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Thrawn didn’t share Eli’s excitement about graduating Royal Imperial — but that was expected, Eli supposed. After all, Thrawn had already graduated from a military academy once before, and if Eli had been forced to go back to secondary school, he doubted he’d be thrilled about graduation, either.
Thrawn seemed to view their first assignment similarly: optimistic, certainly, and grimly determined to do well, but not excited. There was only one thing Eli could definitively say Thrawn was excited about, and that was — much to Eli’s chagrin — the fact that, at the age of forty-nine, Thrawn would no longer be required to share a room with a twenty-two-year-old cadet.
Not that they’d had any major conflicts while they were roommates. Eli was pretty decent company, as far as cadets went — or at least, he’d known plenty of roommates who were much worse than him at Myomar. But there had still been moments where he’d flubbed things slightly.
Like when he’d promised to clean the fresher before an inspection and then forgot, leaving Thrawn to silently take care of it on his own. Or when Thrawn had quietly decided it was up to him to clean Eli’s side of the room, too, because Eli couldn’t get the hospital corners on his bed quite right.
Or the day he’d taken an hour-long shower without asking Thrawn if he needed to use the fresher first. Or the day Thrawn had politely informed him that he could smell the unwashed gym clothes wadded up at the bottom of Eli’s locker — which had, in a roundabout way, after multiple offenses, led to Thrawn doing Eli’s laundry for him, without being asked. Or the nights where he’d kicked his socks off in bed, never realizing that they were falling directly onto Thrawn’s datapad while he read on the bunk below him.
Once, he remembered, he’d woken up past midnight to find Thrawn, wearing his pajamas and with his hair mussed from sleep, silently clearing the empty energy drink cans off Eli’s desk — as if the sight of them offended him so much that he’d been unable to sleep until they were gone. That one (and the gym clothes incident) still made Eli flush when he remembered them.
So yeah, he imagined Thrawn was pretty pleased to have his own quarters again. They still saw each other often enough, since Eli was Thrawn’s aide, but Eli no longer had to deal with Thrawn’s constant questions and Thrawn no longer had to deal with Eli’s better-than-most-guys-his-age, worse-than-most-Thrawns level of cleanliness. It was the best of both worlds, Eli thought.
And then he entered the bridge for his morning shift and saw the deep red bags beneath Thrawn’s eyes.
Eli paused for a moment, taking in the subtle hints of weariness in Thrawn’s posture, and then sidled up to the weapons station. Thrawn was working as briskly and efficiently as he always did — earning sour looks from the first weapons officer, who was going at a much slower pace — but up close, the signs of exhaustion were more clear.
Thrawn’s eyes were hooded and somewhat watery, the small wrinkles at the corners more pronounced than normal. He squinted at his display screen as he worked, as if the light hurt his eyes.
“Good morning, Ensign,” he murmured, his accent just slightly heavier than normal.
Eli didn’t bother to greet him. “Can I get you some caf, sir?”
Thrawn inclined his head at once, not looking away from his console. “That would be appreciated.”
Eli didn’t think much about it for the rest of the day; he brought Thrawn caf whenever it seemed necessary and just assumed Thrawn was so tired because he’d pulled an all-nighter — working on his Clone Wars-era antiques, perhaps, or going down some studying wormhole as he poked through years of ship logs and historical records. He could have spent the whole night contemplating alien artwork, for all Eli knew.
But by the end of the week, the bags under Thrawn’s eyes had only become more pronounced, and the thin strips of red flesh on his lower eyelids looked so irritated they were almost raw, as if the glow from Thrawn’s eyes were burning them from the inside out. On the bridge, Thrawn was peculiarly quiet, speaking only when spoken to and answering questions nonverbally as often as he could. In the training room after work, Thrawn agreed to spar with Eli — and he invariably won, but his movements were more loose and less energetic than the barrage Eli had grown accustomed to. It was like Thrawn could barely keep himself awake long enough to block a punch.
