S8 E12: A COLLAPSING STAR WITH TUNNEL VISION [49:27]
Inadvisably seeking out the expertise of Valkorian to assist with the Eternal Alliance's operation against the GEMINI system, Zanya finds himself in the Odessen wilderness chasing ghosts and a truth that's been shrouded from him for months since being risen from carbonite. Left to his own devices and at the mercy of the Emperor, he's forced to lean on old and new allies in his pursuit for attaining answers -- along with a skeleton from his closet that refuses to stay buried.
cw: none! wc: 5k
"If you're planning on jetting off somewhere, I'm pretty sure your brother has the ship locked down."
Zanya hurls yet another rock off into the distance, the Force flooding off him in waves like the eye of a hurricane. It slams into a nearby cliff edge with a rather satisfying sound of stone on stone, reverberating across his ship's staging area where the sun is only beginning to shine over the Odessen mountains — signalling sunrise in the coming hours.
The second one he is seeing among the greenery of the planet rather than from within the base. He somehow doesn't feel any safer or in control out here compared to down below in the wilderness.
He should be exhausted. He is exhausted. The last day stuck in the forests was taxing, on both his body and his mind. He's still trying to wrap his head around all of the new information that feels like it was crammed into any free space in his soul, not to mention the new shift in his sensitivity to the Force. He feels like an untapped well of power that he can't grasp quite yet, and it's doing numbers on the emotions that he usually seals a lid over. Every nerve in his body feels like a livewire, catching on each and every electrical signal, making him wildly out of sorts. He needs to sleep, needs to rest, but he needs answers and a status report of where Havoc and his sister are first. A bed, a datapad, a long walk off a short bridge. There's cotton stuffed in his ears and everything is far too bright all at once.
Zanya exhales instead of screaming, because that is the responsible thing to do, and runs a hand through his hair. It's getting long on him again, scruffy around his face and far past just dusting his shoulders.
He doesn't bother turning to his visitor, already knowing not only the tone of voice but also the tired force signature of Theron Shan. A part of Zanya is frustrated he's here — he wanted to be alone to deal with all of these feelings that demand his attention, but on the traitorous other side, he doesn't want him to go away either.
Not like he has a choice.
Doesn't seem like he really gets many these days.
"Why are you here?" Is the only thing Zanya asks, forgoing the next boulder he intended to heft up and throw across the range where his ship resides. To save their ears, mostly, and not give him an even more obvious reason to be afraid of him.
"You pull a lot of cloak and dagger work these days. Osiris wanted me to check on you," He comes to stand a polite distance away, pausing as Zanya heard his footfalls stop. Then a catch in his voice when he's clearly thinking, and he sounds unsure of himself, "You seemed … I don't know—"
"Distressed? Concerned? Frustrated?" Zanya deadpans as he turns to look at him properly, figuring he at least owes him that much. For the man that had called him difficult not half an hour earlier, his brother had some nerve sending someone else to look out for him. That had always been his style though, indirect and quite annoying whenever he was successful. How Theron had gotten involved, he doesn't know. It's less socially acceptable to lose every marble in his soul on a crew member than a sibling, "I know exactly how I am feeling at the moment, and I do not need someone else to parrot those words back to me."
Theron nods, clicking his tongue, "Yeah. That's — fair probably."
"Unless you have an update on the Havoc team or Barsen'thor's location, I have no need of your presence."
"Ouch. So that's how it is this morning." He sounds resigned, a knot in his brow as if he were actually worried. Mostly, he just looks tired. How long had he been awake thus far for this operation while he was gone? Even more reason Zanya didn't want to bother with entertaining conversation right now, especially not from a sleep deprived man that had no business seeking him out right now. What good were they if the entire team wasn't at their best?
If they made one mistake that lead to Cele getting hurt or worse, Zanya fears he would never forgive himself. The thought scares him enough to send what feels like a bolt of lightning up his spine.
"As it is. Until they have returned, I cannot rest. I would implore you to understand."
"Are you anywhere in the realm of okay?"
That makes him pause. The absurdity of the question causes Zanya's train of thought to halt at once, entirely confused by what would prompt such a thing considering the state he is in. Or he assumes he's in. He only briefly caught his reflection in the transparisteel of one of the ships in the docking bay before he'd stalked out here and it wasn't exactly his best look he's ever worn out, "Did you really think long and hard during your walk out here to ask me that?"
Theron scoffs, "It's a question, and considering you dodged it almost effortlessly, I can only assume that's a no."
