Work Text:
"Here," Bridger says, flourishing a frothy pastel pile of lace and ribbons, "With all the refugees we're a little short on spare clothing, but I found you something else to wear. Don't want someone to see your ISB uniform and shoot you by accident once we get to the new base."
Kallus forbears from pointing out that there are no shortage of people on the Ghost and at Alliance High Command who would shoot him on purpose, uniform or no uniform. He wonders where Bridger managed to find the dress. Even crumpled in Bridger's hands, he can see at a glance that there's no way it will fit him, not unless he takes off the sleeves and opens the back. There's probably enough ribbons to lace it loosely closed after that. He's never had the figure to wear a dress without alterations; he used to appreciate the challenge.
"Fine," he says. "But I'll need a sewing kit."
"You—what?" says Bridger, blinking at him. Whatever response he expected, it clearly wasn't that.
"I've got you covered," Wren puts in. "Come with me."
Kallus follows her back into the crew quarters of the Ghost, stopping outside her room. It seems presumptuous to intrude, which doesn't keep him from reflexively scanning his eyes over every scrap of mural visible from the doorway. He's no Thrawn, but that doesn't mean he can't interpret intent from a crossed-out stormtrooper helmet, and—a portrait of Cad Bane? When did Wren even meet Cad Bane? He makes a note to look into it later.
"Here you go," she says, emerging from beneath her bunk with a tangle of needles and brightly colored threads. She hesitates a moment before handing it to him. "I went through the Imperial Academy system too, you know. Whatever hazing you faced there—this won't be as bad as that. Ezra's just having a bit of fun."
Kallus snorts. There are still scars on his back from when Bridger pushed him through a plate glass monitor board, though they're barely noticeable beneath the newer marks left by Thrawn and Pryce. "I am very familiar with Bridger's sense of fun."
Wren rolls her eyes at that. "Not as familiar as you will be. I'm going back to Krownest," she adds. "You can use my room for the trip to Yavin IV, if you want. Ezra's not wrong that someone might react badly to your uniform. Don't open any drawers. And stay out of my bed."
"I don't know what to say," he says after a moment. It's a generous offer on a ship that has people curled up in every inch of hold and hall. He doesn't deserve it.
"Try 'thank you,'" she suggests, and gestures him in as she slips out through the door.
"Thank you," he says, but Wren is already halfway down the corridor. She doesn't turn back.
Kallus sits at the table beneath the bunk, shakes out the dress, and studies it. It's cheaply made, which makes his work easier; the stitches are large and easy to rip out. It will be short on him, but not scandalously so. It is nothing at all like the sleek, elegant styles Alexsandr used to wear to certain specialized clubs in his first years as a student on Coruscant. That was before the Clone Wars began, when life at the academy was still an endless round of nights partying and mornings struggling to put back enough caf to simulate alertness in class. It's been years since he thought of those days, of the time before he began the deadly serious work of learning to fight a war.
It hadn't been the Imperial Academy when he attended it, of course. He supposes it shouldn't surprise him that Wren hasn't worked that out; she's never known anything except the Empire, and everyone older than her is simply Old.
The idea of a whole generation growing up never knowing the chaos of the Republic used to please him. He still remembers clearly the moment of shock when Yularen had stood up at the head of their classroom and said, "I'm your new instructor. I'm here to teach you how to really fight." He'd been determined ever since to build a galaxy of stability and order, a future where no one would feel that vertigo of having their illusions of safety ripped away.
The Kallus who worked for that future would have thrown the dress back in Bridger's face. The thought makes him grimace.
For almost twenty years, he's accepted the loss of Alexsandr, of his bright nails and carefree smiles and loose hair, as the price he paid for a stronger, more harmonious galaxy. Others have paid much higher prices. He's told himself it would be disloyal to resent it.
What he resents now is feeling the tiniest scrap of gratitude toward Bridger.
