Chapter Text
Eli woke up to a feather-light kiss.
He reached out and sleepily snagged his boyfriend with an arm around his neck. “Hey,” Eli said. “Where're you goin'?”
His boyfriend settled back on top of him, over the covers. He could hardly do otherwise with the choke hold Eli had him in.
“Was trying not to wake you.” he said. “I've got to go into work for a while.”
“At the hangar?” Eli asked. Ma hadn't called him-
“Nah, at the warehouse.”
Ah, his mysterious second job.
Eli sighed deeply and fluttered his still bleary eyes up at his boyfriend. “Nev...Do you have to go?” he asked.
Nevil laughed. “Yes.” He leaned down and kissed Eli again. “You're not making this easy.”
Eli smirked. “Good. Maybe I should go with you, find out what your mystery job is.”
Nevil chuckled, but he looked...sad.
“You ok?” Eli asked. He sat up a bit and unhooked his arm from around his neck. “Nevil?”
“I'm fine,” Nevil said. He kissed Eli's forehead. “Just gonna miss you that's all.”
Eli scoffed. “You make it sound like you're never coming back.”
“Just gonna be a long shift that's all,” Nevil said. “But... since you're awake... I've got twenty minutes before I need to leave...”
Eli grinned. “Well come here then sugar.”
He got another feather-light kiss almost an hour later when Nevil finally left, but this time he was too sleepy to do much beyond murmur “I love you.”
“...love you too kid.”
“What of you Eli Vanto?” Thrawn asked. “What brought you to service with the Empire?”
My boyfriend went to work one morning and never came back, I couldn't pay the rent on our place by myself and joined up a few months after being forced to move back in with my parents because they wouldn't stop with the 'I told you so's
Eli shook the thought free. He wasn't about to tell Thrawn all that.
“I just... wanted to get off planet, see the galaxy. Help people...” it sounded unconvincing even to him. But if Thrawn caught the untruth he didn't call Eli on it.
Eli almost sighed but then stopped himself. If he did Thrawn would ask why, and he'd have to think up another excuse.
They'd be to Coruscant tomorrow though, and then Thrawn would be off to who knew where, and Eli could go back to Myomar to finish his training.
“Eli.”
Eli groaned and buried his face in his pillow. He felt the lightest brush of fingers through his hair, and then a gentle shake of his shoulder.
“Go 'way Nev.” he groaned.
“You told me to wake you early today Eli Vanto.”
Confused about the full name he raised his head- and was nearly nose to nose with an alien blue face with glowing red eyes.
“Gah!” Eli yelped. He flopped onto his back as it all came back to him. He was at the Royal Academy on Coruscant, in the top bunk of his shared room, which was eye level with his Chiss bunk mate. Thrawn.
“I apologize for disturbing you Eli. You did ask to be woken up early.”
“It's fine.” Eli grumbled. “You jus' startled me is all. Thought you were someone else.”
“Yes,” Thrawn said. “Who is Nev?”
Eli groaned, and sat up. It was too early for this. “Later,” he said.
He got mostly dressed and then headed to their small refresher. This was why he'd asked Thrawn to wake him up early- he carefully peeled the bandages off his hands.
He'd split the knuckles on his left hand during the fight- despite his gloves- and he wanted to make sure they were healing and wrapped securely before class today.
Their quick stop at the infirmary the night before had largely involved the disgruntled doctor spritzing them with disinfectant. Eli had bandaged his own knuckles when they got back to the room. The doctor had only really bothered with Thrawn's cheeks, slapping bacta gel on them before thrusting the rest of the tube at Eli and kicking them out.
He made a fist and examined his knuckles, ignoring the pull on the injured skin.
“You're going to reopen them.” Thrawn protested from the doorway.
“It's fine.” Eli countered. He squeezed some bacta gel onto his hand and coated his knuckles in it. “I wanted to see my range of motion.” He'd be able to write at least. He wrapped the injuries carefully in a layer of gauze to keep the gel in place. He'd have to go gloveless today though.
“How are your other injuries?” Thrawn asked.
“Fine. Just some bumps and scrapes, nothing serious.” Eli said. He ached in a half dozen different places but he'd live.
“How're you?” he asked Thrawn.
“I am well.”
Eli examined him critically- he looked okay. Despite taking more hits than Eli had the worst injuries on Thrawn were the already scabbed over cuts on his cheeks. His face was still bruised and swollen too.
“Come sit.” Eli gestured to the toilet. “and we'll put some gel on your cheeks.”
“That is unnecessary.” Thrawn protested. “My wounds have healed over.”
“My knuckles will be good as new tomorrow, your cheeks are still bruised, and we have the whole tube of bacta. Come on, it'll help with the swelling.”
Thrawn relented and came to sit on the toilet.
“Shut your eyes.” Eli told him. “I don't wanna get gel in them.”
Once Thrawn shut his eyes Eli started carefully applying the gel- starting with the areas closest to Thrawn's eyes.
Thrawn let out a very soft sigh.
After a minute Eli explained. “Nev's an ex-boyfriend.”
Thrawn's eyes snapped open immediately and Eli almost clammed up under his gaze but...
“He broke up with me right before I went to the Academy actually. Well, I say 'broke up'...” Eli sighed. “He went in to his second job one morning and just, never came back.”
Thrawn's brow furrowed. “What?” he sounded as incredulous as Eli had been.
“Right? I thought he was fucking dead or hurt or something until 2 days later I get a message from a blank sender on my datapad that just says 'I'm sorry it wasn't going to work out. I'm leaving Lysatra.'”
“Blank sender?”
“You can buy one use messages that you can only track back to the seller, not the sender. He bought one at the port that morning after he 'went to work' and put a delay on it so I wouldn't get it until he was off world.”
Thrawn mulled that over while Eli finished coating his bruises- they looked better already. He turned to- carefully- rinse his fingers clean.
“He sounds phenomenally stupid.” Thrawn said softly. Eli turned back to Thrawn to find him still studying Eli intently. “To not see how lucky he was.”
Eli flushed. That was really sweet.
“Thanks.” he managed. It was also- was Thrawn flirting with him on purpose?
Before he could bring himself to ask their alarm went off in the bedroom. Eli went to switch the alarm off, and then started carefully pulling on his jacket.
“Time to go.” he said.
Thrawn exited the refresher. “Indeed.”
They didn't talk again about Nevil or what Thrawn was doing that day in the refresher the rest of that time at the Academy. They were both busy and even when Eli thought he should bring it up he'd remind himself that they were only here for a few more months.
Then he'd probably never see Thrawn again.