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Kyrimorut, Mandalore, 70 days after Gaftikar, 549 days after Geonosis, 0600
Fi hadn’t expected to see Sev when he woke up.
He’d been moaning to Jusik via datapad a few weeks ago, scratching out his neediness with the stylus.
“Is it your squad?” Jusik had asked him, on an especially mopey day.
As usual, the Jedi had that uncanny way of knowing exactly what was going on in Fi’s head. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about Fi anymore, and it was no use hiding anything. Fi had been too tired to try, anyway. Physical therapy and speech coaching drained what little energy he had since he’d woken up from the coma. At least he could move his limbs around now, though the effort ended up more puppet-like than human.
He’d still had a priapism then — when Jusik had been trying to prod out the truth about his melancholy. It was the result of a concurrent ischemic stroke, Obrim’s nurse droid had told Fi. Bard’ika’s force healing had helped improve Fi’s outcomes, but his stiff cock was a lingering side effect. It had finally relaxed after several weeks, but Fi hadn’t had the coordination to tend to himself beyond a few shaky pulls. He still didn’t.
Turned out persistent priapism could cause erectile dysfunction. First it was too hard, now it was too soft. They’d never been taught about that in field medic training. Clones didn’t usually make it past a coma.
Fi missed Darman and Niner and Atin, and not just because Atin would have helped him out below the belt, no questions asked. Fi wanted them close by. Sometimes, during his lonelier moments, he imagined what they’d be saying to him. Niner would pull up a chair and probably not leave the room until he was forced to. The nurse droid would have been drilled on its routines from dawn till dusk. “Did you sanitize your manipulators?” And all these Mandos would have had to deal with Dar’s protectiveness every time they prodded Fi with questions he couldn’t answer.
But how could he tell Jusik he was upset about something more than missing his vode?
The third time Fi had woken up at Obrim’s, and had seen the med-droid hovering over him, he’d suddenly remembered who else had been there with Besany.
Sev. Stoic and rigidly contained. A surge of who-knows-what, a violent flavor his tongue remembered, when he lay there at night running it over his teeth. The one person he didn’t want knowing he was like this — an invalid. A wretched hole in his squad.
The one person he desperately wanted at his door, anyway.
…
Delta’s sniper stood there now, in blacks under his synth leather jacket and fatigue bottoms. He’d obviously put the fatigues on hastily — the fly was still undone. He’d pulled up the jacket’s fur-lined hood, and the pockets bulged a little.
Sev had his arms crossed, peering at Fi under knotted brows and a fluff of hair.
That jacket. It brought up something deep in Fi’s memory. Felt like it came from a spot where he saved the most important things, like the names of his batchers and which planets had the highest peaks for mountaineering.
Fi knew a couple of things: he wanted Sev to kiss him brainless, but he also wanted to disappear under the bedsheets and never let Sev look at him again.
Fi had wet the bed, and now the sheets tangled around his legs, warm and probably pungent. Fi wouldn’t know — he was afraid he’d never smell anything again, and that fear, along with withering mortification, kept his mouth shut.
It wasn’t as if this hadn’t happened before. His life since waking up at Obrim’s had been a blur of confusion and shame. Days blended into each other, marked by exercise, feedings, and trips to the fresher. Nothing in Fi’s body worked right anymore. Even his most private moments were a source of frustration. Would have been nice just to be able to jack off without feeling like he needed help. Don’t worry, vod’ika, it’ll still work, Jaing had teased, when Fi had finally brought up his issue. Jaing had been helping him dress; Fi had spent way too long in the shower, thinking about Sev and crying tears of frustration down the drain, playing with his bendable erection until he finally milked himself dry with the bath sponge.
Jaing was right of course, he could still come, but that wasn’t the point.
Fi had never felt shame like this before, and now it was all he felt. Even when he’d lost his brothers on Geonosis, he’d still been able to join another squad. Give back and do his job. Now he was useless. A useless meat can.
Fi didn’t know why he’d ever fantasized about being something more than that.
He needed to be more, now that Sev was in his room, prowling around the bed with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. He was looking at everything: the chair at the bedside that Ordo had brought in, Hokan’s armor mounted on the shelf opposite the bed, the neatly folded stacks of clean sheets and loose clothing in the open closet.
“K’oyashh,’” Fi croaked out, because it was funny, and because Mando’a came easier to him now than Basic did.
Sev finally sat down, opposite Fi on the bed, very close. His nose twitched. His eyes landed heavily on Fi, dragging all over his body until they stopped on his face.
Fi felt even warmer under the heat of his gaze.
“Di’kut. Maybe try something besides a bomb next time? Can’t get rid of yourself that way.” Sev’s growly voice massaged Fi’s ears. It sounded better than his favorite ditzy music.
