Chapter Text
Syril steps into Altair’s speeder as a shell of himself.
The same thought had repeated over and over in his head with every step he’d taken, both inside the Reintegration Institute and at the landing station as he’d left. It accompanied him like a second heartbeat, a cut that bled harder with every breath.
She looks so thin.
He’d never been under the impression that prisoners aboard New Republic barges were treated to multiple-course meals, but she — she’d been so slim that he could practically see the white of bones beneath her skin. Had anyone bothered to make sure she’d received basic nutrition?
Stars, and she’s always been so thin. He’d had the displeasure of watching her search for Axis consume her, quite literally. Half the time he’d convinced himself that if he hadn’t been with her in her apartment, hadn’t taken it upon himself to set food in front of her, she would’ve subsisted entirely on stim pills and determination. What had she subsisted on in prison?
Vengeance.
The word sickens his stomach, spreads to his heart and limbs like poison. What had he expected, forgiveness? No — no, he’d never have let himself believe she’d be happy to see him. But stars, he’d spent hours asking her the pre-set questions and then making up questions of his own, just to see if she’d waver. Just to see if he’d manage to uncover the barest shard of hope in a twitch of her cheek, or a clenched fist, or even an angry outburst.
Nothing. She’d given him nothing. Perhaps because in the end, that was what he’d given her.
He straps himself into the passenger seat and forces his moroseness down. He’d already started to sense that Altair was a man of few words, but his silence after Dedra’s — C80’s, and that's institute policy, so he'll have to get used to calling her by it — questioning bothered him. Had he no feedback to give? No opinion? He’d stood there at the window the whole time, yet he appeared to hold no strong convictions with regard to what he’d witnessed. Another brick in the tower of Syril’s discontent.
Altair performs pre-flight checks, and then he ushers his speeder into a takeoff so smooth that Syril barely feels it. It’s a beautiful vehicle to drown in his misery. The interiors are polished steel and polished leather, and every button glows with the shine of painstaking maintenance. It’s an intelligent speeder, he thinks, and fittingly so. A smart speeder for a smart man.
What does it mean when the smart man has nothing to say about Dedra?
“You’re quiet, Karn,” Altair says as they drift through the flight lane back to Coruscant.
As are you, sir. It’s the sort of insubordinate thing he might say to a man he didn’t respect. To his boss at the Security Force, or, back further, to Hyne — but not to Altair. “I’m thinking, sir.”
“And have your thoughts borne fruit?”
Syril’s thoughts have mostly gone in loops. He’s not so much trying to solve problems as he is lamenting their existence, and for a mission-focused man like Altair, self-pity won’t do. Syril straightens up. “I was wondering how I’ll get her to talk, sir. She was reluctant.”
“I saw. I expected it.”
Exhaustion has loosened Syril’s tongue to a dangerous degree. “If you expected it, sir, then why didn’t you—” He stops himself before he can finish the sentence. His face heats. Continue in this direction, Syril, and you’ll destroy whatever meager chance you and Elio have at a promotion.
“Keep going, Karn. What should I have done?”
Syril swallows thickly. “I wouldn’t presume to say what you should do, sir. I only—” he takes a breath. “You saw all of it?”
“Two hours.”
Altair won’t say it, but Syril understands his implication: he knows Syril veered from the script, asked Dedra — C80 — questions that weren’t on the Amnesty Program’s evaluation guide. Syril wonders what Altair thought of the farce. Wonders if Altair would have done a better job. More likely than not, he would’ve. But stars, it would have broken Syril to sit on the opposite side of the window and watch someone else sit inches away from her in that sterile, frozen room.
“Then you heard what she asked for.”
“A new administrator?” Altair asks. “Yes.”
Syril gathers all of his remaining courage in his throat and uses it to form his next words. “Why didn’t you question her yourself, sir?”
When Altair had told him he was going to administer the intake questionnaire, Syril’s heart had nearly burst. It was a responsibility for which he hadn’t prepared, and a reunion for which he absolutely hadn’t prepared. And he’d failed at both. Miserably.
“Today wasn’t about who talked to her,” Altair says. “It was about establishing a baseline, and letting her know there’ll be consequences if she tries anything.”
The remote all but burns a hole through his heart.
“Why a disciplinary device?” Syril asks, doing his best to sound curious rather than accusatory, or disgusted — although beneath his layers of propriety, he is both. “It’s not standard. No one else in the program has one.”
Altair shoots Syril a look that makes him feel devoid of a functioning brain. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an optimist, Karn?”
“No, sir.” Syril’s palms begin to sweat; Altair’s tone made it apparent he wasn’t being issued a compliment.
