#still agonizing over this frankly god they're SO. so. indescribable sometimes but so so important to me

[tiredassmage]

I can’t NOT send in ❛ you’re a weapon, and weapons don’t weep. ❜ for agent feels perhaps 👀

FINALLY. I FINISH IT! Perhaps a day late for Star Wars day(s) celebrations, but you know how Alucren is about talking about his feelings. Once again, them having issues actually talking about anything didn't end up using this word for word, but the shape of it's there. And... frankly a lot of indulgent intimacy, hehe. :3

Shoutout to the namedrop of my friend's blorbo, Taizi. Let's get these agents the idea of therapy and some supportive poly relationships, amiright?

[hit 'em where it hurts // sentence starts]

Deckard sighs soft and warm as Alucren presses his lips against his throat, dragging fingertips through the short hair of his nape.

Here, Nine is at a special, intoxicating kind of ease - one hand formed against Ellery’s hip and the other cradling the back of his head, encouraging Alucren’s introduction of teeth and rewarding the move by tilting his head back into nails digging gently into skin. By now, he knows Nine’s smiling without looking for it.

He smooths his hand along Nine’s spine, fingertips following the curve of skin down towards subtle implants. Nine sighs into the gentle pressure, content enough, it seems, to remain placated by Eleven’s lips over his pulse.

Ellery frowns as his fingers splay carefully over the implants, tracing the faint hints of scars he knows remains, no matter how masterful the work of droids in removing them. The texture’s rougher than the tanned skin around it, than the brush of Nine’s hand against his over his waist where he’s anchored his fellow Cipher back against his chest.

Dark emerald eyes fall away from the steady rise and fall of Nine’s chest to the murky, soft shadows cast in the cloak of Odessen’s night across the room. In this, he’s come to see that the skeletal fingers of Imperial Intelligence still whisper around their throats - the common tattered, lace thread tying them together that Deckard tugs on between the half-familiar dance of briefings and deployments, in the half-held breath of hallways and half-clouded eyes meeting silently over a desk.

He was an idealistic bastard at the best of times, their Nine… Always so concerned with not letting another choke on the decaying dust and rot that he prefers to line his own throat with it than remain idle.

Alucren swallows and tucks his chin into the crook of Tyr’s neck, tracing the outlines of those implants. It’s not the first time he’s seen them. Nine has bared plenty more than flesh to him, dragging him this far out into unknown and - to them - unmapped regions of the galaxy.

Sometimes, what Nine never wrapped words around said more than that which he did. Alucren wonders almost idly if it’s one of the reasons he was a better agent. Even a latecomer transfer as the war had reignited like himself had heard some of the whispers, the stories… Even a stubborn bastard like him had at least once seen the few extra lines across Keeper’s fair features.

And yet all the younger man had for him tonight was patience. Surely, some days it was shorter than others, but…

“Deckard…”

Tyr hums softly in acknowledgement. Alucren closes his eyes as Nine tilts his head slightly, just enough to brush his chin against his temple.

“What was it like?”

The draw of Tyr’s fingers against his knuckles slows to a stop. “Mm. ‘Fraid you’re gonna have to specify a bit more, darling.”

Alucren’s hand stills against his back as he turns to brush his lips briefly along Nine’s jaw. A moment later, he’s passing under Nine’s steady, watchful eyes. The urge to flinch nearly rushes up his spine.

Nine’s good at that - seeing all of him. Tracing fully down from the furrow of his brow, the aging lines Taizi tells him to stop fussing about, and not missing a single note in the depths of his eyes. It’s been damned infuriating at times. Alucren has yet to figure out how to swallow being so utterly disarmed.

Tyr’s eyes fall after only a few moments. It could’ve been hours, for all he takes from it. “You know I live with it,” he says quietly.

“Part of the job description,” Ellery supplies.

“Sure,” he says.

“Sure.”

Alucren’s chin settles against his shoulder again. Tyr pulls the hand from his hip away, draws it in front of him so he can watch as he traces over their fingers.

Living. It isn’t so simple as that. Taizi had told him… on Marr’s fleet to abandon his side, to go, flee, to live. Too much smoke had been in his lungs to discern the sting in his throat from the mauling of his chest.

In five long, lonely years that were as restless as the tempests over Dromund Kaas, Alucren Ellery had learned he’d never quite learned what living really was.

“Hell of a thing to live with…”

Tyr nods slowly as a frown begins to pull quietly across his lips. He turns Alucren’s hand over carefully in his and traces fingertips carefully along his palm, then up along each finger in slow succession. Alucren’s gaze falls to watch.

“They don’t talk about that much in Academy.”

“Did they send you?” Tyr asks.

Alucren’s head shakes faintly against his shoulder. “Not really. No time for it, with the war and all. Just some… accelerated program.” He weaves his fingers with Deckard’s and squeezes carefully. Nine lets him. “Suppose you gave them a run for their credits.”

A faint whisper of a sharper exhale clears Nine’s lungs. One corner of his lips barely flickers up for a fraction of a second - so slim Alucren’s half-content to believe it the blink of his own eyes at the edge of his vision.

“I think you’re skilled enough at that yourself, Eleven.”

He doesn’t imagine much, if anything, in that training explored the intricacies of the political fallout when an agent has to stand against the very head of their sphere, the very entity supposedly in control of their orders. There’s plenty in the handbooks for Minders about internal security. There’s regulations for these things between agents. From the most wet-eared recruits to the Minister of Intelligence, they all shared a duty to report security risks.

There was a time, Ellery imagines… There was a time he might’ve held a blaster to this man’s temple.

There was a time he might have - would have, likely - pulled the trigger himself on their infamous Cipher Nine.

He closes his eyes and tightens his arm around Nine. One hand against skin and metal and their linked ones over that heart of his.

Tyr’s chin nestles against the top of his head. He can feel the unspoken inquiry in the draw of Nine’s thumb once more against his knuckles.

Nine could talk a lot about Imperial Intelligence. Eleven usually balks on the matter.

He’s not sure he could’ve done what Nine did. He’s fairly certain he can’t do what Nine does now.

“How?” It’s hot and muffled against Deckard’s skin. It’s easier to hide than find the words for the hollowness in his chest, for the shape of the tremble in his arms, racing through his blood. “How did you..?”

Tyr inhales slow and carefully and releases the breath as a weary exhale. Their hands tighten around one another again. He’s not looking, but he’s sure his knuckles must be paling, constricting around Nine’s calloused, warm hands.

“Ellery…” Softer.

He turns away, not yet willing to cede the stinging in his eyes even if dodging it won’t obscure it.

“All I had were orders, Nine. A weapon, preferably in both hands.” His next breath shudders through him. “And no use for tears for what's given in the line of duty.”

“So they tell us, hm?” Tyr murmurs.

Quiet falls between them again for a few moments before Tyr presses his thumb a bit further into his skin. “Think I can have my hand back, love?”

Alucren inhales sharply, eyes turning from hiding behind his shoulder back to him only to find a soft, gently amused smile draping easily across his lips. Alucren’s knuckles are indeed pale around Tyr’s hand still in his grasp. He clears his throat and flexes out his hand.

Only for Tyr to reach out and take his chin before he can turn away again, pressing his lips carefully to Eleven’s temple.

“You’re here now, Ellery,” he says. “It’s alright. I promise.”

Alucren ducks under the arm he opens, pressing into the crook of Nine’s neck as he turns to face him. Now it’s Nine’s fingers at the nape of his neck, gently drawing lines up and down through short hair.

Living was very different from surviving, he’s learning. And even Ciphers have plenty of uses for tears.