“You smell,” Sev added, with his usual delicacy. He didn’t appear embarrassed by Fi’s helplessness. He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the end of the bed, showing off the shoulder rig he was wearing; his DC-17 hand blaster was strapped snugly beneath his armpit.
Lanky Sev had filled out since Fi had seen him last. His skin looked darker. Dorumaa sun, Fi thought longingly. He knew where Delta had been — what they’d been doing. He’d asked too many questions for someone who could hardly speak.
“You want a shower?” Sev asked. He pulled down Fi’s sheets pragmatically, extracting his legs. He yanked them off the mattress in one motion, balled them up, and tossed them into the nearest corner.
“Nah,” said Fi. He waved at the bacta wipes on the nightstand. “Gimme. ‘S easier tha’ way.”
The idea of taking a shower with Sev’s help was too much to handle. Fi hadn’t figured out how to square his presence yet. His body had turned into a nervous bundle, spread out limply, just waiting for Sev’s appraisal. It was nerve wracking. As soon as Sev realized Fi was ruined, he’d never look at him the same way again.
Sev put the container next to Fi on the bed. Fi reached for it, his hand bumping it dumbly. He tried, but he couldn’t make his fingers and thumb work together to grab one of the bacta wipes and pull it out of the opening. After a couple minutes of fumbling, he’d only managed to catch his thumb under the edge of the lid. The whole thing tipped over.
Sev’s eyes went to Fi’s face. “Want me to — ?” He asked, hesitantly.
“Yeah.”
But admitting it stung. Fi knew he sounded sullen — that’s how he always sounded lately. He wanted his brothers. He wanted to be who he was supposed to be. He didn’t want Sev cleaning up his piss.
Jusik, Jaing, and Parja helped as much as they could, fussing over him with all the care they could muster — helping him clean himself, helping him dress, feeding him, moving his body through daily physiotherapy. But Fi was someone they tended to because they had to; Fi couldn’t care for himself, and their hurried touches always reminded him they had somewhere else to be. Something else to do.
Fi forgot about that as soon as Sev leaned over him, breath hot on his ear, and started to pull Fi’s pants down over his hips.
It didn’t even matter how or why Sev had caught a ride to Kyrimorut. Fi hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted Sev to touch him until he did it, hands warm on his hips and the insides of his thighs, rubbing the cold wipe over his skin with careful strokes.
Sev was thorough and meticulous. He didn’t linger on Fi’s sensitive parts; he just halted in his movements and pressed a kiss to his temple before proceeding.
It was a pointed kiss. You’re mine and I’m taking care of you, is what it felt like, as if nothing had happened and no time had passed since they’d been under the covers at Vau’s apartment.
That answered some questions, and Fi sat there with his face burning while Sev attended to him.
When he was finished, Sev ducked into the closet and returned with another pair of pants. They were clean and dry, but not as warm as his arms around Fi’s waist when he pulled them up over his ass.
Sev sat back. “You want to do something? Or … want me to lay in bed with you?” He pushed at his crotch absently, sounding more excited about the second option than the first. “Jusik — Bardan — brought us along … me and Scorch. I said I wanted to see you. I’ve got a whole da —“
Fi’s stomach clenched. “Can’t,” he said, staring at the swell of Sev’s cock, visible under his blacks through his open fly.
“What — why?”
Fi opened and closed his mouth. If he could speak properly, they wouldn’t need to have this conversation at all. For once, he felt relieved that he didn’t have to say the words. He grabbed his datapad and stylus awkwardly. Jaing had left them tucked next to him in the bed, and had even wrapped the stylus with a thick piece of plastifoam so Fi could hold onto it. The process of writing was still painstaking. One shaky letter at a time, and Fi was starting to sweat by the time he finished what he wanted to say.
Find another boyfriend.
Sev took the datapad and poured over it, brows scrunched in concentration, lips moving as he tried to sound out the words. He took as long to read as Fi had taken to write.
“Find another boyfriend? Fi, what — ?”
“Mess’d up.”
Fi refused to look at him. He took the datapad back and began the tedious process again.
Brain’s broken. Dick’s broken. I can’t be a commando anymore. What’s the point?
He read what he’d written, but didn’t hand it over. Too morbid. He erased it and started again.
Just want you to be happy. My brain doesn’t work and my dick doesn’t work. I’m too messed up to be risking your safety over.
Time ticked by again as Sev read. He kept looking to his left, as if he were used to someone feeding him the words.
After several minutes that felt like days, Sev’s face finally changed. He made a low noise in the back of his throat, tossing the datapad aside to cross his arms. “You’re a di’kut. Why d’you think I’m here?”
“... See m’ onn m’shebss.”
“Usen’ye!”
Fi fell into startled silence. The rebuke slapped, but not with annoyance.
