#thrayjallus

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 10: "These Fever Dreams"

Kallus finds himself wandering in the night and sees something he did not expect to enjoy so much

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Once the door closed behind Dayja, he immediately unbuckled the tight naval uniform choking his neck. He shrugged out of the gaberwool tunic with an, “Ugh,” of disgust and slung it on the back of Thrawn’s chair, leaving him in the far more comfortable, form-fitting black shell beneath. He grumbled, “Why I keep going for the naval uniform, I have no fucking clue,” as he began digging around in his carrybag for a micro-ion pulse mine. After detonating it and tossing it onto the desk, he turned to Thrawn. “I got most of this kriff sorted last week, so this time I figured I’d start with…” He cocked an eyebrow at the very strange look Thrawn was giving him. “You good, pal?”

Dayja followed the line of Thrawn’s red gaze to his own bare arms and, most likely, the tattoos there. He cleared his throat and Thrawn’s eyes flicked up to meet his. “If you start analyzing me, Commodore, I swear to—”

“Apologies, Agent,” Thrawn said. “I meant no disrespect.” He turned and disappeared into one of the anterooms; he returned a minute later with a steaming carafe of caf. “Your last visit, you requested whiskey and caf. I was not certain what ratio of caf to whiskey you required.”

Dayja blinked at him in faint surprise. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said and accepted a steaming mug. Thrawn looked at him expectantly, and he took a small sip. He only resisted the urge to cough with some difficulty.

“I opted for a ratio of one to one,” Thrawn explained. “If it is not to your liking, I can prepare another—”

Dayja waved a dismissive hand and wheezed, “It’s good.” He took another sip—better prepared this time—then sat the mug down. With a groan, he laid back onto the floor and slid beneath Thrawn’s desk to pry open one of the panels and continue his modifications.

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 12: I never Believed in Love

Dayja and Kallus return to the grand admiral's quarters just as Thrawn receives troubling news from Yularen.

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 9: Dizzy in the Head

Kallus considers his options, and Dayja helps… after a fashion.

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Once back on the Chimaera, Kallus asked for permission to return to his quarters for the night—his own quarters—to consider Thrawn’s proposal. The permission was granted. The rhythmic echo of his footsteps ringing in the durasteel halls brought with it an odd sense of déjà vu… like he’d approached this moment from the wrong direction in time. That strange sense didn’t abate once he sat on his bunk. Nor once he began turning the softly glowing meteorite over in his hands.

It wouldn’t fade for hours, that out-of-time feeling.

Had they all been planet-side, it would have been sunrise when a worn voice pulled him out of his own tangled mind.  “That’s it, huh?”

Kallus looked up in surprise. He hadn’t even heard his door open. “Do you ever sleep, Dayj?” he asked, looking back down at the glowing rock.

“Do you?” Dayja sat beside him on the small cot. The warmth of his leg pressed against Kallus’s wounded one, holding him in place—anchoring him in time. He pulled out an ion-pulse mine and activated it before tossing it to the floor. The gentle blue glow joined that of the meteorite’s, casting them in green light. “Well, color me relieved. Here I was thinking I was actually gonna have to murder Thrawn for a minute there.”

“No,” Kallus said. “We only had a conversation. No murder necessary.”

Dayja looked around and asked, “Where do you keep your snacks?”

“I haven’t got any snacks, Dayj.”

Dayja mouthed a silent, “Oh,” with a face that said as plainly as any words: no wonder you’re so grouchy all the time. The bed began to quake beneath them; Kallus shot Dayja a really? look. “You weren’t kidding about the bunks,” Dayja said, bouncing experimentally. “Kinda squishy.”

A faint smile ghosted Kallus’s lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t already know that from personal experience.”

Dayja gave a small snort and muttered, “Like I’d waste my time in a shitty bunk fucking anybody below a commodore, Al, come on.”

Was Thrawn a commodore at the time? Was it on Coruscant? Where was I? With Eli? Did I—

Dayja’s voice filtered through Kallus’s meandering thoughts: “Yeesh. This thing really is tiny.”

“Yes,” Kallus agreed, returning his focus to the meteorite in his hands. “It is.”

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 5: “An Aching in My Chest”

Kallus makes a plea for a gift he does not deserve, and Thrawn adjusts his tactics.