"I am fine. I do not require your concern."
Zanya must look on the wrong side of sane saying it considering the disbelief that spills like ink down Theron's expression. He doesn't blame him for the doubt, he supposes in his position he certainly wouldn't assume that fine spit out like an accusation actually meant that he was. And he isn't, admittedly. He doesn't even know what it looks like, can't picture it in his head either.
"You just spent twenty-five and a half hours in the unexplored wilderness of Odessen with, let me remember right, Valkorian of all people doing stars know what to you, somehow encountered a force ghost and Satele of all people, and haven't even visited the medbay yet," Theron's recount makes it sound even more like a fever dream than he'd thought it did, and inwardly he cringes. For anyone else, he would send them immediately to the medical wing and lock them down there for at least two days to recover. Yet, firmly, here he stands. Stark refusal of that very recommendation. If he even sat down, he feels like the guilt would eat him alive, "Did I get all of that or is there somehow more?"
"Not only am I Sith —" The comment earns him a frustrated sigh out of his companion that sounds very knowing and exasperated, which he chooses to ignore for now, "I am your commander. Because of my inability to stave him off for long enough, now my team is suffering the consequences and there is nothing that I can feasibly do now to help them without getting restrained by my own council members. The least I can do is remain accessible should anything else occur."
"You aren't of any use to anyone in your current state. But you know that already, don't you?"
Zanya glares at him, "Is that what you came out here to say? To ask me inane questions, state the very obvious at me and then make presumptions upon my wellbeing? How astute of you to make such observations, Shan."
"I'm saying this isn't your fault, and you throwing yourself to the wolves when they already chewed you up and spit you out isn't going to fix it," It sounds like frustration that simmers just beneath the surface, and part of Zanya is glad for that. The more likely he gets irritated with him, the more likely he'd get out of his hair and leave him alone, "You brooding out here alone running on fumes certainly isn't helping. You faced the Emperor of all people and managed to live to tell the tale."
"He's an apparition! A ghost! He's at a fraction of his power and still I was unable to defeat him proper. To stand that close on near-equal ground and lose, it is an insult to everything that I stand for," Zanya doesn't realize he's raised his voice any until a cough rattles in the back of his dry throat. He tries to take a breath, not realizing just how much it hurts today, "I do not have time for such discussions. What I need is space for drills and a way to discover his weakness. What I need is answers, not platitudes or false reassurances."
"What you need is a few hours of sleep and a shot of caf. You're just going to do more damage like this."
"Who are you to tell me what I do and do not need?"
"Do you really think you're so impossible to care about?"
"I do not need you to!" Something flares in him that he can't quite control, and it feels like he's pacing about as if he were a caged animal. He feels trapped, he doesn't know why and that frustrates him more than the attempt at help, "I am perfectly sufficient on my own, and I will fall long before any of you will."
Theron falters at that, "You shouldn't have to. That's the point of the Alliance, so that you aren't shouldering everything all at once. You have us to look out for you."
"As if I need to be looked after."
"You're not helping your case right now."
Zanya grimaces, shifting his weight off the ankle he'd nearly twisted right off of his socket. He doesn't pretend that he doesn't notice Theron also note that injury, and almost challenges him to mention it by holding him with a pointed look, "I am not asking for you to concern yourself with my wellbeing. I may not be immortal, but I am still able. I do not want — nor need you assuming otherwise. It certainly is not your place to be fretting like this."
He almost thinks he may get the quiet back, not the peace, that had been disrupted hours ago, when Theron shifts his weight to leave. Perhaps he sounds just as crazy as he feels, has put up enough barbed guardrails to scare him off like he did everyone else. Some part of him wants to apologize, acknowledge that the way he feels right now isn't his fault nor his responsibility to deal with. That would be the healthier way to do things. Yet his ears feel like they're full of cotton and his limbs are weighing him down like lead. To stay the course is the way he's always done things, and once he's said what he wanted, he's left in the void of not being sure what else there is.
He feels nothing like himself and the thread of control that he wrapped so tightly around his hand has snapped entirely, leaving ugly red rope burns on his hands. He's unmoored and fearful in the depths of that deep, dark ocean.
Zanya hates to admit that he's treading water. And if he has his way, he's not going to. But so many different things have not been going his way as of late that he hopes he doesn't drown before he's able to surface again.
To be scared is to be weakened by paranoia. Zanya doesn't get scared.
Or at least, he didn't used to.