“It’s not a terrible quality to have,” Altair continues. “Optimism and hope are the foundations of change. Wars are fought based on little more, at their core, than belief in a better world.” The rebels. Syril wonders whose optimism Altair is referencing. Senator Mothma’s? Bitterness surges through him as he thinks of a different name: Cassian Andor’s?
“Optimism can win a battle,” Altair says, “and hope can win a war. But once the celebrating’s done and the old system’s gone, optimism can’t stabilize a new government. It can’t force squabbling delegates into agreement, and it won’t fill the gaps left in legislation by senators who believe our citizens better people than they are.”
Syril nods as if he understands, although he’s reeling. He’s been called many things, mostly by his mother, but never in his life has he stood accused of excessive positivity.
“What works, then, sir?” he asks. “What makes it all function?”
“You know that.”
Syril’s bouncing leg and hammering heart would argue he doesn’t, but he’d never say as much to Altair. With the pressure of uncertainty swelling in his chest, Syril files the question away for later. For a time when he has less on his mind, and more space to sit and contemplate the forces maintaining the galaxy’s stability.
He lapses into displeased silence as they enter Coruscant’s atmosphere and swoop downward, blending into streams of ever-flowing traffic. Syril stares down at the scattered constellations of the city-planet’s lights and wonders if anyone else beneath the twinkling shroud of red, orange, and gold is as strangely miserable as he is. Without an answer to Altair’s question and with Dedra’s defiance stabbing at him, he longs to go somewhere else. To be somewhere, or someone, else. Miserable and morbid, he wonders if that desire to burn himself down and then rebuild will follow him to the grave, just as it’s followed him throughout his life.
Altair ferries Syril directly to the platform adjoining his housing block. When he nudges the ship in for a flawless landing, Syril reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the remote. “Here, sir.”
Altair makes no move to take it from him.
Syril frowns. “You’re giving it to the Institute staff.”
Altair shakes his head. “You’re the lead on her case. It came from them, but it stays with you.” Something sharp flashes in the older man’s eyes. “I trust you’ll have the stomach to use it, when it becomes necessary.”
Suddenly, holding onto the remote feels like closing his fist around an open flame. When, not if. He’s already dealt her enough pain to last them the rest of their lives. If he were ever called upon to press a button, to deal her a shock lasting no longer than a second, it’d feel to him as if he were being shocked, too. If her expression changed, if the haughty light in her eyes blew out, if, stars forbid, she cried out — how would he keep going?
You don’t have a choice.
Syril drops the remote into his coat without another word. You don’t know that you’ll have to use it. Just because Altair thinks you will doesn’t mean he’s right. But he can’t imagine it bodes well.
Weary, Syril unfastens the safety belt and clambers out of his seat. As he does, Altair explains that he’ll be in touch with further instructions. When he arrives home, Altair says, Syril should have several encrypted communications from the Amnesty Program, including files pertaining to Dedra’s health and background, a transcript and video recording of their session, and contact information for the therapist assigned to work with her. Syril acknowledges all of it with a dip of his chin. Then he opens the speeder door to return to his normal life, head still spinning.
“I meant it, Karn,” Altair calls, stopping Syril in his tracks. “Some of the best men I’ve ever known were optimists.”
“What happened to them, sir?”
Altair’s expression goes blank. His voice flattens to a rasp. “They’re dead.”
***
Syril shambles through the door with a headache clawing at his skull and uncertainty clawing at his stomach. Exhausted, sluggish, and consumed by his thoughts, his heart nearly stops when something rolls out of the shadows at him.
“Good evening, Master Karn. Welcome home!” When Syril jumps, the droid’s jubilant tone drops to a wail. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Please accept my apologies.”
For what must be the third time in a week, Syril considers that he doesn’t need a housekeeping droid, and if he did, he wouldn’t need BONN-E. At least three decades out of date, BONN-E had been his mother’s assistant, in theory; until Eedy, in typical Eedy fashion, had decided the droid wasn’t doing its job. After less than a year in the Karn household, BONN-E had been abandoned in the corner, where she spent her days collecting dust.
After his mother’s passing, Syril had found himself regarding the droid with a twinge of pity. In a way, they’d both suffered under Eedy’s withering glare. So, Syril brought BONN-E to his apartment, and for the first time in years, he’d dusted the grit and neglect from her and allowed her circuits to charge. He’d also taken it upon himself to go to a mechanic and buy a replacement voice input, as Eedy had silenced the droid after she’d caught Syril chatting with it one evening. You’d rather talk to a machine than your own mother. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? The following day, BONN-E had gone mute, and Syril had lost his only friend.
