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The Chimera loomed against the void of space; massive, and hope crushing, and so so cold. Pieces of General Sato's carrier and Konstantine's Interdictor littered local space like an asteroid field of durasteel and corpses, creating a minefield between the Rebel's last attempt at blasting away to freedom and certain defeat.
A swarm of TIE fighters swept under the belly of the bestial ship and right past the tiny escape pod that jettisoned behind them.
Fulcrum sent his signal into the mayhem. Nothing happened. His breath huffed in and out too harshly against the maddening silence. The Chimera began to tilt towards him. Dread, and fear, and panic welled to the surface like blood in an open wound.
The sight of a familiar ship sent anxiety down deep in his gut and an ache up to his chest as it wheeled and dived through the laser fire and wreckage of their own ships towards him. They heard him.
The freighter tipped, exposing it's underside and the open hold. He span the tiny life pod towards the opening, doing his best with the shaky controls to keep it level and on a direct a course as possible.
The pod shuddered as the grav-clamps of the Ghost's cargo hold connected, jolting up Kallus' weary arms. He had only a moment to claw a deep breath in and out of his burning lungs before he lurched up out of the chair, right leg a painful dead weight for the second time. He managed to drag himself against one of the narrow walls and towards the hatch, reaching for the manual release with trembling hands.
He was met with bright ship's lights and a puff of metallic tasting recycled air. There was no Coruscanti grace or his usual dangerous poise to his movements; too shaken, too hard to breathe deeply. He hauled himself out of the pod and groped for the control panel.
Kallus tried to steady himself, fumbling for the grav-clamp controls. Panic threatened to smother what remained of his composure as his disobedient fingers caught the wrong buttons. Get it away, get it away, they'll follow the transponder signal, they'll find them, they'll find you!
He punched the release just as the stars began to drag and lengthen, and his knees hit the deck.
Get up, you bastard, the voice snarled inside his head, find the captain, the Jedi, the boy, the Mando girl, the droid that waited for you to react before rolling away, the clone from Seelos, Zeb...
Several curious pairs of eyes turned on Kallus and his battered state. His entrance hadn't been a subtle one. What attention his injuries didn't garner his only slightly ripped ISB uniform and scuffed armour did.
The frayed remains of his dignity were all that stamped his panic down until he was somewhere away from the rebel wounded. A medic kept looking over at him, back to her patient, and back at him and he wouldn't make a scene, however quietly he refused medical aid. He would refuse even a single drop of bacta until every real rebel's scrape and bruise had been treated first.
He used the control panel his clammy hands were too tense to have released to drag himself unsteadily up to his feet.
One rebel, a pilot judging by her ragged jumpsuit, lying prone and minus a leg went thankfully- horrifically- into shock and rightfully drew the medic's attention. He used the awful distraction of every rebel able to move clamouring to help to make his escape towards the ladder. The Empire would be proud. He felt sick again.
Kallus mounted the ladder and scrambled upwards as quick and nimbly as a man of his stature with a broken leg was able. He would always be eternally grateful for his upper body strength, so far it was the only thing that was yet to fail him.
His shoulders protested as he hauled himself the rest of the way up onto the upper deck, grasping the railing in a white knuckled grip. Sweat had soaked into the neck of his uniform and made the damaged flesh between his slippery shoulder blades itch.
He was met by the weary gazes of two of General Sato's bridge crew. Their sympathetic once overs turned Kallus' stomach and he leaned on the metal wall behind him as his legs grew too unsteady.
The sickening irony wasn't lost on him, he'd managed to kill - murder- more rebels while allied with them than he had with the ISB.
The door at the other end of the narrow hallway opened with a hiss and Kanan walked through with his shoulders curled inward, carrying the weight of the dead upon them.
"Kanan-" Kallus winced, his voice coming out too loud in the mournful silence of the ship. "Thank you, for taking me in."
One of Kanan's hands came up to rest on his shoulder and squeezed, gentle and reassuring. Kallus felt the choking heat of panic dampen and soothe at the Jedi's steady touch.
"Thank you. For risking everything." His voice was kindly vehement, and sincere. Kallus wanted to say something, anything, but his willpower was presently threadbare at best. So he poured everything into the force, or he hoped that was what he was doing. He stared into the carved in eyes of Kanan's mask and felt.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank all of you...And I am so sorry for everything...
The Jedi gave his shoulder one final squeeze that he felt somehow through his armour then departed through the opposite door.
Kanan weaved his way through the destitute throng of rebel forces, despair and pain hung heavy in the air like an entropic cloud that sapped all hope and happiness. He fought against the crushing weight but despite its heaviness there was hope in his heart; this had been a major blow, but a collapsing temple roof revealed the sky above it.
The rest of his ragtag family had dispersed; Hera was sat at the table nursing her forehead, her pale green lekku drooped over her shoulders, and Zeb leaned against the wall at her side, like a silent purple shadow.