During their midday meal, Thrawn picked at his food and seemed to be barely listening to Eli’s attempts at conversation. He asked no questions, even when Eli specifically designed his statements to elicit them — referencing planets he knew Thrawn had never been to, name-dropping obscure military commanders and conflicts, even bringing up a salvage shop in the Mid Rim where he’d heard Clone Wars-era droids could be purchased for next to nothing if one flashed an Imperial ID.
The whole time, Thrawn just nodded along listlessly, his eyes flickering from his food to his datapad, but never to Eli.
“Sir?” Eli asked, cutting himself off in the middle of a monologue about Serrenian art. He waited until Thrawn’s eyes dragged up to meet his, seemingly with great effort on Thrawn’s part.
“Yes, Ensign?” Thrawn said. Then, blinking, he seemed to remember that Eli had been speaking to him. “Ah, no, I’ve never seen them,” he said, tracking back over the conversation. “I would appreciate any cultural downloads you may find.”
Eli shook his head, though he filed this information away for later. “That’s not what I wanted to ask, sir.”
Thrawn blinked at him, waiting. His face was expressionless, but there was a mark on his cheek where he’d been resting it against his hand moments before.
“You been having trouble sleeping?” Eli asked. He hesitated even as he said it, studying Thrawn’s face for any sign that a personal question like that wasn’t allowed. But Thrawn’s face told him practically nothing. He studied Eli back — tiredly, vaguely — and then looked back down at his meal tray, pushing a soggy-looking stir fry around with his fork.
“Moderate trouble,” Thrawn said.
Eli paused, digesting this. “It looks a little bit worse than moderate, sir,” he said delicately. “If you don’t mind me saying.”
Thrawn’s nose wrinkled at that. “Of course I don’t mind,” he said; his voice was toneless, not matching the expression of polite confusion on his face. “You are my aide, Ensign. It is your duty to point out any flaws you see so that I might correct them.”
Eli processed this and sat back in his seat, blinking rapidly. “I’m not trying to correct you, sir,” he protested, feeling strangely hurt by this assumption. “I’m just … well, I just wanted to know what’s going on.” Then, when Thrawn’s face darkened, he rushed to add, “I wanted to know if there’s something I can do to help. As your aide.”
The darkness faded from Thrawn’s face — which wasn’t exactly the same as saying he softened. He narrowed his eyes, considering Eli silently for a moment. Finally, he pushed his tray away and crossed his arms over the tabletop, leaning forward slightly.
“You mean to ask if I’m ill?” he asked, tone neutral. Eli frowned, studying Thrawn’s face.
“Not exactly what I meant, sir,” he said. “But if you are ill, I’d like to know.”
“The medbay does not have—”
“Chiss bio-files, I know, I know,” said Eli with a wave of the hand. He’d heard this argument before. “But I’d still like to know so I can help.”
Thrawn seemed to chew this over, his eyes never leaving Eli’s face.
“I am not ill,” he said eventually.
Eli didn’t respond, waiting for Thrawn to explain what was wrong with him. But no explanation came. After a long moment, Thrawn turned back to his datapad, reading through the day’s reports even though he seemed like he might nod off at any time.
“Well,” said Eli, weighing the wisdom of a little white lie, “Captain Virgilio’s considering putting you on sick-in-quarters, anyway. Just thought you should know.”
Thrawn looked up at him sharply. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, voice icy.
With his best fake-apologetic expression, Eli nodded. “He pulled me aside earlier today, when I was getting you a second cup of caf. He said if you don’t fix the problem soon — whatever it is —”
Eli finished with an eloquent shrug.
“Sick in quarters?” Thrawn repeated, saying each word with distaste. “For how long?”
“Well, until you’re not ill anymore, sir, I suppose,” Eli said.
“That’s unacceptable,” said Thrawn at once. He pushed away from the table, obviously intending to find Virgilio and protest — something that would undoubtedly cause Virgilio to slap an SIQ order on Thrawn at once, since he was apparently hallucinating orders. Eli said the first thing he could think of to stall Thrawn.
“How is it unacceptable?” he asked. “You’re obviously not sleeping. That means you’re working with ten percent of your typical brain power, maybe even less. You wouldn’t even be qualified to pilot a speeder — your reflexes would be too slow.”
