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Shin could tell that Sabine wasn’t asleep yet. Her breathing was still slightly ragged, and her movements under the blanket were slow and considered, taking care to not jostle Shin or startle her away. But Sabine lay there peacefully with her eyes closed, and so Shin took the opportunity. She looked.
She ran her eyes over the contours of Sabine’s face, examining the worry lines and tension that were present even at rest. She gazed at Sabine’s eyelashes and the shadows they cast, dancing every now and then in time with flickering eyes. She explored the dark mulberry of Sabine’s feathery hair, resisting the urge to reach out and run her fingers through it, and instead seeking the splashes of fiery red-pink Sabine had put there the instant she had proper access to dye again. Shin admired her own artistic handywork, too: the deepening charcoal bite she’d made just below Sabine’s jaw.
…there’d never been anyone Shin wanted to just stare at like this. She’d never get enough.
It was a rare moment of peace. In the month they’d been with the fleet, there’d been precious few times and places to be completely alone. This tiny cabin had been allocated to Commander Wren just last week. But even with this place, the duties and schedules of a commander and a squadron pilot didn’t exactly mesh.
(Shin wasn’t meant to be in here. She wasn’t even meant to be in this section of Home One. But neither of them much cared for the rules and regulations of the fleet.)
Sabine let out a small sigh and shifted under her, circling her arms tighter around Shin’s waist. “You should sleep,” she murmured, barely audible. “Take the chance when you can.”
“Phoenix Squad is on standby,” Shin murmured back. “And I sleep perfectly fine in the squad-room now.”
(She didn’t. But she’d learned to force herself to sleep in there anyway, even with the unacceptably close proximity of so many strangers.)
A swift grin appeared on Sabine’s face. Shin took the warning and averted her gaze, lest she be caught staring. One hand moved from Shin’s waist to graze her shoulder, to cup her chin.
“On stand-by,” Sabine repeated. “You’re so diligent, Phoenix Four.”
Shin did not respond to this, though she buried the flicker of annoyance that flared at the words. Shin was perfectly capable of playing the role of fleet soldier- she was perfectly capable of playing many roles. She frowned and tugged free of the hand grasping her chin, and curled back into Sabine’s side.
“You certainly pick and choose your moments, though. Look at you, consorting with an officer,” Sabine went on, teasing.
Shin shot her a glare through narrowed eyes. “I’ll leave then, Commander Wren,” she growled, pulling out of the encircling arms and sliding away.
“Oh, don’t,” Sabine said with a laugh, reaching out and wrapping herself around Shin in a tight grasp. “You’re so grouchy. Anyway, it’s not like people don’t know where you are.”
This, annoyingly, was true. Everyone seemed to know everything here on Home One. They all knew way too much about Sabine, and now about Shin too. Some people even openly referred to her as Commander Wren’s pet or General Syndulla’s project.
(No-one was brave enough to call her sith; this was only said behind closed doors.)
“Stay,” Sabine cajoled, when Shin tried to tug away again. “Please? I just need- just give me a bit more rest.”
“Rest? Is that what you call it?”
“Yes. Rest,” Sabine said again.
Shin stilled. She let Sabine curl tighter around her; let Sabine nuzzle into her shoulder. Didn’t wriggle away at the feather-light kisses pressed into the crook of her neck. Fall asleep, then, she silently willed. Fall asleep, so I can-
So she could look, freely, once more. Shin didn’t need sleep. She just wanted to look.
"I'm sorry," Sabine said abruptly.
"For?" Shin asked.
Sabine took a few moments to respond. "For whatever you're mad at me about."
"Who says I'm mad?" she said crossly.
A sly grin, and then, gently, softly, a tugging at the back of Shin's mind; the slightest graze of force energy reaching out to touch her own. "This does," Sabine replied. "I haven't forgotten everything I've learned, Shin. I can feel your annoyance."
"And you assume it's directed at you?" Shin said. How self-centered. How accurate.
"Tell me how to repent," Sabine continued, seemingly uninterested in refuting this.
"Just go to sleep," Shin said with a sigh. "It's fine. Everything's fine."
(Everything was not fine. They were on a ship with a thousand strangers, all of whom stared at Shin intently wherever she went. Eyes, eyes, always. Examining, judging, questioning. It wasn’t fair to blame this on Sabine- but logic had gotten fuzzy these days.)
Sabine stared at her now, quizzical, deep in thought. Shin wilted under the scrutiny, under the intensity. Sabine’s eyes were too strong; she saw too much. Shin averted her gaze, and didn’t speak- and eventually, Sabine sighed and her eyes fluttered closed.
Shin relaxed, just a fraction. If only she could be sure those eyes wouldn’t open again, not until she’d gotten her fix-
A thought, an image, flickered across her mind. “Would you wear a blindfold?” she blurted out, words escaping before she’d even thought about them.
Sabine tensed under her, and Shin froze. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Sabine opened one eye. “A blindfold- really? Why?”
Shin felt her cheeks flush pink and wanted to erase everything she had ever said. Where had that thought even come from?! “Just…cause,” she stuttered.
“Do you want to tie me up as well?” Sabine teased.
…that was enough. Shin pulled away and tried to escape, reaching the side of the bed swiftly and shoving aside the blankets.
“I didn’t say no,” Sabine quickly said, grabbing her arm. She sat up as well, slid over and wrapped her arms around Shin’s waist from behind. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease. I was just kidding, okay?”
Shin twisted in her grasp, and a small part of her relished the way those arms tightened and held her firmer the more she tried to pull away.
“You can blindfold me. I know why you want to,” Sabine said, all in a rush, her words muffled and spoken into Shin’s back. “I know, Shin.”
(She knew? Shin wasn’t even sure she knew herself. Not fully.)
“You could tie me up,” Sabine added, a note of amusement sneaking back into her voice. “Stop me from touching you. But touch isn’t the problem, is it? You don’t want to be seen.”
The little bubble of darkness, of shame, that’d been simmering in Shin’s stomach flared. She tensed. “It was a stupid idea,” she muttered. “Forget it.”
A pause. “It wasn’t. It’s a great idea. Do you have a blindfold?”
Shin frowned. She hadn’t exactly come prepared- not for an idea she didn’t even know had been lurking in the back of her mind. What to use as a blindfold…? Options flittered through her brain, and some of the tension left her as she considered the possibilities. As she planned.
(A strip of fabric? What kind? How to secure it? How to ensure it wouldn’t slip down…?)
Sabine took her chance and tugged Shin back down into the nest of blankets, breathing a heavy sigh and curling into Shin’s chest. “Good,” she said, reaching out to caress Shin’s face, to touch her bottom lip. “Much better.”
“I don’t have a blindfold,” Shin said. “I don’t know how to-”
“I’ll get one,” Sabine said, and there was that light tone again, concealing a laugh. “Leave it to me. And next time you’ve been really, really good…”
A flutter in Shin’s stomach. A spark across her skin.
“For now, though, I’m going to sleep,” Sabine continued. She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Shin’s cheek, then settled back down and closed her eyes. “You should, too. Though I know you won’t.”
She wouldn’t. She took a deep breath and willed herself to relax under Sabine’s weight; she pulled the blankets tighter around them, and pushed some of the tension away.
Shin drank in the sight of her, imagined her lying there with a strip of dark fabric concealing her eyes, keeping Shin safe from her gaze- and the flutter swirled in her stomach again.
She would look, and look, and look, and it would never be enough.