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contentment-of-cats · 2 years

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For Owlpartytime: Thranto

Eli is an actual officer now, not just an ensign, but lieutenant commander. They vaulted him over Agral, Barlin, and Pyrondi, and put him on a level with Hammerly, Lomar, and Yve - and none of them hold it against him.

Plenty of others do, though.

Yes, he more than deserved a promotion. It had been years, and he’d resented it, but knew it was an issue of having pissed of someone powerful and not an issue of his own competence. Still, Hammerly was a veteran of the clone wars, a good decade older than he was, and to be on a level with her was awkward. He ought to be a senior lieutenant, but he’s not going to quibble. This might be his last promotion for a while. Agral, Barlin, and Pyrondi will catch up with him soon, the way things are going.

The Chimaera is in for repairs, the Kuat yards bustling with Imperial army and naval personnel heading to various places to wait out their vessel’s return to deployment. He could go back to Lysatra, but transport to the edges of Imperial rule is whimsical at best - which is why ISDs exist.

Maybe something closer? His shipmates seems to be looking at Canto Bight, and honestly it’s not looking like a bad deal. Cheap but good hotels, buffets, buckets of booze, and what happens in Canto Bight stays in Canto Bight. That is unless you come back with an STD, in which case punishment ranges from confinement to quarters all the way to a court martial.

Better check the expiration on the prophylactic spray.

Hm. Nice Imperial sized bed. Sitting area. Desk. In-room safe for insignia and cylinders. Free breakfast. Good reviews. More important, an endorsement from the ISB as a secure hostel for officers and noncoms. A glance at Thrawn shows him still in conversation via holonet with Colonel Yularen - with Yularen putting his foot down.

Oh no.

It can only be a voluntold social event.

Thrawn terminates the connection after the colonel signs off.

“How is Colonel Yularen, sir?” Eli asks.

“Insistent. Apparently Seinar and other arms manufacturers and fleet systems contractors are holding a convention on Cantonica.” Thrawn’s presentation was neutral. “We are expected. Colonel Yularen will bring us in his private shuttle.”

Eli rested his face in his hands momentarily. He needed a stronger word than ‘fuck.’ He’d been looking forward to the casinos, the food, entertainments, free-flowing booze, and getting laid. He really needed to get laid. He’s even forego the booze, food, casinos, and entertainment if it would get him laid.

“I tried telling him that my remaining on Kuat to oversee repairs was critical. Does ‘bullshit’ mean the same thing in Basic as it does in Sy Bisti?”

Eli almost laughed. “Pretty close. It means untruthful, but not exactly a flat-out lie. I was already looking at Canto Bight.” Not getting laid, then. “I’ll book us into somewhere with a security rating and a less... celebratory atmosphere.”

The shuttle afforded to the head of the ISB is a Delta, packed with comforts and no doubt a lot of classified equipment. Thrawn is not sure why Colonel Yularen has latched on to him, or subsequently to the Seventh, but he is a pragmatist above all. Upon making port on Cantonica, he is marginally approving of their hotel, but makes sure that they are given a secure suite on a secure floor with a comms room that requires the abilities of Lomar to handle it.

Once they fish the man out of the nudie bar and sober him up.

The convention showcases weapons systems and fleet services. Thrawn hails Faro and Marinith and drags them in. Pyrondi and Hammerly have been freshly booted from a casino - apparently Pyro is really good at roulette - and there is no rest for anyone. Further, there is a lot more voluntold socializing than previously indicated.

Thrawn’s crew is happily social most of the time, but flee in all directions from being stuffed in a room with officialdom. Marinith ends up with a pole-dancing trophy, while Faro gets a number of executives blisteringly hungover. Pyrondi and Hammerly play five-card-fool-me and he has to get them off-planet before they end up fleecing the High Command. Finally, it’s just himself, Vanto, Yularen, Siward Cass, Moradmin Bast, and a half dozen executives in a place to make things dicey indeed. Conan Motti suggests a drinking game, one designed to get a newcomer completely hammered and presumably embarrass himself.