“My reflexes?” Thrawn said scathingly — but he stopped in his pursuit of Virgilio, just as Eli hoped. “My reflexes are still sharp enough to defeat you in battle,” Thrawn pointed out. “I think I can handle a speeder without issue, Ensign.”
“But what if we do go into battle?” Eli pressed. “You’re the second weapons officer, and you know Lieutenant Yeric hardly does anything, anyway. You’d need to handle it for him. You’d need rapid-fire reflexes, quick thinking…”
“Lieutenant Yeric is perfectly capable—” Thrawn started, his voice stiff. Then he stopped, eyes narrowing again as he considered Eli’s words. Eli could see Thrawn fighting back a scowl and knew he’d hit upon the right argument, finally.
“Incompetence is unforgivable on an Imperial starship,” Eli reminded him, quoting one of their instructors from Royal Imperial. Thrawn glanced down at him, his expression cold and pinched.
“You wish to help?” he asked.
A bubble of nervousness rose inside Eli’s throat. He nodded his head.
“I doubt you can,” Thrawn said, his tone thawing a little; he nodded back at Eli, an oddly formal cant of the head that made Eli chew the inside of his cheek. “But you make some points worth considering, Ensign. Meet me in my quarters after our shift and we can discuss it further.”
Eli nodded again, scarcely able to believe that he’d won the argument — well, sort of. He stayed silent as Thrawn sat back down, making no effort to finish his food but apparently content to read until Eli was done so they could walk back to the bridge together.
He thought over their time at Royal Imperial while he ate. Thrawn had always seemed well-rested there; Eli had never caught him pulling an all-nighter, and to the best of his knowledge, Thrawn didn’t suffer from nightmares or insomnia. Of course, just because he didn’t have a sleep disorder one month ago didn’t mean he hadn’t developed one now … but still, Eli didn’t think that was quite the right explanation.
He studied Thrawn, his face unreadable.
He supposed he’d find out tonight.
Eli paused to change into the more-comfortable Imperial athletic gear before he made his way to Thrawn’s quarters. It was common for Imperial officers to change into their sweats after their shift was done, if only because civilian clothes weren’t authorized aboard the ship — but he felt more than a little awkward wearing what basically amounted to sleepwear as he walked to Thrawn’s quarters.
He knocked on the door and was granted access a second later. Thrawn’s quarters were the same size as Eli’s — there was no significant difference between the benefits given to ensigns vs. lieutenants — but the room was lit with a soft blue glow that emanated from Thrawn’s art holos, giving it the appearance of a much smaller — and much different — living space.
Like Eli, Thrawn had been provided with a minuscule living area, complete with a desk in one corner of the room and a sofa and holopod in the center. His bedroom and refresher were both closed and he was still in uniform, sitting at the desk rather than on the soda, with his eyes on his datapad. He glanced up when Eli entered the room but didn’t banish the art holos; perhaps, Eli thought, he always kept them on, and it didn’t occur to him to turn them off when he had guests — just like it wouldn’t occur to Eli to turn off the holo of his parents displayed over his desk.
“Ensign,” Thrawn said, a line appearing between his eyebrows. He looked Eli up and down, making no effort to hide his frown. “You’re wearing sleepwear,” Thrawn commented.
“Ah … yeah, I guess,” Eli said, looking down at himself. “This is what everyone wears off-duty, sir.”
“Really,” said Thrawn, his tone flat. “Why?”
“It’s … comfortable, sir,” said Eli, somewhat at a loss.
“It is not the intended purpose of sleepwear,” Thrawn said. He gave Eli another critical glance and then seemed to shake himself, shutting his datapad off. He stood, gesturing for Eli to take a seat on the sofa, and joined him a moment later. Thrawn sat at the far end of the sofa, his legs crossed to take up as little space as possible. Eli shifted uncomfortably for a moment, watching Thrawn, and then decided to slip his shoes off and curl up on the couch so he could at least comfortably face Thrawn while they spoke.
“So,” he said awkwardly.
