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“No hints,” Thrass said, pointing a stern finger at Thrawn. “Not yet.”
“No hints,” Thrawn promised as he leaned over Thrass’s shoulder, peering at the screen of the questis to monitor Thrass’s progress through the puzzle.
Thrass, doing his best to ignore the drumming of Thrawn’s fingers on the cushion of the acceleration couch, scanned the grid once again with his eyes, performing with concentrated effort the mental calculations that came so easily to Thrawn.
“If I have two dots in this row already, it means nothing’ll go in that square here,” he said to himself, his finger tapping the screen tentatively. “Wait, no. That can’t be right.” He undid the move. “I need another dot over here.” More confidently this time, he tapped the screen, completing another row. “Aha!"
“Exactly,” Thrawn said approvingly, still drumming his fingers as the hint of a smile crossed his face. “Nice work.”
He leaned in and rested his chin on Thrass’s shoulder, closing his eyes briefly as he settled. Thrass was used to this now, but the first time Thrawn had reached for him, attempting the kind of casual affection usually reserved for those related by blood, he’d misunderstood completely; he’d jerked backwards, assuming Thrawn was trying to move him out of the way, then apologized profusely when he saw the look of hurt panic on Thrawn’s face, assuring him that no, he hadn’t done anything wrong and yes, they could try it again. Thrawn might still be awkward, but there was nothing forced about him anymore—not with Thrass, at least.
“So if that’s filled in…” Thrass counted the remaining squares. “Then that means I need a dot here, and then…another one here.” He tapped the screen triumphantly. “And that completes the grid,” he said, pleased with himself, and he handed the questis to Thrawn.
“Very good,” Thrawn said, refreshing the screen, and a new grid appeared. “You’ve improved considerably since last week. You’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”
Thrass rolled his eyes and gave Thrawn a gentle shove. He knew why lots of people found Thrawn condescending and difficult to work with, and he’d certainly had his moments of frustration. It was easy to assume that Thrawn got a certain twisted satisfaction out of being the smartest person in the room and that he relished pointing out what no one else saw, but after spending just one snowy afternoon with him in a board game cafe on Csilla, Thrass understood that everyone had it backward. Thrawn hated it, wanting nothing more than the effortless understanding everyone else seemed to have for each other.
It was obvious to Thrawn and no one else that he didn’t have access to secret information; he worked with the same data as everyone else. The patterns he saw were there for anyone to find—so long as they bothered to look. And once Thrass bothered enough to look, he saw it: Thrawn was lonely. Beneath that composed, rehearsed exterior was someone who desperately longed to be understood and whose every attempt to connect was thrown back in his face as proof of his unbelonging.
Once he understood this fundamental truth about Thrawn, Thrass stopped insisting that his brother see the world the way everyone else did, carving out instead a sacred space in which he made an effort to see what Thrawn saw.
“So,” Thrass said, focusing his attention on the new grid. “If we have this dot here, that means we need these two to go over here.” Thrawn tapped the screen approvingly.
Sitting close together on the acceleration couch, Thrass felt a warmth radiating off of Thrawn, who looked more relaxed—more himself—than Thrass could ever recall seeing him. They might be entering their third hour of this game, but right now, if Thrawn was happy, then Thrass was happy, too.