"Kallus is in the hallway." He said in lieu of a greeting, leaning his shoulder against the doorway. "He might need patching up, I felt a lot of pain when he spoke to me." He felt his brow smooth from it's concerned frown when he turned towards Hera's force signature. "And I think he wanted to thank you, too."
The blind Jedi could picture her expression and he let himself smile at the memory of it, and along with the halting tug in the force of her conflicting emotions.
"I'm sorry, what?" Her hands dropped to the table top, and she twitched to flick a lekku back over her shoulder. "Kallus wants to thank me. Agent Kallus."
"You didn't leave him behind." Zeb said, he had been quiet since they picked up Kallus' fulcrum signal among the wreckage and mayhem of Thrawn's jackboot navy baring down on them a second time that day.
The Jedi quirked a brow under his mask, there was something going on there. Despite his gruff stoicism, their Lasat was surprisingly easy to read, sight or lack of non withstanding.
Zeb snorted, shaking the fatigue out of his limbs and pushed off the wall. He waited for Hera to heave her own exhausted body back to its feet before moving forward himself. Kanan was endlessly grateful to Lasan's matriarchal government, even when they first found Garazeb Orrelios the only one he hadn't been rude to had been Hera. He'd warmed to Sabine surprisingly quickly too, now the two of them were each others inseparable sibling.
Kanan tipped his head to the side then lead the way back towards where he had left the former imperial agent. It wasn't difficult to spot him in a crowd, the only person Kanan had ever met who stood taller then him was Zeb. But not at that moment.
Kallus had slumped further down the wall since Kanan had left, the durasteel wall seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright. Zeb couldn't suppress the wince that scrunched his hopeful expression like a discarded love letter at the sight of him.
Kallus' head rolled back up at the sound of approach and he blinked, startled and a little intimidated at the sight of them advancing on him together. He straightened as much as he was able, before catching himself at almost full height before ducking down again. Posture far less imposing and imperial.
Good, Hera thought with a dark feeling settling in her gut at the sight of him after everything, fulcrum or not. Let him squirm a bit.
The state of his face as they drew closer threw her off guard. He really was a mess.
His breathing was audibly unsteady, and there was something wild in his eyes as his uncertain gaze flickered from Hera, to Kanan, to Zeb behind them, then back to Hera again.
Kallus held himself awkwardly, simultaneously trying to stand to attention in front of Hera and make himself as small as possible. His arms crossed and uncrossed, then crossed again protectively over his chest, it looked suspiciously like he was holding his ribs in place.
"Cap-tain." The former Imperial's voice stuck in his raw throat and he swallowed a few times, heat creeping up his neck and his eyes dropped to his scuffed boots in embarrassment.
Zeb's ears flattened, he sounded like shit too. He hadn't seen the agent since Bahryn, he'd heard of Agent Kallus helping his family and the man's distorted but still clipped and proper accent through the scrambler as Fulcrum, but that had been it.
His lower lip was split and stained the deep red of human blood, along with the darkened smear of a bruise on his chin and along his bearded jaw. In fact, there was more of his face the wrong colour than the right one.
"What," Kallus said quietly, uncertain, his nervous gaze flicking back up to Hera's and holding. "Will happen now?"
Hera folded her arms over her chest and tipped her chin up to stare into his eyes.
"Spy for us or not, you're a war criminal, and I cant guarantee there wont be people wanting to drag you out to the jungle late at night even if you're given a trial. Rebel intel will want you whatever happens." She added, keeping her voice even.
Kallus paled, dread turning his blood to duracrete, but he nodded resolutely.
"If what information I have is obsolete, and my espionage talents are useless, or untrustworthy, I-I'll mop floors and clean engine parts if that all I'm good for. I-I-It wont fix- begin to fix or make amends for all that I've done in the name of the empire but...I want to help..."
He blinked, startled at himself, throat working as he swallowed a few more times.
Hera frowned, reaching up to the torn collar of his tunic, she refused to call the feeling heartbreak as the man who had tried to capture or kill her family for years shied away from her small hand. Slowly, she eased the ripped fabric away to reveal a series of tiny puncture wounds, needle sized. Her neck throbbed at the memory of Pryce and her beloved torture droid. He began to tremble.
"What can I do?" His voice came out as a croaking whisper.
"You want to help, now?" Hera's eyebrows shot up and she gave his battered body a disbelieving once over. "Right now?" He nodded fervently.
"If you'll permit me to, ma'am." Hera blinked, dumbfounded, then threw her hands up.
"Okay, stop! First of all, it's 'captain' from you, not ma'am. And second, are you even capable of getting from one end of this hallway to the other by yourself?"
"That does not matter, ma'am-captain. I'm still capable-"
Their back and forth of Hera's unerring common sense, and Kallus' crippling guilt was curbed before it could escalate by Zeb. Both of them jumped at the sound of his voice, Kanan being the only one who hadn't forgotten he was there.
"I'll take him."
Kallus stared at him, swaying where he stood. He chewed on his bloody lower lip anxiously, gaze flickering between Zeb's luminous green eyes. The Lasat's pronounced mouth twisted in a deep frown at the state of him. He knew the man wouldn't have been in a good way after being discovered by Thrawn, but in true rebel fashion, Zeb had hoped.
