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Eli, Thrawn thinks, has no clue. He knows that Eli's mind is remarkable with his extraordinary analytical skills and his love for numbers and his predisposition for tactics. He knows, too, that Eli understands greatly human nature with its flaws and graces.
What Eli doesn't, however, know is the nature and the feelings and the passion of the Chiss.
Eli, Thrawn thinks, has no notion of his feelings towards the young man. Feelings squeezed tightly under his blue skin, skin which makes so many hate him, always so many but never Eli. Feelings carefully hidden under the perfect mask of his face, deep in his glowing eyes, that no man could ever see if they tried.
Feelings burning so hot inside his ribcage that it sometimes feels that his love for Eli will certainly kill him.
Yet, he survives.
He is not desperate, he does not need Eli to know nor to reciprocate Thrawn's own weakness. It is enough to know that the man is safe. Thrawn can keep fulfilling the mission of his people while the embers burn his lungs and his heart and his throat, every day and the day after.
Eli, Thrawn knows, does not know and never would.
So it takes all his tactical genius - it takes it and fails - to understand why was Eli kissing him.
They had gone on yet another undercover mission even though thier ranks should not requie such. The kind of mission he knows that Eli does not favour. They had found themselves yet again in the chaos of blaster fire which Thrawn himself had put them in, all according to the plan. And yet again, they had succeeded.
Somewhere in the mess and the noise and the heat, Thrawn had got shot in his arm. Nothing too serious, merely a scratch on the edge of his limb, but more than enough to, unluckily, bleed.
Thrawn had not noticed at first, nor had he felt the pain. Only afterwards, when they had achieved yet another victory, he realised something was amiss. Not because his own body had told him so, but because of horror written all over the human commander's face.
Eli had stood only a couple of meters away for the whole second before sprinting to Thrawn. It was then that he felt the scald. He had looked at his own left arm and registered his white tunic turning into crimson of his blood.
Eli was there a breath later, opening Thrawn's tunic and taking it gently off. The realisation, as he pondered, came to him that Eli had never seen him bleed nor had he known that Thrawn's blood was the very same colour as the man's own.
"You're okay," Eli huffed, after had he examined the wound, and then repeated it three times. "I was scared- I mean- it looked much worse from afar. You'll need some bacta patches but you're okay."
Thrawn, then, had touched Eli's shoulder using his uninjured arm and had offered a gentle affirmation that he was, in fact, okay. He added, "There is always risk in the battle."
Somehow it hadn't smoothed Eli's concern, instead, it had made it deepen. The young man had been gazing into Thrawn's eyes with new determination before placing both his warm hand on the sides of Thrawn's face.
Then moving upwards, Eli kissed Thrawn on the lips.
Thrawn could only stand there, frozen in the depths of the unknown, the white burning of his chest vaporating through his skin and melting it on the way.
And now, he feels Eli pulling away, the warmth of brown hands that he knows so well leaving his face, and for the first time in his life he cannot say the amount of time that passed.
He knows, nonetheless, that it has been not enough.
So he moves his palm resting on Eli's shoulder and shifts it to the man's neck instead and then he leans down to connect their lips once more.
Eli does not protest. What he does is clench his fists on Thrawn's sweaty undertunic and open his mouth for more of Thrawn.
His head spins, the heat that only minutes ago could burn him to ashes, now feels like the only matter that can keep him alive. As their tongues dance and thier teeth smack, Thrawn loses himself entirely.
It is Eli who pulls away, again, first. It is Thrawn who unconsciously chases the human's lips with his own. Eli smiles, such a beautiful smile he has, and gives Thrawn one last kiss. Then he speaks and his voice shakes somewhat "Let's come back and get you the bacta patches. You're bleeding."
Thrawn can only nod and swallow and he does so. Eli picks up Thrawn's white tunic from the ground, which he had to drop there before. Then he pushes Thrawn gently and they start walking towards their shuttle.
Eli, Thrawn thinks, does not know how deep his own feeling run for the man. But Eli, Thrawn suspects, may be sunk in the same exact depth with regard to the Chiss.
And that, he decides, changes everything.