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By the time Thrawn returned to his quarters, Dayja still had not.

Thrawn seemed to pick up on that fact immediately as he scanned the living area. He gave the agent seated on the couch only a passing glance before asking, “Where is Agent Collerand?”

“As far away from me as he can manage on an ISD, I imagine,” Kallus said.

Thrawn nodded once. “Roughly 1,400 meters,” he said.

Kallus looked up and stared at the admiral. “You don’t seem surprised,” he observed wryly.

Thrawn arched an eyebrow and asked, “Are you?”

“No,” Kallus admitted. He shifted his eyes to a sculpt hanging on the wall. The pieces of metal that had been polished to a mirror finish picked up the blue and white of Thrawn’s figure. He thought he could see the judgment there.

He deserved it, of course.

Out of nowhere, Thrawn said, “You are self-flagellating.”

Kallus felt his face contort and he looked up. “Excuse me?” he asked.

Thrawn looked utterly unapologetic as he returned, “Are you not?”

“I—” Kallus sighed. “Maybe,” he grumbled.

“Such exercises can be helpful in very small doses,” Thrawn said. “But it does tend to stultify action.”

“Oh?” Kallus asked with mock-interest. “And tell me, Thrawn: What action could I possibly take that would make Dayja forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself?” His brows went up when Thrawn breathed out a silent laugh. “What is it?”

“It is nothing,” Thrawn said. “On occasion, I find myself struck by our similarities.” He tilted his head and added, “As well as our differences.”

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 2: “Brown Eyes to Stone”

Dayja arrives on the Chimaera. With questions.

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Dayja Collerand stepped onto the shuttle’s boarding ramp and eyed the Chimaera’s hangar bay warily. He’d been here before, of course—more times than even Thrawn realized. Now that he’d actually been invited, Dayja found himself on even higher alert than when he hadn’t. He followed the haphazard path of a mouse droid with his eyes; it skittered to a jerky stop before it could crash into a gonk droid.

Appropriately, the gonk droid gonked out a reprimand, and the mouse droid zoomed off with a high-pitched chirp.

Dayja twisted his mouth, debating if he shouldn’t have commandeered the thing. But there were already six stormtroopers waiting for him. They looked wary: like they’d been warned. The thought made Dayja snort a derisive laugh as he descended the ramp.

The captain stood to attention once Dayja’s eyes fell on her. The thick stubble and black leatheris smuggler’s jacket in place of a clean shaven face and uniform had given the woman a moment’s doubt, but it seemed she’d finally managed to put two and two together to make ISB Agent. “Sir! I have been ordered to escort you to the grand admiral’s office.”

“I’ll bet you have,” Dayja said. He pushed past her and threw a casual wave over his shoulder. “I know the way,” he said.

“Sir—”

“Take a break, Captain,” Dayja said airily as he continued toward the exit. He could feel the tension rise behind him as he walked. He slid a hand over his chest; the comlink he’d only been able to carry as of six hours ago rested in his inner jacket pocket. He wanted to let Alex know he’d gotten his message—that he was here. But at the same time, it wouldn’t do to be leaving a trail right now.

And he had one or two things he wanted to clear up with Grand Admiral Artsy first. Like, where the fuck Eli Vanto was if he wasn’t dead

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 7: "Cover Me in Roses"

Dayja returns from Alderaan to find an Alex no longer content with half-truths, and a grand admiral drawing plans amidst the chaos.

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“So... what do you think?” Dayja asked as he stared out the shuttle viewport. The Chimaera’s looming silhouette all but eclipsed the stars.

“As I said, I have only a few minutes before the Colonel is expecting my comm,” Thrawn said.

“You outrank him,” Dayja said tightly. “Make time and tell me what you think.”

“I also outrank you, yet here we are.”

“Please, Thrawn.”

Silence followed. Then, a hiss of static before Thrawn answered, “What I think is not at issue.”

“Don’t give me that,” Dayja said. “Of course, it fucking is.”

“It should not be at issue for you,” Thrawn clarified. “Not for this.”

Dayja wished he weren’t wearing gloves. The urge to chew at his nails prickled on his knuckles. He settled for rubbing a finger along the stubble beneath his lip because he couldn’t bring himself to take his gloves off. He wasn’t cold. He was too warm if anything.