He winced at Kallus' nasty looking black eye, the same colour as the darkest of his stripes and horrifically wrong against his pale face.
"C'mon mate." He took half a step forward and held out his hand.
Kallus hobbled forward, his shaking had worked its way more ferociously through his body and Zeb could hear his blunt teeth clacking together. Zeb flexed his hand, arm hovering over Kallus' shoulders, not sure where was okay to touch that wouldn't send the injured man to his knees.
He needn't have worried, Kallus collapsed after those few halting steps.
Zeb caught him as he swayed into the wall, supporting him with an arm around Kallus' hard waist, hugging the human against his body reminiscent of their time stranded on Bahryn. Kallus doubled over with a bitten off groan, free hand flying up to clamp over Zeb's paw.
The Lasat peeled his hand away with a dawning look of horror as the coppery scent of blood filled the air around them. He revealed the pad of his hand to the florescent ship lights, stained the same dark red as Kallus' lips and sticky.
"You're bleeding!"
"I-It's nothing, I assure you." Kallus mumbled.
"Doesn't look like nothing." Zeb growled, ears flattening against his head and scowling at the dark splotch staining his colourless imperial uniform an even darker grey, as through he could intimidate the blood back inside Kallus' body and the wound to close neatly behind itself.
Zeb managed to half carry, half drag the now shaking ex-imperial to the crews quarters, he briefly considered carrying him like he had on the Geonosian moon, but such a position would have had Kallus whack his head on every doorway and low ceiling along the way and he already had a nauseating enough concussion. Slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of meiloorun fruit would have been an interesting option two, but scrubbing vomit out of his battle suit and back fur was something Zeb could do without.
Besides, crouching down to haul the human against his shoulder gave him a better view of Kallus' rather striking profile.
Huh. Zeb thought with a blink, Kallus had spots. He couldn't remember the human word in Basic he'd have to ask Hera, he'd get grief if he had to explain why he wanted to know the word to Kanan or the kids. Little brown spots, like painted on stars. And Kallus had a lot of them.
"Please, Garazeb, you need the medical supplies more than I do."
"Karabast Kallus, you've got a smashed up face, you're hopping like your legs busted again, and you're bleeding to death in a hallway." Zeb snapped. That shut him up.
Zeb keyed the door controls for his and Ezra's room, leaning a slowly slumping Kallus against his body with one thick arm. Kallus' breathing was laboured and now away from all other eyes he began to let his pain show. He still held what was left of his dignity and his calm façade tightly like an anxious child with their security blanket.
Zeb managed to maneuver Kallus through the narrow door and over to the bottom bunk and ease him down to sitting. His breath hitched, sounding far too much like a sob for Zeb's liking. His hand lingered on Kallus' shoulder before disappearing under his bunk, searching for the medkit.
"Who did this?" Zeb's voice was pitched low, dangerous. The look of righteous murderous conviction that burned from his bright green eyes when he glanced back up to Kallus' face chased away some of the chill that had seeped into his bones.
"Thrawn, Death troopers. Pryce wanted to have a go..." His groan was hushed, more a pained hiss of air through clenched teeth.
Zeb's deep growl had the fine hairs on the back of his sweaty neck standing on end. "We've got pain tabs."
"I'm barely holding on to my lucidity as it is, Garazeb, I'd like to keep it as long as possible." Zeb grumbled but conceded, Kallus knew what he could take, all evidence pointed to him taking that information and blasting it out the nearest airlock however.
He grunted dismissively, a word that might have been fine, ears laying flat back against his skull. Kriff the empire. His anger threatened to boil over like a geyser and he focused on popping the locks on the medical box, and breathing slowly. Although the mental image of clawing the Grand Admiral's smug blue face off was far too appealing to just let go.
Kallus drew a shuddering breath, head rolling to the side. It might have been the haze of multiple truth drugs, the concussion, or delirium of pain, or even perhaps a nauseating cocktail of all of the above but something impossibly fond softened his pained expression and he reached up to one of those angry ears and gave it a scratch. The fur there was velvety soft under his numb fingers.
Zeb blinked. One of his large purple ears betrayed his quickly dampening rage with an appreciative twitch.
His rough chuckle cut through Kallus' rapture and he dropped his arm, a dark blush spreading across the human's bruised cheekbones. Zeb turned away to rummage through the box of medical supplies to give Kallus a go at smothering his embarrassment. When he turned back, their resident fulcrum was glaring at the wall.
"Can ya get that armour off on your own?" He asked with a tip of his head, hands stilling.
Kallus brow furrowed with the effort, but he managed to flick the catches on his chest armour, and sent it clattering to the floor between his knees. A shaky sigh escaped past his bruised lips and he bent forwards at the waist, one hand coming up to wrap around his ribs.
"Head up, Kal." Kallus blinked twice. He was still reeling from the shorthand of his surname of all things to question the first touch of bacta on his forehead when it happened.
