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I'll seek you out
Flay you alive
One more word and you won't survive
And I'm not scared
Of your stolen power
I see right through you any hour
It was indeed a beautiful sight. Chaotic up there but nonetheless beautiful. The hectic leave was full of focus and strain of the adrenaline rush. He did notice the beauty though.
It’s taken to plague his mind in the quietness of the hour.
Somewhere a toot reverberated through the memory of the night before and it felt like years ago in the soft illumination of the quiet moon.
Skeen’s body nearby as it tauntingly ghosted Cassian’s thoughts. He knew something will happen sooner or later. The tickle in the back of his head and the slight unnerved tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with the mild blaster burn. His hackles went up for a reason.
Nemik was nothing like that, he suddenly realized. The younger man emitted completely different energy that instilled calmness and deep strength within. He wondered why though, not that it changed anything now.
Cassian wasn’t one to scare easily or care for strangers. He did for Nemik.
The man’s manifesto gently laid against Cass’s chest. The man had given it to him with insistence. Had to mean something, right?
He could imagine what though. Their last conversation in the morning before. Yet it felt like heavy rocks in his subconsciousness.
Do I look thankful to you?
He almost allowed a small wetness escape from the corner of his eye.
But as he breathed in the fresh air of Frezno he also felt his own injuries sing with the far away wildlife. There was a very mild stinging singe in his chest. He did get hit few more times than just the one burn on his arm. He’d seen the deep purple on his naked chest but hid from Luthen Rael because he didn’t trust the man that much. He hid from Cinta when she patched him up and maybe deliberately as he was hiding more than just a bruise.
For all intents and purposes there had been a patch of thick layer of his jacket over his chest when the corp shot him the first time. He’d nearly gone down at that moment. Blasters hold enough of a punch, more so than corp chucking his cheek. He expected that more than not, wasn’t the first time he was getting injured less than near-deathly.
Deflection was part of his trade so was keeping secrets.
Frezno will keep another one for him. The doctor had given him a chance for hope and he couldn’t tell why.
He felt the bolts of heated pain shooting through his head and he guessed the guard slammed him harder than he felt against the panel before nearly chocking the living daylights out of him.
Nemik saved Cassian there and then. But his dreamless sleep was plagued by a rather juicy crack from when the kriffin’ pallet crashed into the young man. He tried not to acknowledge that too deeply yet it had sneaked its tentacles deep into Cassian.
I'm taking it slow
Feeding my flame
Shuffling the cards of your game
And just in time
In the right place
Suddenly I will play my ace
His hand found a way to hold itself against his aching chest and pounding head. He hoped there’d be nobody to witness this pathetic moment of weakness. Cassian couldn’t just let his guard down now that the entire Galaxy was after them. Yet he somehow couldn’t move away from this moon. His limbs stayed heavy and stiff against the darkness of a gentle night and he tried to bury the image of shooting Skeen dead as deep as it would go but his brain seemed to stuck on what it felt.
They both had been there for the money yet the least trusted of them turned out to be most loyal despite same end-goal.
What did that say of his own character? The Vel’s makeshift team? Did it mean all the things Nemik spoke about somehow reflected into his own actions? Did it make him a better man among scoundrels?
His brain was fuzzy and world seemed to have developed a wish for a dance. The subtle weakness begun to sneak upon the lone man deep in his own personal turmoil of his choices and beliefs and all the things he lived through on Aldhani.
He saw how locals went about the celestial event and it left an impression somewhere deep inside Cassian. They believed in something and regarded it as a very special occasion and kept the tradition despite Empire’s oppressing presence. Almost as if that’s always had been a smallest of most subtlest act of resistance against the repression of the Imperial force.
He’d regarded them with a respect.
Maybe there was a tiny spark inside of him that wanted to join the rebels and fight for all that mattered and was worth to believe in. Even Nemik saying his thoughts and beliefs out loud almost made Cassian to care for their cause. Yet he kept insisting he’s there only for money. He wanted that to be the only truth.
It appeared more than anything he was in it for an entire bundle of random other reasons. One being his mother and their droid. He’d left them back home and still wasn’t sure of the next steps. He just wanted to get home even if the feeling of his chances got pretty shaky.
And suddenly his hands also became shaky. There was accompanying tightness in his chest that wasn’t there moments before.
Yeah, it had been beautiful up there despite the chaos. He almost wished they’d gotten smashed among the rocks for all the troubles he got. But his eyes already lost focus of reality as Cassian slipped away and the last memory he had was of Nemik’s passionate speech and flaming rocks painting a mesmerizing scene into the sky above Aldhani.
I won't soothe your pain
I won't ease your strain
You'll be waiting in vain
I got nothing for you to gain
The next time he became aware was foggy and unexpectedly sensual as there were gentle and soothing fingers drawing circles on his temples and otherwise creating something unusual for Cassian to feel. He was starting to doze off again but before he slipped back into darkness a soft whisper told him everything was okay now.
The following two times was spent in the same dazed fog that refused to clear up until a while later and the same gentle fingertips rubbing his head met his momentary awakening before he faded back to darkness and colorful flaming rocks.
And then just like that he simply woke up to the same type of room Nemik was first operated on by the doctor Quadpaw. The feel of the room radiated same vibes as before but he didn’t remember being inside that long after he told Vel to just drop off his part and go with the rest of credits in that ship he saw in doc’s shed. The one he was pretty ready to pay for from his cut to get away from all of this and back home to mother so they could just leave Ferrix behind.
It’s always been the same plan. Get enough credits, pack up and take his small family to someplace a little safer and quieter. He truly just wanted to get them to a little better place and warmer.
Cass was tired of the cold and rough patches of weather that came sometimes. And he really just wanted to be somewhere less hectic for a while. Maybe even consider settling down if he can find a place he can hide from his past.
So far he wasn’t particularly lucky with that dream. Trouble kept finding him with suspicious ease and just a simple search for his sister led to a completely unrelated incident and he fell for the wrong man just being simple asshole. No more than that but it created a huge crater of problems that kept Cassian sinking deeper and deeper until he’d no other option than fall to the center of it and face his fate at the hands of whoever was the ruling party, and by his luck it would most likely be Empire.
Yet he still was on Frezno and still in the shed of the doctor’s. This time he was alone in the room but the pile of pillows and a rather obvious dipped spot on the blankets next to Cassian told a story of another person sitting or laying next to him for some time. Currently there was nobody near him and the spot was still holding some barely there warmth from the person.
He hoped it has been Nemik somehow. There was nobody else anymore. Vel probably already gone back to the man that sent him to this mission and Skeen was somewhere out there among grass and variety of bugs and other critters. He didn’t take the doctor for bedside manners for a man that held a gun at his face mere moments before. There apparently seemed to be only one obvious option and somehow he was absolutely okay with it if that meant the young man had survived whatever happened to him.
And while it was weird and unexpected, but Cassian wasn’t beyond denying absolutely everything, he had to admit to the strange new feeling tickling at his feelings at least a little bit.
And so far he wasn’t even aware a person actually might feel like that in a presence of another person or even thinking of anyone.
But it seemed like somehow he was and now there was this present awkwardness he wasn’t expecting.
So when he next woke to Nemik’s head on his lap for a change and somehow discovered his own fingers cradling through the man’s locks Cassian had to admit that all of a sudden there was a new kind of fire in his soul that he needed to investigate and understand.
Eyes on fire
Your spine is ablaze
Felling any foe with my gaze
And just in time
In the right place
Steadily emerging with grace