Chapter Text
The door slammed harder than Vel meant it to.
Dust scattered across the floor like a sigh. The heat hadn't broken with the sunset, it hung in the thick air of the hideout, a dry, metallic closeness that made her jacket cling to her shoulders. She yanked it off, winced, and tossed it over the nearest crate.
“Stupid,” she muttered. “Stupid, reckless—”
Behind her, the door creaked again. Cinta stepped inside. Quiet. Always quiet.
Vel didn’t turn.
Outside, the sky had faded to a dark blue, stars beginning to burn through the dusk. Inside, there was the hum of a single overhead light, the faint crackle of a field transmitter no one was using, and the sound of Vel’s uneven breathing.
She spun. “You could’ve said something back there.”
Cinta didn’t answer for a moment. She was peeling off her gloves, fingers stained with carbon soot and dried blood. She laid them carefully on the crate beside Vel’s jacket. “You knew the flank wasn’t secure.”
“I told Taro to hold it,” Vel snapped.
“He was dead,” Cinta said, flat.
Vel blinked.
“You gave him the order ten seconds before a blaster hit his throat.”
That landed. Sharp, precise. Just like Cinta’s hands.
Vel sank onto the crate, hissing as her thigh gave a bolt of pain up through her hip. She reached to check the damage but couldn’t quite twist enough to see.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“I was covering the exit.”
“Oh, well, thank you,” Vel shot back. “I’ll be sure to list your priorities when I write up the loss report.”
Cinta crossed to her, slow, movements exact. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding,” she repeated, crouching.
Cinta reached toward her leg. Vel slapped her hand away. “I said I’m fine.”
Their eyes met. Close now. Only inches between them.
Vel’s voice dropped. “You think you’re the only one who knows what they’re doing?”
“I think,” Cinta said evenly, “you like people watching you do it.”
Vel’s mouth tightened. The air between them went still. The only movement was the whisper of wind through the cracked window, carrying desert ash and silence in equal measure.
She didn’t move. Neither did Cinta.
Then: “Sit back,” Cinta said.
Vel, still glaring, obeyed.
Cinta reached for the medkit. Her hands were clean again. Somehow. Vel didn’t see her wash them, but she could smell the alcohol, sharp and cold, as the medic knelt before her with the practiced stillness of someone who had done this too many times to flinch anymore.
“Lift your leg,” Cinta said.
Vel did, grudgingly. She felt the fabric peel away, stiff with drying blood. A long gash had opened along the outer thigh, grazing from a glancing shot, probably. It wasn’t bad. It looked worse than it felt.
Still, Vel hissed when Cinta pressed the cloth to it.
“Sorry,” Cinta said, flatly.
“You don’t sound it.”
Cinta didn’t answer. Vel watched her work, trying to find something in her face—concern, annoyance, anything. But Cinta’s expression was that same unreadable calm. Eyes sharp. Jaw set.
“Do you ever talk?”
Cinta didn’t look up.
“I mean, properly talk. Not the field reports. Not the clipped orders. Just… to people.”
Another pause. Cinta dipped the cloth again, ringed it in antiseptic, pressed harder.
Vel gritted her teeth. “Seriously. What’s your deal? Are you like this with everyone, or is it just me?”
“That depends,” Cinta said.
“On?”
“Whether they ask as many useless questions as you do.”
Vel scoffed. “So I’m a nuisance now?”
“You’re loud,” Cinta said. “You talk to fill space.”
Vel blinked. “That’s—”
“You want people to like you. It’s dangerous.”
There it was. Cold. Not cruel, not untrue. Just stated, like a weather report: the sky is clear. The air is dry. You talk too much.
“And you?” she snapped. “You think if you never say anything, nothing can be used against you?”
Cinta finally looked at her. Eyes dark. Focused. “No,” she said. “I think if I waste time pretending we’re friends, people die faster.”
Vel didn’t have a comeback for that.
The silence that followed was longer than the rest.
Then Cinta’s hand brushed her skin—accidental, probably, but real—and Vel felt something curl in her stomach. Not anger. Not pain.
She looked down. Cinta’s fingers had stilled against the edge of her leg. She hadn’t moved.
Their eyes met again.
Vel opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Cinta pulled her hand away and reached for the field wrap. It was tight, precise, almost painfully so.
“You’ll bruise,” Cinta murmured, still not quite looking at her. “But you’ll keep the leg.”
“Great,” Vel muttered. “One win for today.”
Cinta stood. The moment between them, the closeness, the friction, it closed like a trapdoor. Vel pushed herself up too fast, hissed, and staggered.
She caught the edge of the crate with one hand, but the sharpness in her side doubled her over. Her vision went white for a second.
Then there were arms, sudden and firm, steadying her.
