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“What are you doing?”
You jolt out of your skin, whirling around to find Tech standing in the doorway with a quizzical look on his face and dressed in nothing but the loose sleep pants you bought him. His tanned brown skin seems even softer under the dim lights and your eyes are naturally drawn to the way his pants barely seem to hang off his hips like a puff of wind would dislodge them. You hadn’t heard the shower turn off or even the bathroom door open, so consumed you were in your little spiral of self-hatred in front of the mirror. Ignoring the warmth spreading on your cheeks you try to grin.
“Nothing. You done in the fresher? I need to brush my teeth,” you grin.
Tech though, is not so easily dissuaded. You try to slip between him and the door frame only for him to grab your arm gently as you pass, his eyes searching yours intently. “You were doing something mesh’la and you certainly looked guilty when I interrupted?”
“I… I was…” you find yourself staring up into his vivid copper eyes and relent. “I was just having a little moment that’s all. Nothing unusual. Go warm the bed up for me, it’s gonna be a cold one.”
With that you gently pull free and head into the fresher to brush your teeth. You apply your night cream and examine a zit on your chin in frustration before heading back into the adjacent bedroom. You expect to find Tech between your sheets, eagerly waiting to engulf you in his arms like he does every night that he’s not off with his brothers giving the Empire headaches, but instead he’s sat on the edge of the bed. He turns to look at you, his face framed by the soft yellow light of the bedside light. You flick the main light off as Tech wordlessly extends his hand for your hand, pulling you into his arms, standing you between his huge feet and wrapping his arms around the back of your bare thighs. You wait for him to speak having learnt that when Tech is weighing up his words like now, he has something serious he wants to say and is testing different phrases in his head.
“Mesh’la have I ever given you reason to believe you are not the most ethereal being in the known galaxy?” he asks softly.
You laugh slightly, both from his wording and in embarrassment as you slide your arms around his neck. “Tech, honey this isn’t your doing… or lack of doing. This is me and my own negative body issues that I’ve carried around for most of my life.”
Tech’s eyes search yours. “I don’t understand why… you are radiant and ethereal and you fill my often-dark galaxy with light. I don’t wish to see you miserable.”
You card your hands through his short hair, aware of a red blush tinging your cheeks. You have only been together and official a few months but Tech has been almost over the top in how he showers you with affection. You’ve had boyfriends who were like that publicly for the first week and then in private were varying degrees of awful, but if anything, he is worse in private than in public because Wrecker isn’t here to tease him.
“I’m glad you think so Tech but when you don’t look like a Coruscanti billboard model it’s hard to look at yourself in the mirror and not see the imperfections.”
“I will remind you that those images have been heavily edited and, in some instances, aren’t even portrayals of real individuals and have been generated by Artificial Intelligence based on common features deemed attractive by the masses,” Tech frowns, rubbing his hands up your thighs.
“Yes I know, I know… you don’t wish you looked like someone else?”
Tech seems to ponder this for a moment, absently rubbing your thighs. “As a cadet I went through a phase when the bullying was particularly extreme where I wished I looked more like our template but once we went out into the war, our less than regular facial features allowed us to carry off missions where we could pass for nat-borns.”
“You don’t wish you had darker hair, blue eyes, green eyes, darker skin, shorter, taller?”
Tech grins at you. “Possibly but ultimately, those are merely physical attributes and do not change a person’s character. It’s far more valuable to be a decent being in a galaxy full of less decent beings, which is why I must remind you that though I greatly desire you physically, it is your nature that drew me to you in the first place.”
“I’m so glad you desire me physically still after all of four months, but who’s counting?”
You frame the statement as a joke but Tech quirks and eyebrow, his mouth flattening into a frown. “You haven’t changed physically in four months, why would my initial appraisal of your appearance alter?”
“I.. its… its not been my experience that my partners have found me as good as the first time we met. Something always seems to change their mind.”
Tech regards you with a frown. “Perhaps its not your appearance but their own insecurities or shallow desire to notch the next conquest I have heard it referred to it as.”
“Perhaps,” you gesture. “Are we going to bed or are you going to stand here holding me all night?”
Tech makes a little noise of annoyance and releases you before shuffling into bed. It would look odd to a visitor, but on Tech’s request you pushed your bed up against the wall so that he could sleep between you and the wall where he allegedly feels safest. You’re not entirely sure the reasons why the original configuration makes him feel unsafe, but after two consecutive nights of nightmares, you don’t care where in your apartment the bed, is as long as he sleeps soundly. You shuffle into bed beside him and have barely got the light flicked off when Tech has engulfed you, pulling you into his arms and rolling on top of you.
“Oh hello,” you murmur as he leans his weight into the elbow planted beside your head. “Didn’t know this was on the agenda.”
You can just make out his features as he leans down to kiss you, his warm lips melding against yours. After a moment he pulls away, exhaling a gasp of warm air into your face. “Tell me everything,” he murmurs.
