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Cassian was having a surprisingly good night’s sleep. Maybe it was sleeping outdoors again, something about the open air and the proximity to others that reminded him of falling asleep on Kenari, or maybe it was just the intensity and exertion of the previous day’s activities. Either way, the hammock was quite cozy, so much so that at some point in the night Cassian’s feet had gotten too hot beneath the thick, woolen socks he’d been wearing, and he took them off.
That, he discovered, was his first mistake.
His second mistake was allowing himself to get so comfortable, to fall in to such a deep sleep in the first place, enough to forget where exactly he was, so that when he felt large, calloused fingers ghosting over his bare foot, he twitched and smiled a little in his sleep, but didn’t move.
Bix…? He thought sleepily; she’d tickled him awake before, but no, that couldn’t be right. Not lately.
Maarva’s idea of a joke? His mind supplied instead, working all too slowly to catch up with the fastly developing situation, which had now progressed to the stage where fingers were skittering up and down the sole of his foot, where he was dreadfully ticklish.
He twitched his feet again, and the sound of his own half-asleep giggles woke him up fully.
He opened his eyes to find Skeen towering over him from the foot of his hammock, regarding him with raised eyebrows and something like a smile on his grim face, his hand still hovering too close to Cassian’s bare toes for comfort.
“You were the last one asleep,” Skeen said in his usual drawl, though his mouth was still twitching up at the corners in amusement. “Everyone else has been up for almost an hour.”
Too embarrassed even to deliver some snapping remark, Cassian immediately jerked his vulnerable feet well away from Skeen’s fingers, tucking them firmly under the blankets. His whole body prickled with shame, and his face felt hot. He did try his best to glare at Skeen, but it probably came out a little wobbly and uncertain, because it did little to change Skeen’s expression of calm bemusement.
Behind Skeen, Vel and Nemik were sitting around the cold fire pit, eating breakfast. To make matters worse, they were both looking at him. Vel’s lips were pursed in a way that made it seem like she was trying not to laugh, but Nemik was openly smiling at him, blue eyes glimmering with amusement, though not unkindly.
“Here, eat,” Skeen said, and it was only then that Cassian noticed that Skeen was holding something in his other hand that hadn’t been occupied by tormenting him. He handed him a wooden bowl filled with dray-milk porridge, and Cassian accepted it a little numbly.
“Thanks,” he growled into his porridge, and Skeen let out a gravelly, quiet chuckle, then went and sat down next to Nemik to eat his own breakfast.
When Cassian made the mistake of glancing up from his food, he was met with the sight of Nemik looking at him with those exuberant and observant eyes of his. Vel at least had the decency to look like she was busy sorting out some gear next to her, not commenting on the situation, but there was no meanness or judgment in the way Nemik regarded Cassian; just warm, amused sympathy.
“Oh dear, poor Clem,” Nemik said with a bright laugh at what must have been Cassian’s dour expression. “Skeen, that was cruel. He was just beginning to warm up to us, now look what you’ve done!” Nemik smacked Skeen lightly on the shoulder, his tone admonishing but light-hearted.
“Look, he wasn’t waking up, and it worked,” Skeen said, a little exasperated. “Besides, it works on you, too, and you said you liked it.”
Skeen leaned into Nemik’s space a little with a smirk.
Give me strength, Cassian thought to himself. Now I have to sit through more of their flirting.
Nemik giggled a little nervously, and raised a hand in objection.
“That is not accurate,” he responded, blushing and a little flustered. “I said it was preferable to waking up to a blaster in my face.”
“Ah, right,” Skeen said with a wiggle of his eyebrows and a grin, before headbutting Nemik’s shoulder playfully.
Nemik laughed again, the sound of it almost too bright and too cheerful for the circumstances they found themselves in. But even through his bad mood, something inside Cassian warmed to hear it.
“You’re impossible,” Nemik said fondly, then set his bowl down and kissed Skeen’s cheek, before standing up and stretching. Then he looked over to Cassian.
He approached him carefully, as though Cassian were a skittish tooka who might run away, or claw Nemik’s face off, if he made a wrong move. He was probably right.
“I am truly sorry about him,” Nemik said, still amused but genuinely sorry. “But it’s okay, you know. We’re all friends here, we won’t bite. Just… tickle, apparently!”
He giggled a little to himself as he said the last bit, then gave Cassian another sympathetic smile and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, squeezing twice before withdrawing and going on his way.
Cassian wanted to say no, that’s stupid, you don’t understand, we’re not all friends here! I’m being paid and I just want to go home. I don’t trust any of you, and you’re definitely not my friends. Your weird boyfriend embarrassed me. That softer side of me isn’t for him, isn’t for any of you! Hardly for anyone at all, these days.
But something about Nemik’s kind eyes and warm hand on his shoulder made all those words die in his throat before they could even reach his lips. Maybe it was just because he didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to disappoint him or disabuse him of the rosier picture he seemed to have painted of all of them.
Or maybe, Cassian realized, he wanted to believe him, wanted to trust them, wanted friends he could laugh and be vulnerable with.
Cassian set that possibility firmly aside along with his mostly finished bowl of porridge, and got on with the serious business of the day.