#hmmmmm v out of practice with swtor

[ohlawsons]

05 i thought love looked so much like you. [rei x theron] [prompt list] [06.28.20 minifics]

She watches him from across the room, now ignoring the data pad in her slack grasp, whatever report she’s supposed to be reading long forgotten.

There’s nothing special about the moment. He’s standing chatting with Koth, waiting for the caf to finish brewing, exhaustion tugging at his features from another too-long night of work. He laughs at something, too quiet to hear from across the room but Rei can see it in his expression and her own lips tug into a thin smile.

(She’s studied him enough to know he has laugh lines but they’re faint, and maybe it’s just age creeping up on them both but she likes to think he laughs more, now.

He’s too hard on himself for that, they both know, but maybe one day they won’t have the weight of the galaxy pressing down on them.)

He catches her gaze as she continues to watch, and his brow creases in worry; it’s a silent question, one Rei keeps telling him he doesn’t need to ask but one he continues to ask regardless.

Everything okay?

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. You worry too much.

The caf is finished, so Theron grabs two cups and brings one over to Rei; he doesn’t ask, not again, but he gives a pointed glance towards the data pad as she takes the mug. “The report from last night?”

“Dunno.” She hadn’t gotten far at all before he’d stolen her attention.

(That’s true for more than the morning’s report, but she reminds him of that often enough already.)

“Have you heard about what happened?”

Rei steps closer to him, cradling her caf in both hands and grinning up at him, because he’s being too boring and professional and Rei doesn’t have time for that; that’s what they keep Lana around for, after all. “I know enough. I know it kept you from coming to bed last night,” she says, matter of fact, matching his criminally stoic tone of voice. He starts to say something else and she cuts him off, pressing up on her toes for a quick kiss. “I pay people to care about the rest.”

“Like me?” One eyebrow quirks upwards as he speaks, and whether or not he realizes it, Theron has moved closer and the only thing between them is Rei’s still steaming cup of caf.

“I would pay you to not care, if I could.”

He starts to say something in retort but Lana calls to him, and he turns and leaves with nothing more than a single backwards glance; Theron’s every bit as duty-bound as Rei, though she would never admit to it the way he does.

She loves him, she thinks, but for as much as the words keep echoing around in her mind she’s never found the right time to actually say it aloud.