Sev gathered himself and started to talk, low and gravelly, staring at his jacket on the bed — almost like he wasn’t talking to Fi at all. “You’re the one who showed me there’s something out there for us beyond the war. Beyond the GAR … all this osik.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, and I can’t even put my scope on straight if I think you’re not ok. I don’t want any of that without you. So no more of this weak osik. I don’t wanna hear it.”
What. Fi started to shake, chills crawling into his bones, shivering all the way up into his eye sockets. He swallowed hard. Sev was saying this now?
“You better not be thinking about doing something di’kutla.”
Fi had been, and now he felt guilty about it.
Sev looked around the room again suddenly, as if he were evaluating it with new eyes. He looked back at Fi, apparently satisfied. Nothing a crippled commando could off himself with, then. Fi had already figured that out himself.
“I’d be the one to do it for you, anyway. You don’t get to give up like that.”
Fi blinked back tears and turned away, sniffling. Sev had taken his embarrassment and handed it right back, with an extra dose of something warm.
The bed shifted — Sev was moving, and then there was a ripping noise that sounded a lot like passing gas. “See, you’re not the only one who’s messed up.”
Fi couldn’t help a hoarse laugh; it shook through him as he lay there on his side. But the good feeling didn’t last very long. He couldn’t smell Sev’s fart, and nothing about his own stupid uncoordinated body had changed in the past few minutes.
“Want some warra nuts?” Sev asked. He rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled bag, rustling it around.
Fi had no appetite. “No thangss.”
Sev lounged next to Fi, rolled close, and humped his leg. Didn’t seem like he had any intention of leaving.
Fi’s eyes prickled hotly, making everything worse. He rubbed at the scar on his nose, left by the nasogastric tube. Obrim’s nurse droid had removed it last week, but Fi’s appetite still hadn’t picked up. He’d lost some of his muscle mass, and he felt smaller and softer than he’d been since he was a young cadet.
Sev didn’t seem to care. He draped himself around Fi and pulled up his shirt. Warm fingers felt along his stomach and then crept under his loose waistband, spreading out on the untouched skin between his hip and navel.
Fi shivered, alert to his body like he hadn’t been in months. Sev’s hand on him felt different than anyone else’s.
It was warm and firm inside Fi’s pants, catching his soft dick in a roomy grip. Sev rub-rolled it appreciatively, tugging a surprised groan out of Fi. His hand moved back to cup Fi’s balls, fingers dragging through the curly growth of hair. It had sprung up since Fi had lost the coordination needed for shaving.
Fi lit up. It had been so long since he’d been touched like that … since Sev had touched him like that. He tilted his head back and Sev kissed him, rough lips and tongue and that distinctive faint bitterness.
Sev grunted, releasing Fi’s half-hard dick to hitch his shirt over his ribcage, hands warm and broad on his chest. He nipped at Fi’s neck and rocked needy hips into his ass.
Sev had gone completely hard.
Oh shab. Fi couldn’t.
“Sevv. N-no-t now,” he managed, lips trembling. He burned where Sev’s mouth had been.
Sev stilled, arms loose around Fi. “You sure?” He asked hoarsely. “We don’t have to … just wanna feel you.” He pushed his erection against Fi’s ass again.
Whatever Sev wanted to do, Fi knew he’d disappoint. He didn’t want to say it.
Fi shook his head no. “N-not yet.” He felt exhausted. Haryc b’aalyc. Recovery was no joke, and he’d reached his limit. He hadn’t interacted with anyone for an extended period since before his injury. It was mostly just him now — his thoughts and his fears and this lonely room. “M’tiredd.”
“Ok. What d’you — ?”
Fi rolled over to look at Sev. His face was flushed; he was staring at his hands, rubbing his knuckles with his thumbs. Sev wanted direction, Fi realized. “Could you … jus’ …”
Fi suddenly lost the words. He motioned to his own shoulders with a floppy arm, feeling like an idiot.
Sev sat up, chewing his lip. “I don’t —”
This was much harder than it ought to be.
“You want to — you want me to — ?” Sev prompted, turning an even deeper shade of maroon.
Fi let out a long noise of frustration. He couldn’t look at Sev; embarrassment licked at his face, lashes wet with it. “Toushh me.”
“Oh. But … you said you didn’t ... wait, like, on your neck? Shoulders? I don’t …”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to rub you down?” Sev was peering at him again, and the way his voice cracked sounded a little panicky.
"Yeah.”
Fi knew he was acting mopey and needy, but he’d already pissed himself in front of Sev. And he couldn’t pop a boner, even with Sev’s hard dick against his ass. So there wasn’t much further to fall.
“Like I would my deecee, yeah? Before I put it away, or something like that?”