Cinta’s hands, one under her ribs, the other at her back, held her upright. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t flinch.
Vel exhaled shakily, eyes clenched shut. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t act like you care.”
“I do,” Cinta said, automatic.
Vel opened her eyes. Cinta was close, too close, and now that they were eye level, there was nowhere to hide. Vel searched her face for the mask, but it wasn’t there. Something else was. Not softness. Just… a crack in the glass.
“Bullshit,” Vel said quietly.
Cinta’s hands tensed slightly at her back. Vel waited, but Cinta didn’t move. Her breath was warm against Vel’s cheek. Their bodies were still too close, pressed together by accident and inertia, and neither of them seemed willing to pull away first.
Cinta looked at her. Looked through her. Then, finally, like pulling teeth: “I see you.”
Vel’s lips parted. Her chest felt tight.
The words she wanted to say felt too loud for the space between them, so she didn’t say anything at all.
Cinta let go first. She stepped back, her hands dropping to her sides with practiced control, like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just caught Vel’s weight, hadn’t held her like something worth keeping upright.
Vel straightened slowly, her breath still uneven. She didn’t look away. “Are you always like this?” she asked.
Cinta didn’t answer. Vel sat again, this time without wincing. She didn’t want to limp away, not now. Not with that… whatever that was still humming between them.
“Have you ever told anyone why you’re here?” she asked instead. “Why you fight?”
Cinta peeled back her sleeve, inspecting a graze on her forearm. “No.”
Vel tilted her head. “Why not?”
“Because no one asks.”
“I’m asking.”
For a second, it seemed like Cinta wouldn’t answer. “The Empire killed my family.”
Vel’s mouth opened. Closed.
Cinta didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to.
After a beat, she added, “I’m not just fighting for the idea of freedom. I’m fighting to make them pay.”
Vel looked down at her hands. “That’s… fair.”
Cinta finally looked at her. “Why are you here?”
Vel hesitated. “I want to help,” she said. “I want to matter. I want to—” she faltered. “I want to do something real. Not just watch from the sidelines like everyone else on Chandrila.”
Cinta’s head tilted slightly. “So it’s guilt.”
“It’s not guilt.”
“You’re rebelling against your family, not the Empire.”
Vel flushed. “You don’t know me.”
“I know the type.”
“And what type are you?” Vel shot back. “The martyr? The ice wall? You think shutting everything out makes you stronger?”
“I think caring too much gets you killed.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I don’t do convenient.”
They stared at each other again, and this time there was nothing measured about it.
Vel leaned forward. “You don’t have to say it, but you care.”
Cinta’s jaw worked.
“You could’ve let me fall,” Vel added. “You didn’t.”
“I needed the crate you were falling toward,” Cinta said, dry.
Vel almost laughed. Almost. But then, quiet again, aching: “Would you ever let anyone in?”
Cinta said nothing.
The silence between them stretched until it became unbearable.
Cinta stood with her arms folded, weight shifted to one hip, eyes locked on Vel. But not soft. Never soft. She looked like she was waiting for something. A signal. A collapse.
Vel's hands curled into fists in her lap. “You keep acting like this dance between us means nothing to you. That I mean nothing.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Another beat passed. The air in the room felt like dry heat from a blaster coil—ready to fire, waiting for someone to pull the trigger.
Then Cinta stepped forward.
Vel stood, and they were too close again. Close in a way that made it impossible not to feel the tension vibrating between them, like a cord pulled to the point of breaking.
Vel whispered, “Just say it. Say it doesn’t matter. Say you don’t think about it. About me.”
Cinta didn’t move.
Vel’s voice dropped further. “Say it.”
Cinta’s eyes darkened, flicking over her face, to her mouth, and back. She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Then she kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. It was desperate and angry and full of everything neither of them could name.
Vel gasped into it. Her hands reached up, grabbing the front of Cinta’s shirt, pulling her closer like she was afraid she’d vanish. Cinta’s fingers dug into her hips, grounding her, claiming her.
The kiss deepened. Vel backed into the crate. Cinta followed, pinning her there. Not rough, but solid. Real.
There was no room for thought. Just mouths and hands and a thousand unsaid things pouring out through the press of lips, the breathless sounds, the way Vel tilted her head just slightly to follow Cinta’s rhythm. Like they’d been building to this for years.
When it finally broke, it wasn’t gradual. Cinta stepped back like a door slamming shut. Her breath was quick, her lips were red.
Vel stayed where she was, dazed, chest rising and falling fast.
Cinta didn’t look away. “This changes nothing,” she said.
Vel flinched like she’d been slapped.
And just like that, Cinta turned and walked out into the dark.
The only sound left was the whisper of sand slipping under the door.