A second passes before Theron shakes his head and looks to him directly, startling Zanya out of his thoughts. He's set, more sure of himself than a moment ago, even if there's still lines of being indecisive written up and down his face, "Y'know what, no. I'm going to be honest with you right now. I haven't slept, you know I'm not great with words but whether you like it or not you're going to have to listen. The last twenty five and a half hours were terrifying for me. Operation or not, you were the only constant on my mind."
… What?
Zanya blinks. For once, he has no words to fire back with. The statement hangs in the air, and the only thing he can do is attempt to process it. And then fail to do so because the idea sounds so ludicrous to him that it fried out whatever other thoughts he might've had.
Theron seems to be too tired to be mollified by what he's saying, and plows on, "When the hours started to tick by, I couldn't help but worry. I've felt his power before, nothing like how you have, but I know what he's capable of. And I thought that this time he tried to — look, I thought you were gone. Cele said you weren't, just that she just couldn't locate you but she said the exact same thing when she came back from Wild Space all those years ago. Do you have any idea how terrifying that was? Knowing you were out there but also not knowing, having to leave you up to fate because there was nothing I could do to help?"
"I — Theron," Zanya stops and starts, suddenly feeling as if he's encountering something he shouldn't be. Like he's privy to something better left in cryptic emails and late nights over a bottle of something strong. There's a level of vulnerability here that Theron rarely if ever offers up, and he doesn't know what to do with it. He's never been proficient in comforting people (nor did he think Theron of all people would require it) and stands rigid in his discomfort, "I am not bound by fate. By destiny. There was no reason to fear such a thing."
"That's just it though. Bound or not, you were out there alone. There wasn't any way for me to tap into your holocommunicator, wire into any cameras, slice into a system to find you. You were gone, and for a really terrible twenty hours I considered the fact that I might not ever see you again," He mutters the last part so quietly that Zanya isn't sure he's even heard him right, "Ridiculous, I know. You're the Wrath, you're Sith, you're the Outlander and the Commander. Sily of me to be scared for you of all people. But you're also Zanya, and … you're someone I care about."
There's a sense of warmth that balms over some of his nerves at that, which does feel weird at first because he originally thinks its the opposite force signature invading his own, but instead it feels more like a reaction that he can't stop that leaks out his chest. He can't help but still be surprised. For him, it was a day of effectively the most vexing training he'd ever received. Inarguably not the first time he'd experienced something similar, though the first the Emperor himself had been present for.
For those that, for some reason, held some concern for his wellbeing, a repeat of his nap in carbonite. Something he had no real framework of his just how much life had changed for those people, but the fear of it, spoken out loud to him, it makes everything in him twist morr painfully.
He just wouldn't have thought Theron would lose sleep over him. A sharp, cold part of him wants to tell him that he shouldn't. That he should remember his place and act accordingly. That he was an insomniac reading between the lines far too deeply. He is used to absolutely insurmountable odds and being sent to his death regularly. He thrives in it. Zanya isn't afraid of his death in anyway that matters.
Others were.
Others made it his problem, considering his mortality for him.
Instead, he worries his bottom lip, watching on as Theron struggles with something. Hesitates, perhaps thinks better of himself when he closes the distance between them, putting himself firmly in Zanya's personal space. He flinches when his hand carefully finds the edge of his jaw like his palm is on fire, thumb brushing his cheek so delicately that his fingerpad is barely there. Theron's voice softens, quiet enough that only Zanya can hear, "I know the thought drives you crazy, that some of us want to look out for you. I know that you're strong, that you're capable and you can do the impossible. But, somehow against all of my better judgement, the thought of losing you again just — if I couldn't tell you again about this, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."
Zanya sets his mouth in a line, gaze flickering to his hand to his hazel eyes beset by dark shadows underneath them. Exhaustion. And very real terror, even if he'd clearly hidden it well in the war room earlier. He tenses at the undercurrent threading itself through their conversation, "Theron, this really isn't…"
"I know. Timing and all, there's a lot going on right now, I didn't forget. I just had to get this off my chest," He nods, understanding even if his expression shifts into one of slight disappointment when his hand becomes more unsure of itself, threatening to pull away, "Just don't scare me like that again. Regardless of what this is, or what I am to you. Please. I don't think I could do it again."
"Do what?"
"Losing you," It's strained, but it's soulful. As if he's giving away a piece of himself in that moment, "I don't — I couldn't lose you again without losing myself. As crazy as that sounds."
