“And so my mom is screaming her head off, me and my dad are running around like crazy trying to catch it while the jogan-bat is desperately trying to find a way out of our house.” Leo continues his story with no small amount of enthusiasm and gesticulates as if his life depends on it.
Resting on her side, one arm between her head and the pillow, Zev’sonya watches him resting on his back and listens while Leo tells the cherished memory from his childhood. She’s struggling not to smile. He’s laughing at his own story and his smile is contagious.
The evening is quiet, the day had been peaceful and it feels a little too good, too right, to be lying in bed with him like this, but Zev’sonya can feel his happiness and like the sad soul she clearly must be, she stays where she is and lets it, him, warm her.
“Then,” Leo cracks up for a bit before he can continue, “then the poor thing decides the only way to escape certain death, aka me and my dad, who in reality were doing our very best to set it free, was to go flapping up into our chimney. My dad of course does the mistake of poking his head in after it and about three years of soot comes crashing down on him.” Leo cracks up again. “He ends up stumbling around with his new pitch black hair, rubbing his eyes and cursing up a storm, failing to stop the bat as it comes back down and flies straight into my mom’s hair to get stuck there. How her screaming didn’t shatter every window in town, I will never know.”
Zev’sonya loses the battle against a smile. She can’t help it. The story combined with his love for his parents and his love for her is too much to block out. He’s glowing with it.
“As for me, I am just running around like a headless tip-yip. I have no idea who to help first; my dad, who is basically blind and no longer blond, or my mom, who has not stopped screaming to draw a breath for about three minutes.” Leo snorts. “In the end, I was the one who needed help. When the bat manages to free itself from mom’s hair, it smacks into my face and accidentally rips half of it off. See?” He pauses to point at his left eyebrow where he might be missing one or two strands if Zev’sonya squints really hard. “Which has me screaming even louder than her.”
Zev’sonya has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“But, yeah, the second my mom hears her baby boy howling, she goes from terrified to furious and she just grabs that bat mid-air and flings it right out the open door.” Leo declares, radiating pride over his mother, plus heartily amused by his own battle-scar. “She patched me up, scrubbed my dad until he wailed and then made us all dinner.” A content sigh. “It was the best day ever.”
Zev’sonya finally breathes a laugh. “Sounds like quite the day.”
Leo looks over at her and grins as bright as a supernova. “It was. It really was. Now it’s your turn. Tell me about a time when little Zev got into mischief.”
And just like that, Zev’sonya goes cold. She moves her gaze to a spot on the wall and she’s no longer smiling. “You don’t want to hear about my childhood.”
“Sure I do.” Leo instantly reassures her, eager and interested. “I bet you kicked ass back then too.”
Zev’sonya clenches her jaw as her hackles go up. She’s glad Leo has his good memories, that he had parents who loved him and protected him. She doesn’t want to think about her own. “No, you don’t want to hear about my past. It’s not something anybody wants to hear.” A flash of bitter anger gives her the strength needed to glare at him. Her jaw aches from clenching so hard. “There are no funny stories. Okay?” Only painful and dark ones, and no one wants to hear that.
She means to turn away, roll over to lie with her back towards him, but as she is about to move; Leo reaches out and takes a gentle hold of her chin to make her look at him again.
“Then we make some.” He says, softly.
Zev’sonya frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“If you don’t have any happy memories,” Leo lets go of her chin and runs the back of his index finger along her jawline in a soft caress, “we’ll make some. Lots of crazy and stupid stuff you can look back on and laugh at.”
Huffing, Zev’sonya can’t believe he just said that. It’s so stupid. It’s… Her heart aches. She loves him. “Idiot.”
Leo smiles and hums a gentle confirmation. “Your idiot.”
Zev’sonya ducks down to rest her head on his chest, too embarrassed to meet his gaze now. She can feel the light laugh rumbling in his torso as his arm goes around her waist and he pulls her close.
Silence fills the room for a little while.
Zev’sonya feels Leo’s every breath by the rise and fall of his chest, hears the steady thump of his heart and feels the steady glow of contentment from within him. And it makes her think about the one good thing in her former life instead of all the bad. Suddenly she remembers something.
“There was this one time…” Zev’sonya mumbles. “When Mose got stuck halfway through a door trying to save my skin. If... you want to hear about that?”
It’s no hilarious and cute childhood story. She and Mose were both old enough to know better and it had been her fault as usual, but it’s the only story she can offer Leo.
Leo lets out a cackle of delight. “Definitely want to hear this. It sounds awesome already.”
“Well, it started with this moron called… I can’t remember his name. Durian, or something. And-”
Corin doesn't really know how to flirt. He knows the technical term, that some are very good at it, but he's never had the skill. Usually others had approached him, not the other way around. Until now Corin has never found anyone interesting enough to make him want to put in the effort.
So now he's in a relationship (which is still mind-boggling to him) and Corin has no idea how to flirt with his partner.
This becomes painfully apparent to him one day as he's lounging in a chair in one of the common rooms with Leave-it and Zev'sonya at opposite sides of the newly acquired sofa, each with a datapad in their hands. Clearly Zev'sonya is in an exceptionally good mood as there is no trace of the usual frown on her face and at one point, she actually reaches over and lightly prods at the blond's thigh with the tip of her boot.