"I-I can do that myself." Kallus said quietly. His voice was questioning not confrontational.
"I know, but you don't hafta…" Zeb said as though it was the easiest thing in the world, rubbing the gel into the deep red welt on Kallus' forehead. It took only a few moments for the small cut he had received from a hard whack with a blaster rifles stock to stop stinging.
"All that effort went into making you hurt, seems fair that someone should put effort into putting you back together again." Zeb thumbed away the excess and leaned back, his large eyes flicking from each cut and bruise before tending to each one in his deemed order of severity.
"I'm not worth that..." Kallus whispered, distraught and horrified, staring at the floor. "Not from you."
"A lot's changed for me since we last met, and I'm guessin' you can say the same." Zeb's hands went still again but only for a single heartbeat. When he next spoke, his voice was the softest Kallus had ever heard it. "And I think you are. I think you are to me."
His sharp claws were capable of scoring through stormtrooper armour, and as Kallus was all too aware of, Lasat claws could rip through flesh easily. But the Lasat staring so intently at his face, brows drawn in concentration, was being so precise to keep them away.
Kallus sighed, the bacta took the bone deep ache away, replaced by not quite numbness but it certainly made it easier to advertise his new found emotional freedom.
A long breath huffed from the Lasat's nose as he settled back into a crouch and gave Kallus a critical once over. He'd have to deal with that bloody wound in his side first. He returned the tube of bacta to the medkit and reached up tentatively to loosen the former imperial's drab grey tunic, wincing at the smell of burning and blood as he peeled it back. He scraped his fangs over his lower lip and scooped up the half empty bottle of antiseptic fluid and a clean cloth.
Kallus eyed the bottle in Zeb's hand wearily and Zeb felt his ears and his heart droop in turn.
" 'm sorry about this, mate," he said as softly as his voice would allow, and poured antiseptic on the small square of cloth. "This is gonna sting a bit..." And you've been hurt bad enough, he kept behind his teeth.
He set the bottle down and reached up to ease the blood sticky undershirt up and away from Kallus' quivering stomach. Angry red lightning tracks spread across his skin in visceral trails from the gaping wound in his side, the edges burned from over exposure to electro baton charges. Stamped on the center of his abdomen was the perfect bruised relief of a death troopers boot tread.
Zeb shifted closer, leaning on his knees, and Kallus had one last breath to steel himself before the antiseptic drenched cloth was pressed firmly against his side.
Kallus shrieked. He screamed until he tasted blood. He screamed until Pryce laughed and stepped back. The death trooper circled around to his left and punched low. He screamed at the wet snapping of ribs that shortened his breath and coughed up blood. It splattered on the floor beneath where he was suspended by his wrists as bright as the searing red of the Chiss' seething gaze. The biting pinch of a needle forcing its way through the meat and muscle of his neck, I don't know where the other rebels are, I don't know!
Zeb's eyes were... Very green. Green and wide and full of worry. Kallus frowned, his unsteady gaze dropping to the Lasat's moving lips. They weren't making any sound, or perhaps they were and Kallus couldn't hear the words over the wet gasps dragging in and out of his straining lungs.
"-ust breathe, yeah, that's it, in and out deep and steady. You're okay now, Kal, it's over." Zeb had moved from where he had been kneeling to a tall crouch, leaned forward at the waist. Closeness seemed to be the Lasat's medicine of choice.
"Zeb?" He croaked.
Zeb's hand was a gentle grounding warmth where it was still pressed against his burning side. His other hand was wrapped, completely, around his right bicep, his large claw tipped thumb rubbing soothing circles where it could reach.
"Zeb?" Kallus swayed forward, both his shaking hands smoothed up the Lasat's purple furred arms. It was short of coarse by his wrists but got longer and softer the closer to his elbows Kallus' hands inched.
"I gotcha, Kal, I gotcha..." Zeb's lips remained loosely parted on his soft exhale, the white tips of his fangs shining in stark relief to the short lavender fuzz that covered his lips.
I really want to kiss you, Kallus thought with a slow blink and a soft sigh.
Zeb's big green eyes blinked owlishly back at him then he broke their shared gaze with a soft laugh that shook his shoulders. His eyes locked again with Kallus' golden frown and he reached up to cradle his ginger bearded jaw.
"Alright," His clawed thumb swept over Kallus' lower lip, mindful of the dark smudges of bruising and the split threatening to crack open again. "But only if you can tell me what you just said."
Kallus' lips parted with a soft gasp, pink tongue chasing the motion of Zeb's touch.
"Kiss me, please..."
He whimpered when Zeb's thumb was replaced by his lips, no more than a gentle brush of plush velvet against marred skin. Kallus' little noise deepened into a soft and shaky moan, and his equally shaking hands came up to curl around the back of Zeb's neck, aching fingers sinking deep into his warm, thick fur.