He expected Thrawn to guide the conversation from there with his usual calmness and grace, but instead Thrawn only stared back at him. He mirrored Eli’s curled-up posture without bothering to take his boots off; Eli could see him kneading his fingers as if in anxiety, but his face gave nothing away.
“Sir?” Eli asked.
“Well,” said Thrawn.
He didn’t say anything else.
“At least take your boots off, sir,” Eli said, reaching across the sofa to swat Thrawn’s boot. “You know I hate that.”
Thrawn set to work unlacing his boots at once, depositing them carefully on the floor beside the couch. Eli watched as he lined the boots up side-by-side and then sat back. He didn’t stay curled up much longer after that; he seemed so tired that he wasn’t capable of it. His legs stretched out seemingly of their own volition, until his socks were just barely brushing Eli’s feet.
He looked in danger of nodding off any second now, Eli noted. He reached down without thinking and touched Thrawn’s ankle, forcing the other man’s eyes to open again after they drifted shut.
“Sir,” he said, fighting between amusement and concern. “You said you’d tell me why you can’t sleep.”
“Did I?” said Thrawn, settling back against the arm of the couch sleepily. He crossed his arms over his chest and let his eyes drift closed again, his posture reminiscent of meditation. “I only said we could discuss it further. When did you speak to Captain Virgilio?”
Eli frowned at him. “You first, sir. Tell me what’s going on.”
Thrawn raised an eyebrow at that, perhaps taking issue with the fact that Eli, an ensign, was giving him orders — or perhaps amused by it. Still, if he was amused, it faded quickly enough. He slouched deeper into the couch, his feet landing on Eli’s lap, his fingers tightening on his own arms.
“I can see into the infrared somewhat,” he told Eli matter-of-factly.
Eli studied Thrawn, paying particular attention to the red glow of his eyes. “Oh?” he said. Then, chagrined, “I suppose I should have guessed that.”
Thrawn said nothing, neither reassuring Eli nor agreeing with him. After a long moment, Eli realized he would need to prompt Thrawn a little if he wanted this conversation to continue.
“So you can’t sleep because … what, you can see people moving around on the other side of the wall?” Eli asked. He pulled Thrawn’s feet closer to his stomach as he spoke, rubbing the arch of his foot beneath his sock without thinking about it. Thrawn allowed him to do it for a moment, eyelids fluttering, and then jerked both feet away.
Eli’s face flamed. He tried to apologize but couldn’t figure out what to say. Opposite him, Thrawn curled his knees up to his chest almost casually, his face impossible to read, and said,
“My infrared vision isn’t quite strong enough to see through bulkheads.”
Eli’s blush cooled a little, since Thrawn didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he’d just tried to give his superior officer a foot massage. He forced himself to think only of the subject at hand.
“Not strong enough to see through bulkheads,” he repeated. “So why are you telling me?”
Thrawn’s eyes shot up to meet his at that, a little wider than normal, making him look almost startled. The expression faded after a moment, but Thrawn’s didn’t respond right away. He wrapped his hands around his knees, the thumb of his left hand rubbing roughly over the fingers on his right. As Eli watched, Thrawn cast his eyes around the rooms, looking at but not studying the art holos — and chewing his bottom lip, an expression Eli wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on Thrawn before.
He was considering another gentle prompt when Thrawn finally spoke.
“I could see through the bottom of your bunk somewhat,” he said, not meeting Eli’s eyes. “Not much. Enough to see that there was someone there.”
For a moment, Eli couldn’t think of anything to say. He ran Thrawn’s words over in his mind, trying to figure out where he was going with this.
“Okay…” he said. Thrawn’s eyes flickered to his face briefly.
“Well, when you’ve been exiled—” he said, his voice a bit rough. He looked away again, his face hard. “When you’ve just woken up, that is, it can be … calming ... to see the heat signature of another person in the room.”
He said the word ‘calming’ with distaste. Eli supposed that what Thrawn really meant was ‘comforting,’ but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He sat frozen against the sofa, a cold flush of embarrassment and sympathy rushing through him from head to toe.
