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Elzar opened the door to his private quarters with a datapad in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, finally ready to retire at damn near midnight. The sight that greeted him didn’t exactly surprise him, but he couldn’t say he’d expected it, either.
From the emotions he felt through their bond, he may have assumed Avar was studying a holovid, or analyzing some scientific data, or fixing the waist clasp on her Temple robes that always annoyed her. Instead, Elzar found Avar Kriss was sitting cross legged on his floor, one end of a bandage in her mouth and the roll slowly rotating around her chest with the help of the Force.
“Need some help?” Elzar asked as he closed the door. Avar huffed an indignant sigh. She caught the roll of bandages in the air with her hands and started unwrapping herself manually.
“No, I’ve got this,” she insisted. Elzar set his mug and datapad down at the side table next to the bed and crouched next to Avar. When she looked at him, he wasn’t quick enough to wipe the amused smile off his face. She rolled her eyes at him and gave him a playful shove. Elzar caught her hand, shifting to sit back on the floor and pull Avar between his legs. Avar relented, but not without a noise that was, Elzar had to admit, charmingly petulant.
When Avar had been grievously injured on Vixoseph, it’d been a true miracle there was enough bacta on board the Axiom to properly stabilize her. There hadn’t been enough to completely heal all of her injuries, however, and she’d taken to wearing a compression bandage that was partially woven with medisynth fibers to help facilitate healing and manage her pain. She was nearly back to her full strength now, judging by the fact that Avar had mostly managed to wrap it around her middle nearly completely by herself. Elzar suspected that going on the mission with Keeve and Lourna didn’t exactly help her body heal on time, but bringing that up to Avar was a recipe for disaster. They were supernaturally lucky they hadn’t lost Keeve or Lourna on that wild chase.
Stopping Avar Kriss’s momentum was like stopping planets from rotating around a star, and although Elzar had a penchant for believing in long shots, he was never going to bet against Avar.
He silently wrapped the bandage around Avar’s chest as he’d done plenty of times before. Under the thin fabric of her linen pants, he could see the pattern of the woven bandage on her right leg. Part of Elzar still expected the healing scars to erupt with blood, but with every day that passed, that horrible memory was a little farther away.
When he was done, Elzar kissed her bare shoulder to let Avar know he was finished. She smiled and squeezed his knee before shifting her weight forward to stand.
“Thank you,” she sighed as she slipped on a night tunic that looked suspiciously like his.
“Happy to help,” he hummed and leaned against his bed. He reached over for his datapad and mug, but Avar beat him to the latter. It was his turn to roll his eyes at her and she winked at him with a smugness more befitting of a hardwin victory than stealing someone’s tea.
“What are you reading?” Avar asked as she sat cross legged on the bed. Elzar half leaned against her knee as he opened the report he’d been looking at when he walked in.
“Notes from Keven Tarr. He’d mentioned he’d annotated Reath and Avon Starros’ report from Kashyyk, and I asked him to forward them to me,” he explained. Avar idly stroked his hair as she read over his shoulder and Elzar relaxed a little into the soft, familiar touch.
“Keven’s specialty is not in botany or biology,” Avar commented, shifting her hand to gently massage his scalp. Elzar hummed in appreciation, briefly letting his eyes close. He really wanted to read these notes from Keven, see if there was anything that stirred Elzar’s thoughts on the Blight, the Nihil’s “scientific” endeavors, the Blight, etcetera, but Avar’s fingers carding through his hair and the late hour made the idea of sleep extremely tempting.
“No, it’s not, but I’ve worked with Keven so long at this point, I hoped any thoughts he had would be enlightening to me,” he said. Elzar set the datapad back aside and started slowly pulling off the outer layers of his Temple robes. Whether or not he got the chance to sleep, there wasn’t any need to be wearing all the decorative, extremely stiff, layers anymore.
“Fair point. How’s it going so far?” Avar asked as she moved to stretch her legs across the bed. Elzar caught a glimpse of her diadem sitting on his work table, and the simplicity of her existing so familiarly in his space warmed his chest for a moment.
“It’s mostly been hard to digest his curiosity with Kashyyk from his formal notes and reflections on Reath and Avon’s findings,” he chuckled. Avar smiled.
“Mm. Sounds like him. I should try and stop by his office this week. I know he’s swamped, but–”
“But, you’re busy, like we all are,” Elzar said. When he’d checked his drawers, his suspicions of Avar wearing his sleep tunic were confirmed. He pulled on a thin robe and left it open over some cropped pants, then returned back to his bed. Avar kept the side closest to the door, whether in his chamber or hers,, so he half-rolled over her to take his spot closer to the wall.
“Yes, but–”
“Hm?” Elzar mused as he reached over her to grab his datapad. “Do you not have the same hours in the day we all do, Avar Kriss?” he teased. Okay, so he wouldn’t ever bet against Avar, but as her lifelong friend–and whatever else they were–he did reserve the right to tease her sometimes.
“You’re incorrigible,” she remarked while grinning. She drank the last of his tea, then turned to lie down next to Elzar still sitting upright. Avar curled up against his side and draped an arm over his legs. Elzar rested one hand in her hair and smoothed it back out of her face.
The silence that followed was as comfortable as it was familiar. Avar didn’t tell him to not stay up too late and Elzar didn’t comment on her bandaged arm lying across his body. They didn’t say any sweet goodnights, or promises to see each other in the morning, because, well, they didn’t need to. Even without the amplification of their bond from Vixoseph, Elzar never felt more himself than he did by Avar’s side.