Sev probably didn’t know anyone’s parts as well as his deecee’s, and that was oddly comforting. Fi flashed him a relieved half smile. That’s all his face would do.
Sev, apparently encouraged, pulled Fi in awkwardly — tucked him against his nanoprene chest, and pet his hair a little. “Fi, there’s something else you should know,” he said, voice suddenly cheerful, like he’d been told he could hunt Manka cats for a standard week.
Fi was paying more attention to the way Sev’s throat rumbled under his cheek than what he’d said. “... What?”
“Skirata and Vau found Ko Sai. I put her head on Zey’s desk myself.”
So the same hand that had toted the Kaminoan geneticist’s decapitated head around was spread warmly over Fi’s head now, the heel caressing his shaved edges, fingers carding through the longer growth on top.
Fi shivered. Kandosii.
Sev’s hand moved down and squeezed Fi’s neck firmly, thumb pressing behind his ear. Gods it felt so good. “Bag me a new ‘ead, ehh Sev’ikk — ?” Fi murmured, sighing, wishing he could smell Sev. It would be a mix of sweat and musk and probably old smoke from his jacket.
“Mir’osik,” Sev rumbled, but Fi could hear the smile in his voice. He hitched up Fi’s shirt again, rubbing his hands up his back, underneath the fabric. Rough, heavy strokes. “Kal and the Nulls lifted our genetic data. They’ll find some way to crack the code. Reverse our rapid aging.”
So I can be an invalid even longer.
Fi was too tired to try to talk anymore. He closed his eyes and focused on Sev’s hands rubbing circles into his back. He lay there in his arms, basking in Sev’s touch and the steady, warm burn it left behind. Fi almost forgot he couldn’t get up and walk out the door afterward. His shirt slid up further — Sev’s fingers kneaded between his shoulder blades, first along the inside edges, then the outside, nudging the flat bones back and forth. Fi sighed, his tension uncurling as his shoulders relaxed. He felt like he’d been drugged. Nothing could be better than this. Wrapped up with Sev, and he didn’t have to do anything.
Sev’s fingers prodded at the base of his neck, feeling around the rigid spinal muscles, leaving goosebumps everywhere he pressed. It wasn’t just anyone’s hand. It was Sev’s. And Fi was hyperaware of everything else he’d watched him do with it. He let out another deep sigh, thinking about Sev loading up his deecee; cracking his knuckles. Rubbing at two-day-old stubble. Taking a drag from a cigarra. Pulling on his cock in the showers.
Fi had his eyes closed, nose crushed against Sev’s chest. He took in a shaky breath, almost inhaling Sev’s blacks along with the stale air trapped between them. He wished Sev had taken his shirt off — he wanted to feel his bare skin under his cheek.
Sev’s arms tightened heavily around Fi, then he tucked his face against Fi’s temple, lips pressed to his ear. His breath sent tingles down Fi’s neck. “Verd ori’shya beskar’gam,” he murmured. A warrior is more than his armor.
Sev’s hand held the back of Fi’s head, and he struggled to come back to the present. “... Think so?”
“Yeah. You’re gonna be ok.”
It sure felt like it. The warm press of Sev’s hands was the best thing Fi could remember, and he was sure Sev had never said this much to him in one conversation before. Who’d have guessed, an upside to brain damage.
Fi couldn’t bring himself to feel any resentment just now. He slumped against Sev contentedly, mouth dropping open in relaxation. Sev thought he was Mandokarla.
“How d’ya know?” Fi asked.
“Because I said so.” Sev’s hands stopped moving, and he was quiet for a minute. “Kar’tayli gar.”
Love ya.
For a second, Fi thought his hearing must have been damaged, too, and he’d only just now noticed. His heart stalled. Then it went pounding in his ears. What had happened to ‘I’m still a psycho?’
“What?”
“Kar’tayli gar, di’kut.”
Fi was speechless. He’d heard correctly.
Sev dragged his hands down over Fi’s back, leaving a trail of gooseflesh, then leaned over Fi to reach for his jacket again. “I got you something.”
A soft rattling noise tickled Fi’s ear, and he opened his eyes. Sev was holding a tiny Mon Cal ballerina, the kind people put on their speeder’s dash to bobble while swerving around slower traffic.
Fi blinked. “‘S for?” He asked, weakly.
“Mon Cala Ballet,” Sev said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Since you never got to go on Corrie.”
Sev set the bright little dancer on the nightstand, flicking it with his thumb and middle finger.
Fi watched it teeter back and forth, a wobbly smile creeping over his face.
“I’ll dance with you, Fi,” Sev grunted, lips in Fi’s hair. “Just get better. Please.”
Fi could do that.
He had run for months before, on fumes and thoughts of warm beer. He could learn to walk again for Sev’s lazy ‘I love you’ and the promise of a dance.