Zanya swallows thickly, sitting painfully with the warring thoughts in his mind. He isn't Theron's to lose, Theron shouldn't feel responsible for him and he certainly shouldn't act as if its the worse thing in the galaxy to have him go missing again. Zanya may be just as allergic to being this exposed and defenseless as he is to the foliage in the wilderness, and it takes a lot for him not to immediately pull back from this weird display of affection that he feels like is ill-fitting for his frame.
Some part of him doesn't think he deserves it. That Theron is bestowing him with something he can't have. He never has been able to grasp it for long and refuses to say the word even in his own mind.
"You are afraid of that?" Zanya asks, before he can bite down on his tongue. His throat feels like sandpaper, trying to conceptualize such a thing, "Truthfully?"
Theron nods softly, once, twice, "One of the things that keeps me up at night. Among others."
"You understand the line of work we are in."
"I do."
"Then you also understand that it is just as unlikely that we both survive this. The odds are grander, perhaps more dire now than they were on Yavin IV," Zanya states, as simply as one would do the news, "I hold no delusions of that. I would offer myself to the galaxy long before any of you."
Theron squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to think, "No, I know. I know that, and the thought still haunts me. But if one of us, even if it isn't me, can be there for you to lighten the load and stave that off a little longer, then its worth it."
Something gets stuck in the back of his throat. It's unfamiliar, and makes him feel like he might choke if he breathes the wrong way. His voice betrays him, quieter than he intended it to be, "That is a terribly selfish way to look at things."
"I think after all I've — we've, been through, I think it's fine if we're a little selfish," He carefully thumbs the edge of his cheek bone, "If I'm a little selfish about you."
The meaning isn't lost on him, in fact it finds a map and tracks it all the way to a traitorous heart that he is too used to shoving back in between his ribs. He is compromised. Well and truly. This is the time and place, were he still Imperial, he would send Theron away. He would reassign him and cite that such behavior would only undermine his campaign. That he became a liability, in that way.
Zanya is not Imperial any longer. Not now, at least.
He doesn't remember the last time he allowed himself to be selfish. He is a man of the people, not among the people. That was how it always was. The Wrath was not a person, but an ideal. That ideal donned the armor and took on the responsibility of enacting another's will. Denied personhood, but not purpose. With the way that he carefully has constructed his persona as the Eternal Alliance's commander, it seems to be going the same direction as his previous line of work.
If he deviates from that …
He is out of sorts. To feel the weight not of someone's demands, but of someone's regard in the way Theron offers it, he feels he may crack under the pressure.
"You are attributing such a desire to a man like myself," Zanya wonders if this is what suffocation feels like, "It will break you someday."
Whether Theron realizes he's offering him an out or not, he doesn't know. Perhaps he ignores it completely, considering he still responds, "Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. I can't say I love the odds, but for you? I think it's worth risking it."
Zanya isn't someone who hesitates. Usually. He's someone who makes a decision and never looks back. So when he told him that the timing wasn't quite right a few months prior in the cantina, he meant that. He couldn't afford to be distracted then, and he can't really afford to be distracted now either.
He shouldn't. He's a storm of emotions right now and not thinking all the way straight. Being scared for his sister's fate, unsure of his own, the revelations from the previous day that all threaten to consume him whole, he is in no position to be making a judgement call like this.
Theron deserves better than whatever mosaic of broken transparisteel that Zanya is. To watch him try to hold onto that selection of pieces nonetheless pains him in a way that he can't explain. This care would be better turned towards someone who would know what to do with it. Someone who would be able to cherish it rather than have his nervous system treat each and every encounter like a fight or flight situation.
He is everything that will destroy him.
But, instead of stepping back from him like he should, he trails his own hand up Theron's forearm to softly rest on the outside of his hand, stilling it there to allow enough space for him to turn his head and press a kiss to the soft callused skin there.
Theron's eyes widen at the action, and Zanya opens and closes his mouth too many times for it to make him look as if he's unaffected. If he leans into Theron's touch a little, sags his weight slightly, then that is no one's business but his own. If his cheeks warm in the afternath, then he would not acknowledge that.
The wave crashes over him. In the ugliest way possible, he needs this right now. He hates that he does, but to have it offered to him, he accepts.
"I am not easy to care for," Zanya sighs, frustrated by how defeated he sounds in the moment. The adrenaline is wearing off, and he is faced by the truth of everything he has experienced. Yet, if even for a moment, he can have this brief respite, then he would take it, "I am irritable. I am stubborn. I am abrasive. I am self-sacrificial. And I am difficult. The man you have constructed in your head over the past few years is not the one that stands before you today, and I caution you against the fondness you have decided to allot to me."
