and whites and long shadows thrown on the ground. A warm breeze blew in, but nothing like the dry, searing wind from earlier in the day. Eli lay on a familiar surface, firm but soft, and very blue.
“Thrawn,” he smiled; the Chiss purred beneath him. Eli could hear Thrawn speaking, his lips brushing against Eli’s neck and voice rumbling deep in his chest, but he couldn’t make out the words over the ping of a comm laying next to them on the sand.
“Eli,” Faro said. “Are you awake?”
Eli groaned and buried his face against Thrawn. “Yeah, Faro, I’m awake. What’s going on?”
“Eli, open your eyes.” Faro’s voice sounded odd, even for a comm transmission. She sounded hollow, like she was stuck in a barrel, some of her words muffled.
He lifted his head - or tried to. His neck no longer seemed to want to support the weight, so he sighed, and leaned back into Thrawn, who continued to purr contentedly. “They’re open, Faro, what do you want?
“Eli, come on, Darlin’. Wake up.”
Eli was confused; why did Faro sound like his mother? And why did she no longer sound like she was talking through wool? He felt Thrawn’s hand - warm and calloused - patting his cheek. That gave him pause. Thrawn had never been particularly warm; his hands were always cool and soft. Suddenly everything around him went a little hazy, blurring into a miasma of sensations rather than sights.
He opened his eyes, his mother’s face filling his vision. “Ma…?” he rasped, squinting as his mind tried to grasp what, exactly, was happening. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“Oh Eli, thank goodness. We were startin’ to think you’d never wake up, your fever was so high. You’ve been in and out for days now, muttering about the strangest things.” His mother sat on the edge of the bed, draping a cool cloth on his forehead.
“I’m fine, Ma,” Eli said, annoyed at being fussed over, but too weak to shoo her away. “What happened to me? Why am I here? Why aren’t I on the Chimaera? Where’s Thrawn?”
“Chimaera?” It was her turn to be confused, and she tilted her head as she gazed down at him. “Eli Vanto, what are you talking about? Chimaera's been dead for years.”
“Dead? No, the Chimaera is the Star Destroyer I serve on. You know that.”
His mother’s expression went from confused to worried, bringing out the careworn lines in her face into stark relief. “Darlin’,” she said, her tone gentle as she smoothed her hand over his hair. “Chimaera was the horse you had when you were little. When he passed you got Manticore. You don’t remember?”
The image of a lean brown gelding with a white star on his forehead filled his mind; so foreign, and yet so familiar to him. A horse? He could vaguely recall memories of riding out on the dusty range with his father, heading for some outpost or another. “But.. but Thrawn..? Where is he?”
“I don’t know who this Thrawn is, Eli, but you sure’ve been asking about him a lot.”
“He’s a Chiss, Ma, he’s my Commanding Officer, I’ve served under him for years. You and Pa met him at my graduation.”
“Eli.” Her voice went firm, brow furrowing. “Chiss ain’t nothing but stories. You work at the shipping company. You’ve never been part of the Navy. Now, I’m gonna call the doctor and have her come take a look at you. I’m worried that fever might have done something to your mind.” She rose and left the room, hollering down for his sister to bring the comm.
Eli felt his chest tightening. Was his memories of the last ten years just the hallucination of his heat-addled brain? How was that possible? He looked at his hand: there was the scar on the back from when a piece of shrapnel had sliced through it during a shootout with rebels. Thrawn had carefully bandaged himself while they waited for extraction. But that memory was becoming fuzzy now, replaced with one where he had caught the back of his hand on the interior of a piece of broken cabling while he was trying to fix the engine of one of shipping fleet’s freighters. All his memories of his time in the service were fading, slowly being replaced with other, less pleasant ones: discussions of tactics on the bridge became screaming matches with his father; playing cards with Hammerly and Pyrondi became counting out money to give to his spice-addled sister and her deadbeat husband. The quiet moments shared with Thrawn became moments with other men, some taken whole, others stitched together from a number of different encounters.
Eli sank back into his pillow, the case and sheets beneath him Chiss-blue, and felt tears gathering in his eyes. The life where he had been happy, where he had made a difference, where he had been appreciated and found love… It was all a lie. The reality was this - he was still stuck under the thumb of his parents, with no prospects, no friends, and no way out from the life that had been chosen for him. Eli remembered the feel of Thrawn’s lips on his - he recognized him now, as the Chiss he always imagined when his grandmother told him stories - and he closed his eyes, mourning a life and people that had never existed after all.
It would have been better if the fever had taken him, if overcoming it meant losing the other life and being stuck back in this one. He hadn’t thought that he could feel worse about his general existence, but having seen, having lived an alternative that he would never be able to make real..
Before falling ill, Eli had felt depressed, despondent, hopeless.
Now he didn’t feel anything at all.