Decades later, BONN-E had brought herself back online with a cheery, almost familial observation: Syril! You’re all grown up! And if tears had formed in his eyes, it was a side effect of the dust swirling in the air. Nothing more.
From that day forward, Syril learned just how thoroughly Eedy had wired herself into BONN-E. The droid cleaned his apartment obsessively, never leaving so much as a speck of dust in her wake. She pressed his clothing, scrubbed the floors, and took down detailed messages if someone tried to reach him while he was away. She also insisted upon calling him Master Karn—a title reminiscent of his mother’s, who had been Mistress Karn.
“BONN-E,” Syril says, walking over to the hall closet and shrugging off his coat. “What did I say about that?”
The droid gives a few anxious rattles. “I was taught to address the head of the household in proper terms, Master Karn. I don’t think it’d be right of me to call you by your first name.”
No, you wouldn’t. If the droid had called his mother Eedy, she would’ve been dismantled and thrown out the window. The part of Syril that still sees merit in propriety also sees the merit in holding to a title, but it seems hollow to demand it from a droid. Especially a droid as perpetually nervous as BONN-E.
Syril closes the closet and walks out into the kitchen, then on into the living space. He takes a seat on the couch, his joints creaking and popping; space travel isn’t as kind to him as it had once been. Staring out at the pastel hues of sunset, he contemplates making himself a cup of tea. Or completing a word puzzle. Anything, really, to stop his thoughts from lingering on her.
BONN-E rolls—or rather, squeaks—into the room behind him to sit obediently at his feet. He glances down at the cylindrical droid and considers that she’ll need maintenance soon.
“What if the head of the household insists you call him by his first name?” he asks her.
BONN-E tilts her flattened head. “I’m not sure my programming would allow it.”
Syril sighs. They’ve had a version of this conversation almost every day. He should give up, but he keeps trying—keeps hoping there’s a way to deprogram Eedy from the droid’s brain. If there’s hope for her, perhaps there’s hope for him, too.
“Master Karn!” BONN-E exclaims suddenly. “Please forgive me for not mentioning it earlier, but you have a message.”
Syril frowns. “From who?”
“Elio Dorn.”
Elio? “What did he want? Did he say?”
“He wondered if you still intend to go to dinner with him and his sister this evening.”
Stars. He’d forgotten about dinner, but Elio hadn’t forgotten about him. “What time? Where?”
BONN-E rattles off the name of a restaurant he’s heard of only in clips of conversations; only when he walks past boutiques on his way home from work and hears patrons making plans. Syril checks the chrono, and then swears. He has fewer than fifteen minutes to make himself presentable and get onto a transport. He’s not sure he owns the correct attire. It’s too late to cancel, he thinks, flinging himself off the couch in a panic. Whatever I have will have to do.
“Send Elio a message,” he tells his droid as he sprints down the corridor to his room. “Tell him I’ll be there.”
This day keeps getting longer and longer.
***
He is not, in fact, a few minutes late.
By the grace of a decent-enough suit and a well-timed transport, he manages to make it on time. It pains him to merely be on time, but given all the day has wrung out of him, it seems a small triumph that he’s there at all.
Not wanting to keep Elio and his sister waiting, he scurries through the building’s tall double-doors with a desperation that hardly befits the level of the Coruscant he’s on. Up here, he thinks, people don’t rush. The wealthy always have time — but he’s hardly wealthy, and every passing second is a lash on his skin.
Syril steps through the doors and finds himself in a large, dark-carpeted foyer. White flames light the space in cylindrical jars nestled on tabletops, and at evenly spaced intervals along the walls. He squints as his eyes adjust to the dimness. The unevenness of the lighting is deliberate, Syril thinks; it’s meant to strike a balance between the seedy clubs that use darkness as a shroud to throw over depravity, and the elegant glow of exclusive establishments. It amuses him, though, that the rich would jettison brightness. To him, sunlight always seemed the ultimate luxury.
A host — male, human, slick-haired and skeptical — eyes Syril with an air of suspicion. “Do you have a reservation?” he sneers.
Syril’s about to open his mouth to let his pounding heart escape when, thankfully, he’s rescued. Elio emerges from the shadow beneath a flame. “Syril! You made it.”
Instantly, the nausea in Syril’s stomach lifts. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Elio waves a hand as flickering flame-lights trace the curve of his smile. “Nonsense. We had time to get our table. Come on.”
Elio nods to the host as they pass by and weave around a corner to the dining area. He leads Syril through a mass of couture fashion and custom-crafted laughter, guides them between layers of carefully applied makeup and carefully applied angles. There must be four dozen people — a small crowd for a weeknight, but then again, this crowd is hardly considering getting up for work. No one seems to care about Syril and Elio’s presence, engrossed as they are in individual conversations.