The quiet makes Zanya's teeth buzz. To stun Theron into silence isn't something that happens often, and he almost wonders if he's been too forward. Wonders if perhaps he's done something to ruin what he was already barely cultivating correctly. He would certainly deserve that, and he wouldn't fault Theron for realizing it.
He kisses him instead.
Instead of leaving, instead of insulting him, instead of doing anything else that his response should really elicit, Theron presses his lips to Zanya's without a second thought. Takes his head in his heads, and connects them.
Zanya must be so tired that he isn't fully processing anymore.
It's quick, almost featherlight enough that he barely actually realizes what happened until its over and Theron has retreated far enough to lean his forehead against his. It isn't shame on his expression while he collects himself, but something that reads more like being entirely unsure of himself. Not regret that causes him to linger, but it is an aggravating amount of kindness that eats at Zanya like acid.
Zanya blinks. Once, three separate times as if trying to clear his vision and understand some of version of the reallty he finds himself in. And yet, in every single one, he is still faced by Theron himself.
"I want to. Even if it's hard or it's inadvisable, or even that you think you can do all of this on your own or that you're some difficult, terrible person to care about — let me be there for you. That's all I'm asking," Theron brushes one of the strands of hair that had escaped into his face back behind his ear, before his hand slips away and he stands back from him, "Well, maybe that's a lie. Let me be there for you, and quit trying to disappear on me. That's two things, I guess."
"I believe that may be a tall order of demands considering circumstances," Zanya doesn't love the wide eyed stare he's sure he wears right then, rocking back on his heels and then wincing ever so slightly when he remembers the multitude of injuries he suffered the night before. Catches himself, "If you so desire it, then I suppose the effort must be made."
The first ghost of a smile of the morning appears on Theron's expression, as if he can't help it in the moment, "I think it's a little morbid if you're promising not to vanish again just for my sake."
"Would you not directly benefit?"
"Well, yes, but," The sigh he lets out sounds more like half of what he thinks is mirth, "We can work on it. Whether we have the time or not, I just didn't want to let the opportunity to tell you slip away on me again."
Again. Zanya's mind fiddles with the thought. As if he has any idea what to do with it, but it does make him feel something akin to regret. Five years and some months now, and Zanya can still barely wrap his head fully around what every other person around him had gone through in his absence.
Theron, most of all.
"Let it be known that I warned you," Zanya relents. Will he regret this tomorrow? Later today even? It seems more and more likely, yet he can't find it in himself to fully deny the fact that perhaps there is a small part of him that wants for this. It has managed to override the logic that usually rules his every action in a way that surprises him, "What ever happens from here on out …"
"Probably on me. Yeah, I know, actions have consequences. I'm just choosing this one," There's a soft dusting of maroon just over his nose, and if Zanya looks close enough, up his ears as well. The look is somewhere in the neighborhood of endearing. He coughs, "This doesn't have to come with a label or expectations or anything. Not now. But you know how I feel, at least."
Zanya nods. He does know how he feels, he just can't name exactly what's storming around in his own chest. It might consume him whole if he did manage to say it. Not to mention the million things he still has to figure out in the interim, the world hasn't stopped regardless of how long they stand here. The sun is beginning to fully shine to dawn in a new day.
"I do care for you — I feel the same, against all of my better judgement. That, I suppose you were able to figure," He starts slower than he wishes he would have, but drums his fingers on his greaves as if it would help. It doesn't, "But, perhaps we should table it. Us. For now. Until we bring our people home safe, at least. Until we can think clearer."
"Sounds like a plan," There's a little nervous energy about Theron, something that looks weird on the usually unflappable agent of his. Still, he doesn't look away from him, with that tender gaze of his, "We'll do what we can to bring them home. Think we could all use some shut eye in the meantime. Are you coming back to base?"
Zanya can only imagine the circumstances if he did right then. Too many objects in his quarters that'd be subject to the maelstrom of things that he has to deal with in a skull that threatens to burst. But he's right. He needs to rest before his vision goes blurry, or, blurrier than usual, and he can no longer tell his right from his left.
"I will be. In a little while. If anything —"
"I'll be right by my holocomm. Promise."
"Thank you," Zanya manages to smile ever so slightly, quirking the corners of his mouth up. Though he wants to take steps after him, wants more in a way that feels gluttonous, he stays his hand. Plants himself right there in the grass, as if a prevention method for more things he would eventually have to discuss, "Good night, Theron."
"Good night, Zanya."