When Leave-it glances up from his screen and over at her, she quickly acts like she had never moved at all and stares intently at her own screen. Leave-it watches her for a few seconds, curious, but eventually returns to stare at his datapad.
She does it again. He looks up faster. She acts innocent even quicker.
The concept of a playful Zev'sonya is as unsettling to Leave-it as it is to Corin and the blond seems hesitant to push his luck and slowly turns his attention back to the screen yet again.
Corin lifts his eyebrows when he sees Zev'sonya grinning when her prodding Leave-it gets no reaction so she starts sliding her foot up and down his thigh.
In a flash, Leave-it grabs her ankle, holds her leg there, before looking over at her with an increasingly confident look on his face. “You want something from me?”
Zev'sonya doesn't flinch, merely tilts her head and maintains both eye-contact and her scary smile. “I don't know.” She pulls her leg free with a sharp movement, but there is no anger or disapproval in her face, just a challenge. “Can you deliver?”
Corin is wondering if he can sneak out of the room without them noticing him, it is pretty clear they've forgotten all about his presence and this is getting awkward, but then Leave-it reaches out to grab Zev'sonya and she jumps up on her feet to dodge him.
She tries to make a run for the door, but Leave-it is incredibly fast. He vaults himself over the back of the sofa, gets between her and the exit, and hoists her over his shoulder while she makes an almost ladylike squeak of surprise.
Corin expects her to get angry, maybe even lash out, but to his surprise she just cackles and lets him carry her out of the room. Huh. Okay. Flirting, such a weird mystery to him.
And same goes when Raga joins him and Paz during a morning work-out and just hovers for a while before she ends up sparring with her riduur.
Paz is trying to show Corin some of the tricks he's been trying to teach him, but Raga doesn't really cooperate and at one point she even flips Paz over her hip and slams his back against the floor.
Wide-eyed, Corin takes a step forward to ask if he's okay and offer him a hand up, but then Paz sweeps out his leg and sends Raga tumbling to the floor next to him. This is bound to end in a fight, right? Corin feels his stomach tighten anxiously and he's looking for some way to defuse the situation when he hears both Mandalorians, just lying on the floor, break out into a shared laugh.
Paz gets up, offers Raga a hand, which she takes, and pulls her up on her feet. She uses her grip on his hand to shove him against the wall, hard enough so it echoes through the room, and their armor clink as she pins him there with her own body.
Corin glances around, a little awkwardly, getting the feeling that this isn't the angry kind of fighting, and considers just trying to sneak his way out of the room.
Raga says something in Mando'a that Corin doesn't understand. His brain translates it into 'one more', which doesn't make sense, so he must have gotten some words mixed up.
“Corin.” Paz rumbles, not turning his t-visor away from Raga.
Corin straightens his spine. “Yes, sir?”
“Get out.”
“Yes, sir.” He doesn't hesitate to obey. But as Corin flees, he is yet again reminded how terrible he is at flirting. He had no idea that was going on in that training room. He needs to get better at this flirting thing. For Din.
That very evening Corin ends up having to take a shower after the little bean spits all over his shirt after trying a new orange and purple fruit that he clearly did not like. That is when Corin discovers how he'd managed to throw that stained shirt on top of his night shirt. Great. Here he is worried about his flirting skills when he's a mess with no clean shirts. That means laundry tomorrow.
Pulling on his loose sleeping pants, he needs to get new ones as these keep sliding down his hips, Corin towels his hair dry for a little while before entering the bed room. He can go one night without a shirt, the air is warm and Din will be there if he needs extra warmth.
Speaking of which, Din is lying on the bed, sans armor, and his t-visor turns to lock on Corin when he steps into the room.
“Everything go okay?” Corin asks as he draws his hands through his semi-wet hair, knowing the child is just a couple of doors away with Mose and Junior and yet can't prevent himself from asking.
Din nods, but doesn't speak. Strange.
Now worried about Din, Corin walks over and sits down next to him on the edge of the bed. “You okay?”
Din nods again. But he seems tense?
Corin places a reassuring hand on Din's thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You sure, ner kar'ta?”
This time, Din's nod is barely visible.
Corin gently runs his hand over the soft fabric across the tense muscle there. He's not entirely convinced, Din seems too tense for everything to be okay, but he doesn't seem angry or scared so it can't be too serious. Which means he will just have to wait for Din to tell him in his own time. Corin trusts him.
Getting up, Corin walks over to crawl into bed from the other side and settles next to Din, who exhales a long, very slow and controlled breath.
So, yeah, flirting... Maybe Corin can ask Leave-it for some advice? Or Kiergan? Surely someone in this castle can help him tease Din a little?
Leave-it/Leo: !!! *Runs over and grabs her shoulders* “Who did this to you??”
Zev: *confused* “Uh... I’m just cutting onions.” *Holds up knife, gestures to kitchen counter behind her*
Leo: *Grabs the knife, shoves her aside with fire in his eyes* “Let me at ‘em!” *Chops with a vengeance* “Take that! And that! And that!”
Zev: *Leans over, peeks over his shoulder, raises her eyebrows as she sees him chopping away and doing it quite well* “...The carrots were kind of mean to me too.”
Thanks to @madamemulticlass for submitting this gem. And of course it made me think of these two ;) (Tho, the other two couples can EASILY fit here too)