Zeb huffed curiously against Kallus' mouth, unused to human way of intimate affection-kissing. He was aware of the nuance- which absolutely had nothing at all to do with the romance holonovel he'd smuggled aboard somehow without his beloved irritation of a human younger brother finding it. Or that singular kiss he'd witnessed between Kanan and Hera back on Atollon that Sabine had delightedly whacked him on the arse to turn around to watch.
Kallus' lips quivered under his own, then parted wide, his hot breath and clumsy tongue beckoning him deeper.
The feel of Zeb's monstrous tongue splitting his aching jaw wide open, kriff it did things to him. He would take the ache and anything else his constitution had left to allow to continue the feeling of the Lasat's rough tongue pressing against his own and rasping over his back teeth.
This, Zeb figured, was less refined than his people's way but oh... Kallus angled his head to the side, loose lock of hair brushing against Zeb's nose, and tentatively swiped his tongue over the Lasat's lower lip, catching against a fang.
Zeb's hands moved by instinct and cupped Kallus' jaw gently, thumbs brushing the corners of his mouth. His beard was soft under the leathery pads of the Lasat's hands. Soft and thick and, like he had found the hair on all the human's he had encountered, held his scent.
Giddily, perhaps from the thought alone or his current state of lacking air, he wondered if Kallus would allow him to scent him. His frankly shamelessly styled facial hair would hold it in the most wonderfully distracting way.
What are you doing, idiot. Zeb blinked his eyes open. Not this now, Zeb flattened his ears, berating himself, not with him like this!
"Okay, okay..." Zeb soothed, puling away just enough to speak. That was all he managed to say before his breath was stolen from him again by the humans kiss swollen lips, intently begging for more. Kallus' strong hands grasped and yanked him back in, teeth clacking and beards catching, and moaning loudly against Zeb's still open mouth.
He pulled more earnestly, encouraging Zeb closer and leaned back, tying to pull the Lasat's furry bulk on top of him. Zeb braced a knee on the bunk beside Kallus' thigh and one hand against the side of the top bunk, allowing himself to be pulled closer but held himself above him.
Getting on top of the ex-imperial had been something of an enticing and recurring dream of his, but the tinderbox of his actions was setting fire to sodden wood. He was wounded. Pinning him after a playful fight and kriffing him in the warm sand was an excellent nights entertainment for dream Zeb. Pushing a shaking, strung out, and stained by his own blood Kallus to his mattress and taking him as he cried rose bile in his throat.
Kallus' still trembling body rolled forwards, likely out of its own violation for reassurance that this moment, and likely his whole escape and rescue was real. He pressed his whole body against Zeb's, desperate for warmth.
They broke apart for air, Kallus' warm breath huffed against Zeb's still parted lips. One of Kallus' hands was clenched in the straps of Zeb's battle suit, the other resting on the back of his furred head, fingertips brushing the back of one of his large, feline ears. They blinked at each other, honey gold and luminous green holding like entwined fingers, panted breaths mixing in the space between their mouths.
"Garazeb…" Kallus' star struck eyes followed Zeb's as the Lasat sunk down to sit beside him.
"Kallus..." Zeb wrinkled his short nose and shook his head, ears flicking.
"Kallus isn't your first name, right? My name sounds nice coming out of your mouth, and-" he broke off with a short chuckle, "-I only get 'Garazeb'ed' by Hera when I'm in trouble. Wait- Its not Agent is it?" Zeb asked, expression going from soft to deadpan serious so quickly Kallus actually laughed.
The human's golden eyes crinkled when he truly smiled, expression caught on the heartbeat before the final exhale of laughter. "It's Alexsandr," he said, wrinkling his nose to match Zeb's expression, "Although, I'm not all that fond of it anymore. It's very Coruscant, and Imperial..." His smile crumpled and he looked away ashamed.
"Alex, then." Zeb smiled, turning Kallus' head gently with a claw under his chin. The white points of his fangs peeking past his lips again. "Alex the rebel."
Zeb paused, Alex's chin still held delicately in his grip. He leaned forward tentatively, turning Kallus' face slightly to the left and rubbed his cheek along the humans right. The stiffer bristles of Zeb's beard caught and scraped through Alex's sideburn; not painfully, it was a pleasant sensation, the shorter fur of Zeb's face was wonderfully soft where it smoothed over his cheekbone.
Kallus sighed, slumping forward, his arms rose shakily to coil around Zeb's neck, anchoring his warmth close and tipped his head back, giving the Lasat more room to move against him.
Zeb pulled back slowly, and turned to caress his opposite cheek. He caught Alex's eye and offered him a toothy crooked smile, one that the human mirrored, before leaning back in.
Kallus laughed quietly, catching the Lasat's furry cheek in his palm and swiped his thumb over a sticky patch of Zeb's fur under his eye. "You've got bacta gel on you."
Zeb made a low noise in his throat, "Worth it though, right?" He tried to sound assured but it came out too quiet and too full of hope.
Alex was a rebel now, and rebellions and hope went hand in hand apparently. Hope he could work with. He blinked slowly, contented in the solid warmth of Zeb's arms.
