(Rebelcaptain appreciation week day 1 prompt: Significant Moments)
I would have loved to cook for you, on a beach like this.
Freshly caught fish, perhaps, cooked simply on a fire in a pit in the sand. No salt required as the sea lingers on their skins. Maybe a little pepper if we had some. The scent of the cooking brings you near and you watch as I turn the fish on their skewers, the skin blackening and popping a little with the moisture. I see the need in your eyes as you ask: “Is it ready yet?”. That same hunger in your eyes that first held me in their tight grip made literal here - and I catch a child-like gleam in them now as you bend nearer to look and to allow the sound and smells of my cooking to entice you. “You’re a man of hidden talents, Captain Andor,” you flirt, unashamedly, and I have to shoo you away as the need to just keep looking at you is too strong and I don’t want this meal to be anything other than perfectly cooked. But you keep coming back to where I kneel before the fire, distracting me by embracing me from behind and watching on, your chin resting on my shoulder, until the meal is finally ready. Then I watch you try to guzzle like a child, and you yelp when a bone pricks your mouth. And you also burn your tongue and your fingers too because you are so impatient and impetuous and run headlong into eating as you do into many things. And afterwards you start to lick the juices from your fingers and at the sight of that my own hunger becomes too much. We clean each other’s fingers, then each other’s lips.
We have strong appetites.
I would have loved to dance with you, on a beach like this.
To music of our own imagining, or drifting in from the distance because we are alone, together, as we dance on the shoreline. The water laps around our bare feet. The sun sets and the first stars emerge. The air stays warm, and we dance on. You like to lead, sometimes. I let you guide me, feeling your gentle but insistent support. I am strong and whole again, and your fingers feel good against the muscles of my arms as we dip and sway, and you trust me absolutely now. It ‘goes both ways’ - and so do we. Our movements are graceful, balanced, organic and united. We are like one being, perhaps some strange yet beautiful creature from the sea, come to shore this quiet night to flirt a little with the land. Who needs a ballroom on Coruscant or Chandrila and who needs fine clothes; your combat gear is as beautiful to me as any flowing gown, and far more real. And when we finally tire of dancing I will enjoy unwrapping you like a present I thought I could not possibly ever deserve again.
I would have loved to lie with you, on a beach like this.
Our only blanket, the warm night sky. Our bed, the sand: soft courseness, tactile, getting everywhere. You grumble “This will be shedding every time I shower for weeks,” and we laugh, easily, as if we have known each other for years. Enough phosphorence in the gently lapping waters to allow us to see each other, clearly. The softness of your skin, soothing on my scars. The softness of your eyes, soothing on my soul. Like the tide, we rise and fall - the rhythm of the waves in each movement. Sometimes a gentle sea. Sometimes a storm. Always in motion as one.
And we cry as we make love. Happy or heartbroken or both. I kiss the salt warmth of your tears as your body stiffens with another sweet climax, and your cries on each crashing wave of pleasure pull at my heart all over again and I weep too because all sex like this is built on the knowledge that this time, this most clear and beautiful ‘now’, might be the last. I had always had trouble, before, saying ‘goodbye’. As if never saying goodbye would keep goodbyes at bay, somehow. But now I know our final goodbye gives life meaning, and true beauty has sadness too amidst the pleasure. So we relish the before, and the after too, and each moment in between of the long warm night. The next moment and the next until the moments run out. And soon enough I don’t think, for each of those nows, of everything I’ve lost - but concentrate on what I’ve gained instead: the knowledge that I tried my best. Hope.
I would have loved to sit with you, on a beach like this, and watch a sunrise.
And that, I have. We have.
Your arms are strong and supportive, and you have supported my soul as well as my broken body. In the elevator, you realised you were losing me and I wanted to comfort you, but I could hardly breathe for the agony and it was only the sight of you that kept me from fainting. But I wanted to see you without your own pain on your beautiful face and I could hardly stand it and almost wanted to look away, but I couldn’t and I didn’t. Feeling the life draining away I wanted the light of your face shining on me through the coming darkness. But I didn’t want to give you the pain of seeing my pain and I’m sorry that you did.
So in a way, seeing the blast and our clean, painless and mutual death coming… gives me strength again. I can comfort you, and myself, knowing this. I can rally myself one last time and give you what I know I would have wanted. The same message I needed, and didn’t get, on the beach at Niamos.
I give you the love of your father. My final gift of words.
You take it so gratefully, and gift me in turn with your hand, taking mine, and then the warmth of your embrace. And you hold me and support me again as you have held and supported me throughout this last vital mission, when I realised I could recommit to everything I believe and learn to love again through you and with you - side by side and heart in heart.
The Rebellion came first. We took what was left.
In this life, we couldn’t have more than this. But we have had this. We will always have had it.
So in my mind and in my heart, and in this universe and in much kinder ones… we will eat, dance, make love… and die in each other’s arms. It is what’s left. It’s ours, forever.
Together, on this beach, we have what might have been.