If any patrons redirect their attention from personal business, they do so to cast unsubtly admiring glances at Elio. These people might or might not know who he is, but they can tell he cuts a stunning figure in a robe-length jacket beneath which he’s layered accenting cuts of formalwear. The innermost layer, a mesh shirt visible at his neck and chest, mimics the patterns and colors of stained glass. The jacket, Syril thinks, looks as if the designer had reached up and spun the night sky into fabric. It glimmers when light meets the thread at the proper angle — in the shadows between tables, it’s velvety obsidian.
Syril feels woefully inadequate in his years-old formal attire that he’d worn on the night the Reintegration Institute opened. He’d tried to alter it to keep with current trends, but compared to Elio Dorn, he’s a pebble against a shooting star. They squeeze past a waiter, and Elio turns his head to look at Syril. “You look good,” he says, and he does Syril the courtesy of sounding like he means it. “You’ll have to tell me where you bought that jacket.” Syril stutters his thanks, even as he’s well aware of his shortcomings.
Elio takes a few more steps, and then he stops. “Here we are.”
The table is unremarkable, at least in the resemblance it bears to the others in the room. Three chairs, spaced out evenly around a circular stone slab. A column of white flame swirling down from the ceiling. Silver utensils, crystal glassware. Standard fare, or so Syril assumes, for a place like this. For people like this.
Soliea Dorn, on the other hand, radiates an elegance that can only be inherited. Her obsidian hair gushes over her shoulder in a waterfall of loose waves; her skin, radiant as it is pale, glows in the firelight. She wears a strapless white dress with layers of fabric that drape and twist so precisely over her slender form that she appears to have been sewn into it — or it was sewn for her. Elbow-length gloves obscure slender fingers that curl around the stem of a wine glass. The lipstick print seared into the rim is the color of affluence.
Syril and Elio approach the table, but Soliea doesn’t turn. She only gives Syril her attention when he’s found his way to his chair. “So, you’re him,” she says, her voice smooth and hard as stone, her eyes judgmental beneath a cloud of smoldering makeup. A pull of her lips says what her words won’t: That’s all?
Syril clears his throat. “Syril Karn. It’s nice to meet you, Soliea. Elio’s told me about you.”
Soliea. The one sibling he trusts. The only one who cared about him when they were young, and the only one who stayed in contact after he left home. Nervousness saws at Syril’s stomach. Elio speaks kindly of Soliea, but so far, he’s sensed nothing from her but ice.
“I’ve been told about you, as well,” she says flatly, her attention claimed by a wine glass she braces between her fingers and then sets down on the table. When she looks up, she stares pointedly at Elio. “Incessantly.”
A surprised cough works its way up Syril’s throat. He’s surprised to learn Elio’s discussed him with Soliea at all, let alone on an incessant basis. He’d assumed Elio had more exciting friends worth talking about. Greater adventures worth retelling. Either she’s exaggerating, or he has a lot to say about work.
Elio looks from his sister, to Syril, and back to his sister again. Redness rises in his cheeks, and he plasters over it with a grin that could win him half of Coruscant. “Good things,” he tells Syril. “Right, Solee?”
Soliea, scrolling down a list of items on a glass tablet that serves as a menu, acts as if she hadn’t heard. Syril’s stomach sinks. She doesn’t like me. How does she already not like me?
With anxiety plucking at his nerves, Syril watches Elio’s expression shift. His smile dims, but the glow of it stays constant as he picks up his own glass menu and begins to scroll, his fingers swiping in delicate lines along the screen. With a pinch of panic, Syril realizes that of the three of them, he’s the only one not wearing gloves. Could that have impacted Soliea’s attitude? Is he improperly dressed?
“Syril, would you like anything to drink?” Elio asks. “A bluefruit cocktail or two?” he adds with a knowing, teasing smirk, which Syril reflects back at him. He doesn’t drink. Elio knows this. He’d drank in Elio’s presence exactly once, on an occasion he’s confident neither of them fully remembers. It’s not an offer—it’s an inside joke. And, he thinks gratefully Elio’s smirk turns sincere, an attempt to make him feel at ease.
“Water’s fine,” Syril says, wondering how that choice will further lower Soliea’s opinion of him.
Elio rolls his eyes and drops his chin into his hand. The curve of a smile peeks out over the tips of his fingers. “Has anyone ever told you you’re no fun, Detective Karn?”
“You have enough fun for the both of us, Detective Dorn.”
“Oh, but it’d be my honor to share.”