"He could have found a better dress," Kallus—Alexsandr—mutters to himself. And then he threads a needle and sets to work.
When he walks out of the Ghost into the steamy heat of Yavin IV, it's with head held high. He's opened the back of the dress into a deep V to accommodate the width of his chest and laced it back and forth with the pink ribbons that once dripped in loops from the hem. They don't do much to cover his cuts and bruises, but he's hardly the only walking wounded here, and he intends to wear those particular marks with pride. Other ribbons have been repurposed as bias tape to cover the shoulder seams where he removed the sleeves. He's pulled the lace from the hem as well, moving it up to the bodice to rim the neckline and give the impression of a fuller chest.
He's not under the illusion that he's going to enrapture anyone. Jewel tones have always suited him best, and a skirt with more flare would better balance his broad shoulders. Also, the only footwear he has is his uniform boots.
But Bridger's jaw literally drops open on seeing him, and that's enough to make his lips twist in a satisfied smile.
"Kallus? I've explained your situation to High Command. Do you need help finding your way around?" Captain Syndulla asks, without looking up from the underside of the Ghost. Whatever she's doing has smeared grease across one lekku and put an undertone of deep frustration in her voice.
"I'll manage," he says, and strides away before Bridger rediscovers the power of speech. As he walks further from the Ghost, his pace slows, the smaller, lighter steps that set the hem of the dress swinging coming back to him. He wonders if he could still manage heels. He pictures Bridger's expression at that, and his smile deepens.
Most of the base is, frankly, too exhausted to even give him a second look; if Bridger meant this to embarrass him, there are several levels on which he didn't think things through. Alexsandr is fine with that. What he wants, right now, in addition to better shoes and the downfall of the Empire that swallowed seventeen years of his life, is a room of his own, somewhere he can close the door and stare at a blank wall in perfect, blessed silence until all his thoughts are in order and he can go to Alliance High Command with a plan for how everything he knows and every skill he's learned can be contributed to their cause. Somewhere on this base is someone who can give him that.
He doesn't find that person, or rather, Garazeb finds him first.
"Kallus?" Garazeb asks.
Somewhere deep inside, Alexsandr flinches. It's easy to tell himself he doesn't care what anyone on Yavin IV thinks about him, that the clothes he wears are the least of the things for which they'll judge him. But the confusion in Garazeb's voice reminds him that there is one person whose opinion he does value, in ways he's never allowed himself to examine closely.
"Hello, Garazeb," he says, dry as dust. "Bridger found me something to wear."
Garazeb scratches behind one ear. "Boy has taste."
Kallus blinks once. That's not sarcasm; there is genuine approval in Garazeb's tone. Something in him warms to hear it, even as he dismisses the comment. "I believe he meant it to be humiliating."
"Why?"
"They're women's clothes, Garazeb. And Bridger is not a boy with a cosmopolitan palate."
"Never seen Hera or Sabine wearing anything like that," Garazeb says with a shrug, and Alexsandr's skin heats as the lasat continues to study him. "It looks good on you."
If he blushes in this, it is going to be entirely too noticeable against the pale pastels. Why is he reacting like a schoolboy?
Because, Alexsandr thinks, that's who you are. Who you were, before the Clone Wars and the Empire took everything away. And maybe, on some level, you never had a chance to learn who you could be beyond that.
Is he going to have to grow up all over again? The thought is exhausting, on an already exhausting day.
He can at least do better than Bridger and his awkward, too-obvious yet unspoken crush on Wren.
"Thank you," he tells Garazeb, tossing his head slightly to flick the strands of humidity-curled hair out of his eyes, "but trust me, this is far from me at my best." He was good at flirting in his youth. He'll figure it out again. "And by the way? It's Alexsandr."
"What?"
"My name," Alexsandr says patiently. "My first name."
"Oh." Garazeb smiles at him. "Alexsandr," he says, rolling it around in his mouth. "That suits you, too."