Human intoxicants are tasty, but not very strong. Relaxing, warming. Quite nice.

Surprisingly, Eli keeps up with Thrawn, as does Yularen.

No wait.

Vanto. Lieutenant Commander Vanto.

There.

So, perhaps he should propose some toasts.

Drinking to health and Warrior’s Fortune.

Good idea.

Ar’alani would be proud of him.

So Thrawn began the toasts in order of rank, making sure to do it in good Corellian whisky. Of course, nobody would refuse to drink, and nobody did. However, Admiral Motti fell asleep in a potted plant, several members of the IHC were unconscious under the table, and a number of civilian contractors ended up over the railing of the Stellar Center, vomiting into the fountain five stories down. Yularen murmured that Thrawn understood politics betterr than he thought, and both Eli and Thrawn carried the colonel back to his suite, handed him over to a discreet aide, and then went to their own rooms.

“That went well.” Thrawn turned expecting to see Eli, only Eli... Vanto. Vanto. Vanto. Was on the floor of the turbolift. “What are you doing down there?”

“Admiring the view.” Eli peers up at him. “You’re drink.”

“I’m drink?” What could that mean. Eli. No, Vanto. Lieutenant Commander Vanto was, as the CEDF term went, completely hammered. “You are intoxicated.”

“I’m not the one who toasted every member of the Imperial navy,” Eli retorts. “Do you know how much whisky’s sloshing around in your brain?”

“I am not hammered. Human intoxicants are nice, but nothing like what I am accustomed to.” Of course it’s been some years since he’s indulged in such. “You are Human, therefore drinking your intoxicants renders you hammered to the deck.”

“Bullshit, sir.”

“Who’s the one on the deck?”

“The view.”

Odd, there’s nothing to look at in a turbolift except for him. “I will assist you to bed, Commander Vanto.”

Now the man’s asleep. Thrawn pulls him upright and then across his shoulders in a carry. There’s a pleasant scent under the whisky and tibbak smoke. The doors open and Thrawn verifies it’s their floor before stepping out. Odd that it takes a few tries to open the hatch to their accommodation, but he makes it through and-

“Thrawn?”

“Yes, Eli Vanto?”

“M’gonna-”

Thrawn unloads him and holds an empty ice bucket under Eli’s face. Poor Human can’t hold his liquor. He has to sober Eli up. He can’t go to bed in this condition.

Now he’s asleep again.

Thrawn sighs and overshoulders him again, carrying Eli into his sleeping room and the fresher. It’s very warm in here. To a Chiss, Humans always overheat their spaces. Even the ‘chilly’ temperatures of the Chimaera are a nice spring day to Thrawn.

“Eli Vanto. Awaken. You are drunk.”

There is something murmured about pots and kettles that Thrawn doesn’t quite catch. Very well. Since Livan... Eli Vanto is horizontal on the bed, Thrawn tugs off his boots, then his socks. His aide sits up abruptly and spends some time dry-heaving into the waste bin hastily procured from under the desk. This will not do. Thrawn carefully helps him out of his tunic, belt and kepi set on the chair, tunic following the socks into the cleaner.

“You, too.”

“Ch'ah am nah ch'at in'a vea carcir vuhncib tikim canseo.”

Eli’s face scrunches itself. “What?”

Thrawn repeats himself. He is not the one so intoxicated that he is projectile vomiting.

“Thrawn? It’s not Basic, Meese Caulf, Sy Bisti, or any of the six other languages I speak. I’m going to guess you’re speaking Chiss.” Then his aide has the effrontery to chuckle. “I told you you were drunk.”

Pausing, Thrawn considers a theory that Human intoxicants might have a delayed effect. Pulling a knife from his boot, he splays his hand on the dresser and begins to stab between his fingers faster and faster until-

“Oops.” “SHIT! Thrawn-”

Blood everywhere.

The next moments are muddled as Eli has to vuhn again and Thrawn holds his napkin-wrapped hand above his head while Eli finds the bacta spray - hobbled by his trousers sliding down his hips as they are partially unfastened. There’s blood all over his white uniform. It’s a common occurrence, though it is not usually his. He stands and removes his tunic and belt - the napkin falls and now there’s blood on his trousers.