Elio’s eyes light. He waves over a server, who moves to their table in a blink.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yes,” Elio says, his voice dripping with the Upper-Levels accent he’d so fiercely argued he didn’t have. “I’ll take a Pamarthe Fire Dancer.”
The waiter’s perniciously plucked brows pull together. “Sir, that isn’t on the me—”
He breaks off as Soliea reaches into her purse, coaxes out a duo of gold coins, and slides them into the breast pocket of his jacket. “For your trouble,” she tells him with an immaculately sculped smile. The server scurries away.
When Soliea turns back to Elio, the smile drops. “Pamarthe? I take it you don’t work tomorrow.”
It doesn’t escape Syril, the way she spits out the word work: as if she’s peering down her nose at a factory worker advocating for higher wages on the Outer Rim. Elio leans over the table conspiratorially, as if he’s about to tell his sister a secret. “Whether or not I work tomorrow isn’t really your business, hm?”
“You’ve made it my business. Maybe I’d like to make sure my credits are going toward your rent, not fancy drinks, fancy parties, and—” she glances sharply at Syril, then closes her lips. The prickling in Syril’s stomach turns to a stabbing, slicing saw. She thinks I’m a charity case. “I don’t have to do it, you know," Soliea continues, leaning back and picking up her wine glass. “Father would be furious.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Syril sees Elio look at him. Gauging his reaction? Wishing he wasn’t there? Syril can’t tell, and he has half a mind to flee to the restroom and climb out the window.
Elio starts to drum his fingers against the table. “The drinks and parties are coming out of my salary.” Elio’s fingers pick up the tempo of their tapping. “Can we talk about something else? I so rarely get to see you. Syril’s never seen you.”
I’m beginning to think that was by design. Doing his best imitation of an affable dinner guest, he papers on a smile and takes a sip of water. The coolness of it soothes his burning, tight throat. Why had Elio insisted on this? Had Soliea wanted to meet him? Somehow, he doubts it. Perhaps she would’ve, if you’d made a better station for yourself, a familiar voice rings out in the darkest corridors of his skull. Perhaps if you’d accumulated Imperial wealth instead of running away—if you’d risen up, instead of letting go—she’d hold you in higher regard. Syril bites the inside of his cheek until the pain shouts louder than his doubts.
Soliea yanks him back to reality by deigning to ask a question. “So, Syril.” She spits out his name like a bite of rotted fruit, then chases it with a long sip of wine. “Who are you?”
“I, ah, work with Elio at the Coruscant Security Force.” The derision in Soliea’s stare threatens to dissolve him — her expression is a silent scoff. “We joined at about the same time. Before that, I—”
“I’m aware of what you did before.”
“Oh,” Syril says, dumbly. It’s all he can think of to say.
As Syril attempts to salvage whatever splinters remain of his standing, the waiter returns with a brilliant orange drink in his hand. He places it, and a plate sprinkled with flower petals, in front of Elio.
“Enjoy, sir,” he says. Soliea hands him another pair of coins, and the waiter walks away.
Immediately, Soliea returns her focus to the menu. “I assume you also go with my brother to his clubs, and such.”
“I… don’t, actually,” Syril stammers. “I’m not… I—”
“Syril’s happy at home,” Elio chimes in as he pinches several petals between his fingers and drops them into the glass. They burst into tongues of small flame, burning in brief, iridescent fires on the surface of the liquid. For a few seconds, they outshine every jewel in the room. Then they fade, leaving behind only a column of faint smoke.
A hum, then, from Soliea’s side of the table. “You must do something for fun.”
Nothing that you’d deem worthy. He almost says it, but for Elio’s sake, he locks the words behind his teeth. “I sew.”
“Do you?” Soliea’s smile is a thorn on a rose. “Did the Bureau of Standards hold classes?”
“I taught myself.”
“How quaint.” Soliea smirks, her gloved fingers sliding down the wine glass like running ink. Elio’s drink sparks and flares, a neatly trimmed fire. Syril takes another sip of water and again wonders what Elio had been thinking, hauling him to a place like this. Marching him out here in front of these people.
There had been a time when he would’ve done almost anything to be in this seat, sharing such prominent company, breathing such affluent air. When his world collapsed around him, his motivation for social climbing was flattened in the rubble. Elio hadn’t been wrong; at this point in his life, he’s content to spend his free time sitting in his apartment with a HoloBook or a needle and thread. Now, he supposes he’ll have significantly less time to do any of that. At least until Dedra — C80 — has completed her reintegration.
Elio picks up his menu again, and Syril follows his example. The selection is the sort of thing about which his mother would’ve dreamt. Elaborate dishes composed of spices and raw ingredients imported from every corner of the galaxy; steaks made from the freshest cuts of meat; fish caught in real oceans, rather than manufactured on a grow-farm.