"Absolutely worth it..." Worth turning against the empire, making up for his previous deeds by doing his part from the inside, having his face smeared against the floor of Bridger's tower. Worth a little bit of sticky medicinal gel rubbing against his cheek for this.
"Kriff, what are we doing, you've only just gotten away and here I am..." Zeb shook his head, swiveling to retrieve the tube of bacta. One of his ears flicked back at the sound of the other man struggling to get his ruined undershirt off over his head.
Kallus gasped at the cold touch of Zeb's fingers ghosting over the still stinging wound in his flank, the sharp pain soothing away with a little more pressure. His eyes fell shut with a soft sigh and his fingers brushed against the back of Zeb's furred hand.
"How bad is that?" Zeb asked, ears flicking back in worry at the black and green splotches trailing over Kallus' ribs like the work of a messy artist. A low growl thrummed deep in Zeb's throat at the idea of Thrawn using Kallus as his own living canvas.
Kallus hummed, brow furrowing, fingers clenching and relaxing in the tangled remains of his shirt still bunched in his lap.
"Bruised for the most part, one or two lowest on the left side are broken but not piercing anything."
"They worked you over good and proper huh..." Zeb muttered, pulling the medkit closer with his foot and fishing around for bandages, an ice pack, and that reel of medical tape he kept finding earlier.
He unspooled the roll of fabric and wound the bandage securely around Kallus' middle. Zeb's green gaze flicked between his deceptively gentle work and the former agent's pinched expression.
"Are you cold?" Zeb asked, worry etching a deeper frown on his brow as he tucked the end of the bandage in and taped the cold patch in place against Kallus' ribs.
"Just a little..." He confessed. Propriety left at the door, and his affection claiming victory in an internal revolution, Kallus dropped his shirt and leaned as far forward as he could to burrow his face into the soft fur of Zeb's neck and breathed in deeply.
Caution took flight like a Shiiyo bird, and after only a moment of dazed stalling, Zeb wrapped his strong arms around Kallus' shoulders and gave him a warming squeeze. He rested his chin on top of the human's golden head and began to purr softly. Warmth bloomed when he felt the human gasp and nuzzle deeper into his neck and just, hold on to him. Zeb smiled and hugged him closer, encircling him within his warmth.
Zeb wasn't aware Kallus had shifted his legs until he had shouted against his throat and one hand had untangled with Zeb's fur to clamp around the re-broken bone shifting inside his thigh.
"Kark, I'm an idiot. Gonna really need to stop to fix you up as proper as we can before we get to Yavin, I think I'd rather fight one of those cave monsters from Geonosis bare handed than have Hera find us like this while you're like... This." He said, leaning back to look him in the eye with a sympathetic grimace.
Kallus had no strength left in him. He just nodded, leaning back, and braced his hands against the bunk beneath them. He swallowed thickly, "O-on second thoughts, Garazeb, I think I'll take those pain tabs. If I may?" He added quietly, fearing the offer had been rescinded for good.
Zeb nodded and leaned precariously off the bunk, reaching for the medkit just out of easy grabbing range. He stretched almost completely off the bunk and stuck one digitigrade leg in the air as a counter balance. Kallus' ribs hurt too much for his little laugh at the ridiculousness to be much more than a shuddery exhale past a lopsided grin.
Zeb's hand froze over the clear bottle of pills. "Are you okay to take these with that stuff in your system?"
Kallus squinted for a few seconds, nose scrunching, before miming grabby hands for the little bottle.
He peered at the label, reading off the various chemicals and checking them mentally against everything he thought he was presently swimming in, courtesy of Pryce. Not advised, but not inherently deadly. He nodded and fought to unscrew the cap. His trembling hands helpfully deposited the highest recommended dose into his palm.
When betraying the Empire... he thought, swallowing them down dry, then grimacing at the lingering taste and meagre wetness of blood making the inside of his parched mouth uncomfortably sticky.
"Gonna need to take these off too," Zeb tugged on the material of Kallus' uniform trousers, "I'll find ya a blanket."
Zeb slid off the bunk and back into a comfortable crouch, carefully freeing Kallus from his boots while the human finished fumbling with the clasp of his belt.
A small noise escaped past the ginger's grit teeth as Zeb helped him ease his trousers down his legs, revealing more horrific bruising. He hissed, eyes bulging then narrowing at Kallus' discoloured and swollen knee.
"Gonna need to shove that back into place." Zeb affirmed, expression grim.
Kallus groaned weakly but managed to shoot a glare Zeb's way. "Did you really have to use the word 'shove'? "
Zeb sat back on his haunches, eyes narrowing at the floor for a moment in thought. His upper half disappeared as he reached back further under his bunk, groping blindly for the other supply kit. He pulled out a wrapped up bundle of adhesive fabric and padding.
"Best bind that up first, stop it moving around how it isn't meant to." Zeb, as gentle as he had before, secured the splint to his thigh, and this time Kallus didn't fight back the pained groan at the feel of the Lasat's hands around a broken bone. At least he wasn't about to freeze, shirtless and taped to an icepack as he was.