“Oh,” he said, entirely inadequately.
The look Thrawn gave him was, for just a split-second, absolutely aghast. It disappeared a moment later behind Thrawn’s typical neutral expression, but the damage was done. Eli sat up as if electrified and leaned forward, putting his hand over Thrawn’s.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “Of course you’d want to know someone else was there. I should’ve realized earlier.”
“Ensign,” Thrawn protested, his voice coming out pained from embarrassment.
“No, I’m serious,” Eli said, not letting go of Thrawn’s hands. He squeezed slightly and Thrawn gave a half-exasperated, half-mortified sigh, slipping his hands out from Eli’s grasp. He tried to uncurl his legs — which would have forced Eli to move away to make space for him — but Eli refused to budge.
“I should have said nothing,” Thrawn said with conviction, glaring over Eli’s shoulder at the wall. Eli watched him, realizing immediately that his typical repertoire of half-assed platitudes weren’t going to work here. With anyone else, he would have tried something like, ‘No, I’m glad you told me,’ or ‘of course you should have said something.’ But Thrawn wasn’t the type of person who would appreciate platitudes or empty comfort; he didn’t even like compliments unless they were blanket statements of fact, and even then, his only response was usually a frown and ‘I know.’
So Eli drew away from Thrawn and stretched, noting the way Thrawn averted his eyes entirely.
“Is it okay if I take a shower here?” Eli asked.
Thrawn started to nod absently, then froze as Eli’s words caught up with him. “Here?” he asked, turning to face Eli with narrowed eyes.
“Before bed?” Eli said.
Thrawn’s expression soured. “That is unnecessary, Ensign. I will not—”
“Should I sleep here on the couch, or do you have double bunks in your bedroom?” Eli asked.
Thrawn’s eyes slid sightlessly over Eli. He turned, staring at nothing but facing the wall as he thought over Eli’s offer — rather, Eli’s insistence. For a moment, Eli thought Thrawn would stay frozen forever, but then he twisted around to look at Eli, his eyebrows furrowed.
“You would stay?” he asked.
Eli nodded. He didn’t add any qualifiers — no ‘if you want to’ or ‘just for tonight.’ Thrawn studied him, as if searching for the qualifiers anyway, as if he could see them in the lines of Eli’s face.
“It’ll be a sleepover,” Eli said with a shrug. “Friends have sleepovers all the time.”
The line between Thrawn’s eyebrows grew even deeper. “A sleepover?” he said. “Explain.”
“It’s…” Eli shuffled from foot to foot. “You know, when you’re a kid, and you want to spend more time with your friends outside of school, so you invite them to sleep at your house for a night. And the two of you watch holos together, or play gravball outside. And then at the end of the day, you sleep together in the same room.”
“A date,” said Thrawn decisively.
“It’s not — sure,” said Eli, deciding it was best not to pick his battles right now. “Sure, a date, sort of. Is it okay if I go take a shower now?”
Thrawn now looked awkward in an entirely different way than before, but he nodded at once. Eli ducked into Thrawn’s fresher — which was disgustingly clean — and showered quickly before redressing in the same athletic sweats he’d worn before. The shower, brief as it was, was just long enough to fill Eli with anxiety over the fact that he hadn’t corrected Thrawn on the date/sleepover confusion. He should have tried harder; he’d overstepped his bounds. Or maybe Thrawn had. He’d been the one to call it a date, after all. What the hell was Eli going to see when he walked out there?
When he emerged fifteen minutes later, the art holos were still on but Thrawn was nowhere to be seen, and his bedroom door was open. Eli walked inside, full of trepidation. But the lights were completely off inside — and Thrawn did indeed have two bunks, and it looked like the top one had been recently re-made, with an extra blanket folded at the foot and a fresh pillow at the head.
Beneath that bunk, lying half-dressed in his undershirt and boxers, was Thrawn. His head was angled toward the door; when Eli turned, he saw that the door of Thrawn’s room looked out directly on the fresher, giving someone with infrared vision a clear line of sight to Eli’s heat signature as he showered.
And Thrawn was fast asleep.