There are no prices listed by the dishes, which leaves a pit in Syril’s stomach. He can’t afford to expend a month’s salary on one meal. Unlike Elio, he doesn’t have anyone funneling him thousands of credits every month to ensure he doesn’t shame his family by living in a common apartment or wearing last season’s eveningwear.
Before something like envy can hiss in his chest, Elio leans over to him. He holds out one of the flower petals he’d been dropping in his drink. “Here,” he tells Syril. “Try one.”
Briefly forgetting about Soliea, Syril shoots Elio a look he might’ve given him from across their desks at the precinct. “No.”
“Why?”
“They catch fire.”
“Only when they’re in the drink.” Still skeptical, Syril makes no move to accept his offering. With a sigh, Elio curls the petal into a loose fist and withdraws his hand. “Watch.” He places the petal on his tongue, then closes his mouth. His eyelids droop. His lips pull into a warm smile, and contentment smooths his brow.
After a moment or two, Elio opens his eyes. The blue of them deepens with intensity, and he reaches over to grab Syril’s shoulder. “See? I’m still here. Try one.”
Syril considers asking Soliea if she’s ever had whatever Elio’s peer-pressuring him into, but when he glances across the table, he sees something odd. Soliea’s mask of frigid indifference has melted, leaving in its place a gaze brimming with affection and a smile bled of scorn. Soliea regards her brother as one might the sun after a long night, or a flower after a cold winter. It’s obvious to Syril, then, why she’s here. Why she’d ever permit him, a man who doesn’t go to clubs or parties, a man who sews, to sit at her table.
She loves her brother. He asked, and she did this for him.
“Come on, Syril,” Elio says, a hint of pleading creeping into his voice. “Trust me.”
Sentimentality softens Syril’s mood. Holding Elio’s gaze, Syril takes the petal from him and slips it into his mouth.
At first, he tastes a rush of sweetness — the sort of sugary assault that conquers taste and moves beyond its borders, perfuming the air and lending an exquisite richness to everything in the room. Soliea’s hair is no longer black: it’s the color of a cloudy, humid night in midsummer. He could dive into Elio’s eyes to escape, so tranquil and cool are they; blue like the promise of the ever-present sky. Syril looks up at the chandelier and swears he picks out new colors limning the edges of the crystals, colors he feels, rather than sees. And when it all becomes too much and his senses are flooded to drowning, he closes his eyes and —
She’s asleep by his side with moonlight tracing up the soft curve of her spine. Blonde hair cascades down her shoulders in rolling, loose waves that pool on her pillow. He smiles and kisses the tips of his fingers before he pushes a strand of spun gold back from her forehead. Her eyelashes flutter, but sleep holds her in its grip. The thought occurs to him first in a murmur, but the longer he lies transfixed, it increases in volume until it becomes a shout: he could spend every remaining beat of his heart in this bed, watching Dedra Meero sleep. His love for her is so deafening, it’s a wonder it doesn’t startle her from slumber. It’s a wonder everyone in the Empire cannot hear the vows of devotion bellowed by his pulse.
With a gasp, Syril jolts back to the restaurant, back to Elio, back to the dinner.
“How was it?” his friend asks, beaming.
Syril’s knee begins to bounce beneath the table. A shiver creeps up his spine. “What was that?”
“Tranquilium petals,” Elio says. “Imported from a rainforest planet on the Outer Rim — and before you ask, they’re natural. No ill effects on your health.”
“That’s good,” he answers as he fights off a shiver, still feeling Dedra’s silken bedsheets caress his bare skin. Her voice carries clearly across the deserts of time, and it’s almost as if she’s sitting beside him now, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. Syril. Stay.
“Would you like another?” Elio asks.
“No,” Syril says, more harshly than he’d meant to. Scrambling, he softens. “Maybe Soliea would like one.”
“Absolutely not.” Soliea says sharply. She sets down her menu, then pushes it into a slot on the table’s ledge.
That’s that, then. Elio drains the rest of his drink. Syril ponders what he might order when every option sounds more expensive than the last. “Is there anything you’d recommend?” he asks, dangling the question in the air above the table for either party to claim.
Elio answers. “I actually haven’t been here before,” he says. “It’s a favorite of Soliea’s, though.”
“And I have nothing to recommend.”
“Then it doesn’t seem I could go wrong.”
Soliea doesn’t answer. Irritated, Syril bites the inside of his lip. He wonders what would happen if he reached over and downed every last one of the petals on Elio’s plate. Would it be enough to keep him in a trance for however long this torture lasts?