Kallus' broad shoulders slumped and the sad, wistful smile he wore was dangerously close to true despair. "The last time you did this it was with my..." He trailed off, feeling the hot sting of oncoming tears.
"I kept that meteorite, too. It was the only thing of any warmth on that Star Destroyer. And now that's lost to me as well..." Zeb blinked up at him, one large hand coming to rest on his uninjured knee.
"We'll get 'em back. Don't give me that look, Alexsandr Kallus, burnin' hope against insurmountable odds has been our thing for years." Zeb grinned like a mid summers day.
Kallus' eyes had gone wide, one single tear rolled silently down his cheek. Zeb rumbled and swept it away so very gently. Why did I ever fight these people, I will never deserve kindness like this, and never from you, Garazeb Orrelios, Honour Guard of the mighty people no longer of Lasan...
Zeb knelt up and captured Alex's quivering lower lip with his own and kissed him, soft but deep. Kallus gasped wetly against the hot mouth claiming his own and tangled his fingers in Zeb's facial hair.
Zeb gave him a reassuring rumble as he pulled away to softly rub their foreheads together.
His luminous eyes swept up Alex's face to that rebellious lock of dirty gold hair. He gave Alex a little smile, and reached up to bat at the dangling strands. "That gel you use in ya hair is some strong stuff, it survived the crash, the monsters and the blizzard on Bahryn."
Kallus laughed quietly, sniffling. "Garazeb it froze on Bahryn. It took me an hour to get it out of my hair." Zeb stared up into his face with such open emotion, the same emotion Kallus didn't have the remaining fortitude to name right then, though he felt the exact same one. His eyes locked with those of the man who had saved him from more than the cold.
Zeb stood, with one final rub of his cheek against Alex's hairline. "Let's get this over with, yeah?"
He coaxed the other man to lie back across his bunk with a strong hand on his shoulder. Kallus shuffled back on his elbows until the top of his head gently thunked against the back wall. Zeb fought the urge to bite his lip, a human display of anxiety that he had adopted somewhere along the way, and slipped one large hand under Kallus' knee. The other he used to carefully cup the disjointed cap above it.
"On three, okay? One..."
Kallus drew and blew out as deep a breath as his bruised ribs would allow, dreading the next two counts. The moment his head fell back to stare at the underside of the top bunk Zeb popped the knee joint back into alignment.
The sharp stab of pain caught Kallus off guard, and before he could clench his jaw shut. His stuttered shout echoed off the metal walls and he gulped a few body wracking sobs before he managed to get his breathing under control.
"Two, three..." Zeb mumbled, backing off a step, expression scrunched up in sympathy and a little bit of disgust at the trick.
"How'd that happen, anyway? You crash the pod into the Ghost?" He joked but his eyes held only worry.
"Thrawn...fucker kicked it..." He groused, swallowing, hands clenched in the bedding. Zeb laughed in relief at his exceptionally un-Imperial foul language, crouching at his feet again.
The pain tabs were either of exceptional strength, or had combined with everything else currently in his bloodstream as he started to feel a little floaty. With the help of the cooling touch of bacta gel the pain was now a dull ache that he could get to sleep in spite of after a while.
Kallus struggled back up to sitting leaning back on his hands to watch Zeb work to secure the splint the rest of the way down his shin. His large eyes squinted at Kallus' knee, wrapping and re-wrapping the fabric around his leg, securely but not too tight. Zeb's ears twitched in concentration.
Alex swayed a little, listing as though the ship was rocking, but smiled. Garazeb's ears were so expressive.
"I do like your ears, Garazeb. They're very soft, and they're fun to watch when they flick around. They do this little wiggle when you're happy and I like that, too."
The only time Zeb had seen him so open and expressive had been on Bahryn. Zeb hated that it took being two steps from death and considerable pain -and hypothermia- for Kallus to talk. A hidden corner of his mind, curled safe and warm like a kit in its mothers arms, wanted, hoped for, there to come a time when all it took for the ex-Imperial to talk was a question. And on that frozen moon he had talked.
The hammered in Coruscanti upper class propriety and Imperial conditioning had shattered in the ice and the Kallus that had been locked away for decades, the Kallus that Zeb wanted to save had shown himself. The Kallus that had saved his family on several separate occasions, that had stood precariously between them and Grand Admiral 'I See In The Infrared Spectrum And Can Smell Lies' Thrawn and had been beaten bloody and broken for them. And that Kallus, his Kallus, had not talked.
Zeb took one of Alex's hands and placed it on top of his head, the human's little finger and thumb brushing the sensitive insides of his tall feline ears and the top of his brow.
"After hiding for so long from Thrawn," Alex's voice had gone quiet and mumbley, too focused on petting up the velvety length on one of those soft purple ears and teasing it between his fingers. "I'll give your rebellion everything I have, for as long as they'll have me. Whatever I can give..." He trailed off, beginning to shiver again.