“Huh?”
“What is it about yourself physically that you deem unsatisfactory and would change.”
“What?”
Tech repeats the question, despite you having heard him clearly the first time you’re still not sure how to answer this. “You… you want me to tell you?”
“Yes. Every detail explicitly.”
“Why?”
“Humour me mesh’la.”
“Can’t I go to sleep instead?”
Tech makes a noise of frustration. “You may think yourself subtle, but this isn’t the first time I have noticed you making disparaging expressions at your appearance, this is merely the first time I have caught you red-handed.”
By now your eyes have adjusted enough to make out Tech’s expression through the bits of light coming through the curtains above your bed and you can see a slight frown etched on his handsome face. While it doesn’t surprise you to find that he has caught you staring at yourself in the mirror before, you just don’t know how to respond to his request. A speeder whizzes past the window, dappling lights through the room as you realise, he’s not letting this one go in that ridiculous dogged nature he has.
“I… I don’t know… I hate my chin… why are we doing this?” you flounder.
“What is it about your chin you dislike?”
“I.. I don’t know…”
“I’m inclined to disbelieve you hate your chin merely for existing especially given that it serves an important purpose.”
You sigh in frustration. “Fine. I hate how I’m getting a double chin and its sagging as I’m getting older. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Tech answers by dipping his head and planting a kiss on your beginnings of a double chin, startling you with a gasp. He moves his mouth languidly, kissing your jawline, then the juncture between your neck and jawline before planting a kiss directly on the curve of your chin. You whine slightly, trying to go after him for a proper kiss as someone gets thrown out of Cid’s bar four storeys below you and the old Trandoshan yells abuse after them. Tech evades your mouth, humming into the column of your throat as he takes his time to cover your neck and jaw in featherlight kisses.
“I do not see this double chin you speak of. Your jawline is soft, as it should be as a member of the fairer sex unlike mine,” Tech mumbles. “What else?”
“This is your game?” you stare at him in the darkness. “I tell you what I hate and you… kiss it better?”
“Better would imply it was broken, which it is not, I am merely assuring you that I do see any of the flaws you do. I also take offense at the word ‘game’.”
You laugh slightly. “Then what would you call it?”
Tech ponders this for a moment. “Positive reinforcement.”
“Maker,” you laugh. “You’ve been into those psychology journals again, haven’t you?”
Initially you teamed up with the Bad Batch to pull a job that required your expertise which is how you ended up entwined with their resident genius in more ways than one. Then Hunter approached you privately with questions about Omega’s development and you directed him to the med section of the holo-net to answer his questions which he took to Tech to read and simplify, not because the Sarge was an idiot but was quite badly dyslexic which you didn’t know when you suggested it. As you learnt from working with them, they were enhanced clones with unique abilities but those abilities came at a cost that the Kaminoans deemed defects, but nat-borns would just call ‘being human’.
Tech was badly colour blind, Hunter was dyslexic and Wrecker was also dyslexic, but with an added side of ADHD. Echo on the other hand was a reg before Skako so ‘acceptable’ by Kaminoan standards until the Techno Union got their hands on him. Shockingly, carrying out body-mods not sanctioned by the Republic was deeply unethical as regards the long-term effects on Echo both physically and mentally. Once he was rescued, the Republic doctors fixed a few things to make them easier to deal with- like the junction between his human thighs and cybernetic legs but there were some things they couldn’t or wouldn’t touch, like where his brain stem had been attached to his artificial spine. Simply put it was too dangerous to play around with and as a result Echo suffered from excruciating neck pain as well as general joint pain, migraines and synaesthesia.
Apparently, your colour was mustard yellow.
“As Omega heads rapidly into adolescence its important that as a squad we address her emotional outbursts in a way that encourages her cognitive development as opposed to how we were all managed during that crucial phase. We are not on Kamino now and I, and neither does Hunter, have any intention of raising her the way we were.”
You stare up into Tech’s face for a moment, fully aware of the pain behind that statement. The ugly truth of the Clone Wars was always how the clones were treated under your noses in the Republic but what no one really considered is what it must have taken to have a fully formed, clone army ready to go conveniently the moment war was declared. They had no childhood, no pleasant memories, no comfort or warmth and that wasn’t even the half of it. You lean up to kiss Tech, aware that he hasn’t even told you the half of it, just crumbs and those crumbs were enough to make you feel deeply sorry for your genius boyfriend and his brothers.
“You boys are doing an amazing job given the circumstances,” you murmur.
Tech pulls away from you. “I admire your attempts to divert the conversation but you have only drawn attention to your chin and I am inclined to believe its not the sole culprit.”
You flop back with a sigh. “I mean look at me… I am hardly the size 0 model you see on the holo-net. Everything is pudgy and flabby with me.”