A waiter materializes with another drink for Elio, and a datapad. “Are you ready?”
“I’ll have the steak,” Soliea says. “Elli?”
Elio stops mid-sip and takes a panicked glance at the menu. “Same as her.”
“And I’ll have the same as them,” Syril says. It seems the safest option — although perhaps not for his bank account.
The waiter starts to walk away, but Elio raises a hand to stop him. “Another glass of the Pamarthe, if you’d be so kind.”
Three drinks in. Obviously, Elio regrets this whole affair. Syril can’t say he blames him.
Quiet lingers over the table like smoke after an explosion. Elio radiates discomfort, and Soliea radiates disdain. Elio plucks another petal from his plate and downs it in a delicate gulp. Soliea continues to nurse her glass of wine with a sour expression. We have nothing in common, Syril thinks morosely. This was a terrible idea.
When Elio returns to reality, Syril sees a light of purpose flickering in his eyes. “Solee,” he says, urgency in his voice, “there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
Soliea rests her chin in the palm of her velvet-gloved hand. “Oh?”
“We’ve been assigned a new case. Some stolen paintings from an art gallery in the Mid-Levels.”
“Mid-Levels,” Soliea snorts. “There’s a reason I’ve never been.”
Syril swallows thickly. Does she really think the Mid-Levels are crime-riddled cesspools? Granted, some sections of them are — but many hold perfectly respectable residential units. Some just had the misfortune of stagnating as Coruscant continued its march toward the sky. Of course, to someone who’d never set foot below the skyline, everything beneath would be shrouded in filth and insufficiency.
“Anyway,” Elio says, waving a hand, “I hoped you might be able to listen for any chatter about Imperial artifacts. If mother would send you to buy new décor—”
“What makes you think she’d be interested?”
A pause, from Elio. A fist Syril sees clench beneath the table. “The price alone would catch her eye.”
Soliea hums. “I’m not on her staff.”
“But you were in charge of decorating the summer flat.”
“At one time.”
“Are you still?”
Soliea makes a face. “Technically.”
Elio blinks, his eyes bright and imploring. “Please. It’d be so helpful to us—” he glances over at Syril, and Syril has just enough time to meet his gaze before he looks away— “and to me.”
Soliea purses her lips and sighs. “All right. If I hear anything, I’ll tell you.” Elio beams, but Soliea cuts him off. “But don’t get your hopes up, Elli.”
“We’ll take all the help we can get,” Elio says. “Thank you.”
“Yes,” Syril chimes in weakly, his need to exhibit decent manners winning out over his determination to stay silent and let the time pass. “Thank you, Soliea.”
Soliea doesn’t look at him, and Elio takes another long sip of his drink.
***
For not having had a drop of alcohol, Syril’s head still spins violently as he leaves the restaurant. His thoughts have their own thoughts. His anxiety has anxiety. Various threads of stress interlock and interweave to create a tangle of tension he wears in his tight shoulders, stiff neck, and sweat-drenched palms.
If Elio notices his silence, he doesn’t mention it.
At the conclusion of the evening, Syril had volunteered to walk him back to his flat; he’d wondered why Soliea hadn’t, but he can hardly claim to understand the ebbing and flowing currents of affection between the rich. Perhaps she’d been angry with Elio for inviting Syril to dinner. Perhaps she’d been angry with Elio for asking her to help with the investigation. Perhaps this was supposed to serve as a punishment, of sorts. For whatever reason, Soliea had told them that she needed to leave for her transport, and Syril had been left to either let Elio stumble home alone, or to make sure for himself that Elio got there intact.
It is not, Syril thinks, a terrible night to be walking through Upper-Level Coruscant. The air is cool, but not cold — the sting of it is welcome on his cheeks. It’s a work night, so pedestrian traffic is decreased, if not actually low. It’d never be low. On Coruscant, the presence of beings walking around is as constant a phenomenon as the sunrise. But at least he’s not had to shove his way from one walkway to the other, and on public transport, he and Elio find seats without having to push or beg for them.
The doors to the transport slide shut, and Syril feels Elio’s gaze seek him out like a sunbeam through clouds.
“You’re upset,” he says, and Syril’s stomach drops.
“I’m fine,” Syril counters, knowing Elio’s likely to see through him. Even somewhat drunk, Elio’s more perceptive than most. That’s why he didn’t fit up here. There’s too much empathy in him.
“Soliea doesn’t like anyone.” Guilt seeps in at the edges of Elio’s words. “She tolerates me. That’s all I can ask of any of them, really.”