"You've convinced me, Kal, and Hera would have left you drifting if she didn't think you weren't worth a trial by rebel command at least. And it was her decision to come and get ya. I wouldn't have let her leave you behind, anyway." he added, quieter.
It struck Kallus then that this was the first time in all their encounters; as enemies, trapped together on that freezing moon, as the rebel spy Fulcrum, and now banged up on his bunk, that he had seen the Lasat show any semblance of shyness.
"I was worried, ya know?" Zeb continued, his ears pulling back and twitching. "We got the first few words of your warning, then nothing. Just, Thrawn knows... Even with the voice scrambler you sounded so-" His jaw clenched shut.
Kallus reached for him slowly, something shining in his amber eyes. He leaned down slowly, bashful gaze flicking up through his lashes to Zeb's eyes, then away again, and gently rubbed his cheek and meticulously groomed sideburn through the rougher wiry hair along Zeb's opposite cheek and jaw.
Kallus broke away with a shudder, then dove back in against Zeb's warmth, whole body trembling. Even after all this time, he still felt the biting chill of that moon.
"C'mon mate, up ya get." Zeb coaxed, gently scooping up Kallus' legs and encouraging him to lay properly on top of the bunk, keeping the distance between the two of them as minimal as possible to keep the shivering human warm.
"Can you sleep like this?" Zeb's brow knitted in concern at his almost entirely bared body. "I can go find you some spare clothes or something."
Kallus reached for his hand when he stepped back, anxiety in his eyes clear as daylight. He shook his head vigorously. "N-no! Would you...perhaps...please stay?"
There wasn't anything for Zeb to immediately do. They would hit the ground running when they got to Yavin 4, but it felt like they had been doing exactly that for the past few years now.
"Okay..." He hushed, petting Alex's hair softly. "How about that blanket though, yeah?" He stretched and scooped his comm off the table.
"Hera?" He hailed, holding the tiny device in his huge paw of a hand while he rifled through the lockers for one of the many spare blankets he knew Hera still hid in here somewhere. "Anywhere you need me to be right now?" His ears flicked upright victoriously when he closed his claws around the soft material and crossed the room back towards Alex, curled up and trembling on his bare bunk.
Hera's quiet, sleepy negative sounded from his palm and his eyes lit up. He wished her a hushed goodnight.
He put down his commlink within grabbing range and unfurled the blanket, draping it over Kallus and Ashla tucking him in for good measure before gingerly climbing in behind him and flicking the room's lights off.
"...If we elbow each other in the face when we wake up like five year old kits again..." he warned into the darkness with an easy laugh and a gentle purr rumbling deep in his chest. He smiled when he felt Alex's quiet, slightly distorted laugh shaking his back.
Zeb ran his short nose over the rounded back of one of Alex's smaller ears, feeling the man shiver in his arms. It wasn't a bad shiver.
"I do hope I can help. I'm with you-ah, I'm here for good. And for good... Blast it! What was in those tabs again?"
Zeb's laugh reverberated pleasantly through his back. "Dunno." His breath huffing against the back of Alex's head. "What was in that truth serum?"
Fondness began to creep into his heart like the coming of dawn as Kallus began matter of factly listing chemicals and arguing the ethics of such a drug with himself.
"I think it's wearing off now..." He concluded his little monologue.
Zeb couldn't help it. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Alex sniffed indignantly.
Zeb's thick furry arm came to rest in the perfect curve of Kallus' waist, hand smoothing up his bare chest to tug the blanket a little higher before settling. It remain a solid, grounding heat source before Zeb yanked it away.
"Sorry! I- Is this okay?" He asked tentatively, arm still hovering awkwardly in the air above them. Kallus sighed and made a quiet noise of protest at the missing heat source, reaching up blindly to snag Zeb's hand in his own and tug him back close, wriggling back into the warmth of him and huffing contentedly as his chilly body began to settle. His shoulders stayed tense, however.
"What is.. in store for me when we get to...base?" He asked haltingly, exhaustion or anxiety smothering his usual eloquence.
"Well," Zeb squinted into the darkness, in thought not for a lack of decent low light vision. "Kanan, Ezra, Chop, and Sabine are heading back to Mandalore. Hera, Rex, you, an' me will be on the ground. Don't worry, Fulcrum, they've got an intel division you'll be runnin' circles around. And a Caf machine."
"You've found me out, Garazeb. I turned traitor for Caf and comfortable trousers."
"I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. You're one of us now, but Agent Kallus did a lot of horrible things in the name of the Empire." Kallus tensed, shrinking away. Zeb gently rubbed his arm bringing him back to the present. "But Fulcrum got us out of a lot of tight scrapes, and that was you, too."
"I understand. Zeb I'll work for it, whatever I can do." Pride began to bloom in in his chest like a Lasan wild flower. Kallus had twisted to look over his shoulder, he likely couldn't pick out Zeb's face in the darkness, but the gesture of sincerity wasn't lost on him.
Zeb nuzzled the soft skin at the back of his neck, golden strands of Alex's hair tickling his face. "That's the spirit."