“Agent Collerand?”

“Yeah?” Dayja said far more harshly than he’d meant to. He took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over his face, wincing back his growl of frustration. Only when he could trust that breath to be silent did he release it. “You talked to him though, right?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve seen him struggle to draw a circle, so I’m guessing you didn’t sit him down with a box of crayons and order him to explore the flimsi.”

Hesitation. “I did,” Thrawn admitted. “Briefly.”

Dayja forced his dread behind a wall and asked, “And?” More maddening silence. Dayja glared at the bulkhead. “What did you talk about, Admiral?”

“His leg injury,” Thrawn said. “And its impact on his fighting abilities.”

“His leg injury,” Dayja echoed skeptically. “Right. And what did we glean from this discussion?”

“Only more questions,” was Thrawn’s delicate and infuriatingly uninformative answer.

“Such as?”

Thrawn’s short sigh crackled. “Such as ones not to be discussed over a comm channel.”

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 3: "I Wake up Shaking in the Darkness"

Unbeknownst to them, Kallus and Thrawn share the same doubts.

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Dayja readied the razor and shaving oil while Alex leaned against the refresher counter, watching him with mixed wariness, resignation, and relief. Alex’s black tunic was folded behind him to spare it the mess of hair Dayja was about to unleash, bearing the claw-mark scars on Alex’s chest.

Alex must have seen the direction of Dayja’s gaze because he looked down at them, too. For a moment, Dayja thought the grimace of pain that flashed across his eyes was memory, but no: at least, not only that. Alex placed a hand on the counter to take the weight off his leg asked wryly, “I don’t suppose anyone else I know is secretly alive?”

“Not so far as I know,” Dayja said, turning away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Dayja rubbed some oil between his palms then carefully massaged it into Alex’s scratchy hair; he rubbed his thumbs into his cheeks and jaw until the fear and pain cloaking Alex’s amber-brown eyes since he’d stepped into Thrawn’s quarters gave way to something almost like relaxation. Though, surrender would be more accurate.

[wantonwhale]

A Promises Thrayjallus AU...

Chapter 1: "They're Gonna Leave You there to Drown"

The stage is set as Kallus learns the consequences of subversion, and Thrawn hears from an old contact.

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Kallus followed in step behind Thrawn as the grand admiral inspected the factory, relieved the icy fury radiating off the man wasn’t for him. He watched in quiet shock while Thrawn scolded Pryce like a child for her failure to maintain security. The shock only grew once Thrawn turned to him for input.

The way Thrawn looked at him then was nothing like their last encounter. The quality of his red eyes reminded him more of their interactions before their lives had all collapsed into grief and hatred—back when Thrawn sought out Kallus’s confidence, and Kallus his.

Before Eli Vanto disappeared.

“Agent Kallus,” Thrawn said, returning his focus to his datapad as he scrolled. “You have spent several years in this sector; what do you notice about these numbers?” He extended the datapad: far enough that Kallus could get a good look, but keeping it close enough that Kallus would have to go out of his way to avoid touching the man.

Kallus stepped forward to stand closer to Thrawn and looked over his shoulder at the data. As he did so, he could feel Thrawn’s body heat radiating against his chest and cheek like a blush. It was funny: he’d always assumed Thrawn would be cooler to the touch than a Human, not warmer. He forced himself to focus on the numbers and not dwell on the fact that he’d just thought of what touching Thrawn would feel like.

Thrawn turned his head slightly. His slow, cool breaths brushed Kallus’s cheek.

Kallus swallowed; he could feel Thrawn’s eyes on him just as surely as he felt his breath. He was certain Thrawn could discern each and every one of this thoughts as easily as Kanan Jarrus had—

“Well…” Kallus said, clearing his throat and swiping his finger to bring up the worker stats. “There was a mass-firing two months ago, followed by a huge jump in production numbers. Many of the replacement workers were prisoners—local, if I had to guess by the names.”

“And what result would you expect from such a shift?” Thrawn asked.

“Best-case scenario? A decrease in production quality," Kallus said. "Worst case: an increase in the likelihood of subversion. Possibly even insurrection.”

“Well-observed, Agent Kallus,” Thrawn said, holding out the datapad to Pryce before dropping it into her outstretched hands, “as we now find ourselves at worst case.”