“It’s possible that I’m slightly inebriated, Commander Vanto.”

Eli comes back in with the bacta spray and two doses of something called Get-Rite. “Ya think?”

“That was sarcasm.” Ha. See? He can pick up some Humanisms. Then again, it could be long exposure to Eli.

The bacta goes on, both of them give up on trousers and their uniforms go in the cleaner on the ‘heavy duty’ cycle, leaving both of them in their underwear.

“You know, sir, that when I imagined both of us in a room in our underwear, this is not what I had in mind.” Eli looks morosely at his bloodied bed.

It takes a moment to sink in and Thrawn puzzles over it “Why would you need to imagine me in my underwear. You’ve seen me in my underwear.”The academy, aboard the Blood Crow, shared accommodations-”

The light, as Ziara would say, finally clicks on.

Oh.

“You imagining me in my underwear is sexual in nature.” Nailed it! But. “You are also my aide and a promising young officer whose reputation I in no way wish to taint. More than that, I consider you a friend and a confidante. I am,however, willing to state, that such attraction is... reciprocal and-” That color could not be healthy. His infrared is almost a miniature nova. “Are you all right? Did you drink something to make your ears turn that color? Are you about to die?”

In answer, Eli bowls him over and both of them land on the floor at the foot of the bed, noses bumping lips smashing and a possible chipped tooth later they surface.

“What happens in Canto Bight stays in Canto Bight,” Eli blurts.

“I greatly wish that were true.” He is embracing his aide and his friend, and is disinclined to let go. “I also refuse to take advantage of our lowered inhibitions for my own delight.”

“I have the Get-Rite. We’ll drink it, suffer, and then decide.” Eli hands him the little green glass bottle. “I know that I won’t be changin’ my mind.”

“Get-Rite.is an anti-intoxicant?” Thrawn thumbs off the cap.

“Think of it as bacta for bad adult decisions.” Eli uncaps his own and clinks it with Thrawn’s. “One. Two. Three.”

Thrawn knocks his back and then wishes dearly that he hadn’t. His tongue tries to leave his head. His stomach attempts to return it, but his esophagus slams shut, unwilling to suffer a second time. Unable to sweat, his eyes stream tears. He is sure that vital organs cannot scream, but his kidneys and liver manage a reasonable facsimile and his brain fizzes and quivers in his skull. His ears pop as if he’s plummeting into atmosphere.

“Btuzahi ch'ah non!” Please shoot him now. Please.

Eli is uttering a nonstop stream of impressive multilingual profanity.

And then it’s over, aside from the desperate need to drain their bladders of a fuel drum of excess fluid. Then they are left wobbly-legged, intensely dehydrated, and sober. They wash up silently, sharing the walk-in shower, wrapping themselves in towels.

“I meant it. That kiss.” Eli reaches for Thrawn’s arm, hesitates, then completes the contact - his warm Human hand on Thrawn’s shoulder. “Drunk or sober, Thrawn, the answer’s the same.”

“For me as well, Eli. Just not, I think, tonight. I mean, this morning.” Cautiously he slides an arm around the younger man. “Fluids, food, and rest are my best recommendations.” A breath. “If you would like to share my bed.”

Eli looks at his wrecked bed. “Yeah. I can do that. I’ll order, though.”

Greatly daring, Thrawn proffers a kiss and finds it very warmly received and reciprocated.

“Do Chiss eat breakfast in bed?”

Thrawn cocks his head. “No. I cannot say that we do, unless ill or injured.”

Eli manages a tired swagger as he walks to the lounge, making the towel swish enticingly. “I am going to introduce you to a great Human tradition.”

Something in Thrawn’s chest loosens, a tension leaving his neck and shoulders. The desire is mutual. Everything else can be worked out from that starting point. He goes to his room to make the bed for two.

#thrawn #eli vanto #thranto #drunk #hammered #sh*tfaced #liquified #intoxicated #first time #awkward #no pants #request #owlpartytime

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