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“Can I trust you?” Chelli asked her companion, not looking at him.
“Do you really need to ask that question?” Lucky asked, a smile on his face as he reached for his blaster.
Chelli couldn’t argue with that. How many times had Lucky tried to kill her? More than once, but to be fair, she was wanted, and he wasn’t the only one that tried to kill her. At least he wasn’t as bad as some of them. Sometimes she even thought of him as a friend. Not always. Sometimes he was an enemy, and she wasn’t always sure which he was going to be. She liked that, it kept things interesting.
She shook her head. “I don’t need to ask. You’re reliable when I need you to be, and right now, I need you to be reliable,” she replied, her voice low.
He laughed. “Fair enough,” he replied, taking his blaster and watching as she unholstered her own. “Split and take them out that way?”
Chelli nodded and the two of them went opposite directions, not needing to plan something they had done before, on multiple occasions.
The shootout was quick and the two of them emerged victorious, as was to be expected. They holstered their blasters and looked to each other. “Not bad, good shooting, Lucky,” Chelli said.
He nodded to her. “You’re not so bad yourself, Chelli,” he replied, approaching her.
She shrugged. “Well, yeah, I’m pretty great,” she replied, her smile broad. “Shall we get out of here now? Find a cantina to get a drink?” She didn’t mind spending time with him when he wasn’t trying to kill her.
He nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good,” he said, not about to turn down a drink after a shootout with a bunch of Stormtroopers.
The two of them walked off, and found a cantina rather quickly, sighing a breath of relief as they sat down with their drinks, avoiding notice. There would almost certainly be running soon, but they could take a moment to let their victory set in.
“Lucky…” Chelli said after a moment of silence. “Can I ask you something?”
“As long as it’s reasonable, but I can say no after you’ve asked,” he replied, nudging her slightly. He knew it wasn’t credits, she had bought their drinks.
“I’ve been thinking about siblings a lot. You have a brother, I’m an only child. What is it like, having a sibling?” she asked.
Lucky inhaled. “Well, Pak is a piece of work, but I love him, he’s my brother. I don’t mind digging him out of trouble, most of the time,” he said.
Chelli nodded. “Do siblings love and hate each other at the same time? Does that make sense?” she asked.
Lucky nodded. “Yeah, I think that being siblings is one of the very few relationships where it can work like that. Again, I love my brother, but sometimes I do want to shake him and scream. Ask him why he makes the choices he does. Though I’m sure he wonders the same thing about me sometimes. No one forces me to take care of him, I just do it,” he explained.
Chelli nodded, thinking for a moment. “So, sort of like us. We are friends, but also enemies. Reliable when the other needs us, but–” she trailed off.
Lucky nodded. “Yeah, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
Chelli shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. Being an only child is boring. I have no one that I’m close to in the way that siblings are. But I think that if I was to have a brother, I’d want one like you,” she said.
Lucky looked at her for a moment, thinking. “Well, family can be made, you know that, right?” he asked.
Chelli looked at him. “Yes, that’s generally how families work. People get made, and–”
He held up a hand. Neither of them were going to want to continue that conversation. “Chosen, made up of whoever we’d like,” he explained.
Chelli thought for a moment. “I suppose so,” she replied. “Even if we have other family?”
He nodded. “Yeah, there is nothing wrong with having multiple types of family. Our biological, our chosen, it makes us stronger and happier. Especially if our biological one is lacking something. A parent, or a sibling, or something,” he replied. He found that he liked this conversation with her. It was a different sort to what they tended to have with one another. It was important to her, he could tell.
Chelli nodded again, not saying anything, just taking a long sip of her drink.
“Y’know,” Lucky said. “I don’t have a sister. I kind of wanted one growing up, and I think that if I had one, I’d like for her to be like you. Fun, chaotic, intelligent, and also someone that I have that sort of friends and also enemies, whichever is appropriate for the moment, relationship with.”
Chelli put down her glass. “Are you asking me to be your sister, Lucky? How sweet,” she said, a smile coming to her face.
He laughed. “Oh thank goodness the sappiness is over,” he teased, nudging her. “And yes, I’m asking you to be my sister, and by extension, asking to be your brother.”
Chelli nodded. “Yes, and yes,” she replied. “Thank you for …” she shook her head, punching him in the shoulder.
He laughed softly. “Don’t ever change, this changes nothing between us. We’re still the same as we’ve ever been,” he replied.
Chelli shrugged. “Yeah, but now I have a licence to be extra annoying. An excuse to drive you crazy. And you have even more reason to want to kill me,” she said, her smile happier than Lucky had seen her in a long time.
The two of them looked up to see a couple Stormtroopers walking into the cantina. They both dunked under the table and looked at each other. “Well, the moment’s over. Let’s get out of here,” Lucky said, gesturing for Chelli to duck out from under the table while he followed her. The two of them kept low as they snuck around looking for a way out of the cantina.
Lucky for them (ha, thought Chelli), the Troopers had no one stationed at the entrance, so they easily slipped out from there. The two of them darted off to the ship, quickly taking off and laughing in the cockpit together after they jumped to hyperspace.
“That’s sibling bonding right there, sis,” Lucky said, shaking his head.
Chelli looked at him and smiled. “I’d not have it any other way, brother,” she replied.