Tech frowns. “As an adult woman of child bearing age your body stores more fat that mine would to house the necessary stores to carry a child. In addition to this I find your curves quite delectable.”
You barely hear the last part of his sentence as your brain is caught on the phrase of ‘carrying a child’ and unwittingly you imagine carrying his child. And then his hands start working up your thighs, dipping beneath the hem of your shorts and digging into the meat on your thighs, finding the old bruises from his hands previous visits. The breath catches in your throat as his hand moves back up your outer thigh before sliding up the sensitive flesh of your inner thigh and making you whine as his hand stops short.
“I think I thought of another part I hate. If you just go a bit higher,” you whine.
Tech chuckles throatily. “Nice try mesh’la. What else?”
You stare at him hopefully, wanting to end this slightly ludicrous conversation but its evident Tech won’t let it go until you’ve exhausted your list. You sigh heavily, knowing your chin and overall figure are small fry compared to what catches your eye in the mirror every day: that blob of fat that hangs over every pair of pants you own, that can only be hidden under layers of clothes and no amount of diet, sit ups or crunches makes the slightest bit of difference to. You stared enviously at any woman whose belly sat perfectly flat, forming a straight plane from their boobs down to their knees. It simply wasn’t fair…
“My belly. I hate my belly.”
“This?” Tech’s hand goes for it, to cup the curve of fat near the hem of your pants but you’re too quick, snatching his wrist and pulling it away.
“Yes. That. And please don’t kiss it.”
Tech regards you for a moment, before gently untangling his wrist from your hand. You didn’t mean to snatch his hand away like that but to say his gorgeous, nimble fingers going anywhere near that triggered you is an understatement. You had a boyfriend who once compared you to his sisters constantly (which was weird in itself) and your muffin top was often the target of his unkind teasing. While you adore Tech and you’re endlessly flattered that he doesn’t seem to see the disgusting roll of flesh that you do, that doesn’t mean you want him anywhere near it.
Tech shuffles back and buries his head under your rib cage, wrapping his arms around your waist. “If you are referring to my favourite place to lay my head, I must disagree with you.”
You hesitate for a moment, staring down at the top of his head before sighing in defeat and carding your fingers through his hair, remembering the first time he followed you home. You don’t know how long you spent entwined like this with his head on your belly dozing while cradled between your thighs. Tech was ludicrously tactile, always wanting to be in your personal space and touching you now that you were official. You didn’t hate it, quite the contrary actually, but you still were getting used to it.
“I know but… I wish it was flatter, like Phee’s. Or those Twi sisters we see around Cid’s bar sometimes.”
Tech sighs in frustration, snuggling deeper into you. “Those negative comparisons will do you no good, if anything they will only serve to drag your emotions down.”
“But don’t you wish I had a flat belly like theirs?”
Tech lifts his head to look at you quizzically. “No? Why would I concern myself with such a trivial thing when the rest of your body satisfies me more than adequately?”
You’d be lying if you said hearing him string sentences like how he does didn’t get your heart racing let alone when it was about your body…satisfy- Maker this man would be the death of you one day. Its awkward but you manage to hunch forward to kiss him like you mean it this time. Tech senses the intent, sliding up higher allowing you to attack his mouth with venom, sick of this weird form of foreplay he had clearly thought up while bored in hyperspace. Tech however has other ideas and pulls away, letting you flop back onto the pillows heavily.
“I am serious mesh’la,” he frowns down at you. “Perhaps you don’t look like billboard models or those Twi sisters but if I were attracted to that ilk of woman don’t you think I would be pursuing that? I thought my affections made it apparent that its you I desire.”
“They do and if you let me finish-“
“Then explain to me why I must convince you beyond reasonable doubt that you are the most ethereal being in the galaxy and sole focus of my attentions?”
You sigh. “Because of other men, other boyfriends. Its not you Tech, its them. Some of them were downright awful to me. And my mother was cruel about my weight as well. All my life I have either heard or told myself that I’m physically undesirable.”
You have to stop because suddenly there’s a lump in your throat and if you keep talking you know you will start blubbering about it. School was the worst- maker those Pantoran’s were awful about your weight and then you would come home and cop it from your mother. Tech is watching you, likely aware that you’re on the verge of tears as he settles down on top of you again softly.
“And why must I pay the price for their behaviour?”
You look back at him, blinking, realising you never thought of it like that. You were inadvertently punishing him for their unkind words when he made it apparent that he adored every inch of you the way you were. You hadn’t seen any of those people, even your own family in years and yet here you were carrying around their beliefs like it was fact and hurting Tech in the process.
You reach up to caress his cheek. “I’m sorry… I never thought of it like that.”
Tech leans into your hand. “I know you don’t mean it to hurt me but seeing you hate yourself for something so trivial pains me. Please stop.”
“I promise to try not to.”
Tech grins and shifts his weight off you, settling beside you before pulling you into his arms. “That’s my girl.”