At that, Syril turns his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He takes a breath and looks Elio in eyes that are as immeasurably blue as they are sad. “I had a nice time. It was… good of you to include me.” The last part, he means. Even if having dinner with Soliea had felt like the equivalent of having needles dug into his skin for multiple hours, Elio had asked him to go. And before Elio, he’d only ever felt that sense of belonging with one other person in the galaxy, and she — no. He can ruminate about her, and the Amnesty Program, and the horrible weight of it all once Elio’s safely in his flat.
“I did think the water tasted off, though.” Syril throws Elio a joking smile. “Bitter. It’s hard to find clean-tasting water on Coruscant.”
Elio scoffs. One side of his mouth lifts. “Clean-tasting water. You’re full of it, Karn.”
“And you’re drunk, Dorn.”
“Never too drunk, I’ll have you know.”
The transport takes off, and Syril reflects that he doesn’t, in fact, know. There’s much he doesn’t know. Much he never will, and much, like the dinner, that he’ll never be part of.
“Those petals,” Syril says. “How did you know about them?”
Elio aims a sidelong glance at Syril, eyes sparkling. “Stop worrying. They’re legal.”
“I wasn’t saying—”
“No, of course you weren’t. You wouldn’t be fretting about the rules.” Elio grins. “Stars, Syril, what am I going to do with you?”
Rules rarely apply to the rich. “You knew what they did,” Syril says, doubling down on his curiosity until Elio’s smile dulls. Instantly, Syril retreats. “You don’t have to—”
“My mother,” Elio says, his voice flat, hollow. “She kept a stash of them in her bedside table. Always bought a new batch just before father was coming home. By the time he left she’d have taken them all, save for the ones I snuck. We were both just trying to get through it.” He takes a deep breath. “One time, I took too many at once. Fistfuls. Soliea found me. She shook me awake, dragged me back to my room, and sat with me until it wore off.”
Shame bubbles in Syril’s stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up—”
Elio waves a pale hand. “I hardly think about it now.” He swallows. Blinks his slightly reddened eyes. “Just a memory.”
Just a memory. If anyone knows how easily the past slips free of its shackles, it’s Syril.
They spend the rest of the short trip in silence, staring out of clean windows. Syril can’t help but notice how pristine everything is in the Upper-Levels cars. The seats aren’t sticky. The armrests aren’t worn down. The glass hasn’t been smeared with decades’ worth of fingerprints and grime. The longer he considers it, the more sense their as-new surroundings make: even in the New Republic, the wealthy don’t take public transport.
When the train next slows to a stop, Syril nudges Elio’s shoulder. “That’s us.”
Elio gives a yawn and lurches to his feet, and Syril follows him out onto the boardwalk. The train speeds away, and Syril’s overcome, if only for a moment, by the mural of Elio’s neighborhood at night. There are too many colors to name, dozens of lights flickering from holosigns, beckoning, encouraging. It’s never really dark on Coruscant. Sometimes, the splendor of it can still dazzle him. Coruscant itself has certainly seemed to breathe easier now that the Empire’s boot is no longer on its neck. The planet is a garden blooming under the New Republic’s care.
After walking a few blocks, they arrive at Elio’s corner of the garden. It’s a nicer building than Syril would ever be able to afford — an elegant dagger piercing the skyline’s heart, all gold, glass, and glamour. It had been built atop a cluster of condominiums, and Syril finds himself wondering if this new growth has dug those residents deeper into the soil. If they’re having to strain to see the sun.
“You’re still quiet,” Elio notes. There’s no sharpness in his voice. There’s no anger on his face. For Syril, that almost makes it worse. It’s harder to sidestep a smile than a fist. Altair’s voice rings in his ears: To be abundantly clear, Detective Karn, that includes your partner. “It wasn’t right, how she treated you tonight. I should’ve said something.”
Heart racing, Syril shakes his head. “She’s your sister. I didn’t—I know you didn’t mean to—” Stars, how is he meant to say any of it without sounding either insensitive, or like an idiot? And it doesn’t help that Dedra — C80, C80, C80 — keeps resurfacing in the back of his mind like a vision of damnation. What am I doing? Syril asks himself, nauseated. The cool night air no longer provides comfort. Every being on every billboard seems to be staring at him. What have I gotten myself into? And what torture that Elio has already begun to see it. That Elio will watch him drowning.
Kriff, should I just tell him? For a wild, desperate moment, he considers opening his mouth. Elio would share the burden. But the moment passes, and Syril seals those secrets away inside himself. It wouldn’t be fair to Dedra to put her rehabilitation at risk for the sake of his comfort. Once she’s through the program, he’ll tell Elio everything. He’ll leave nothing out.
But for tonight, for her to have the opportunity she deserves, he’ll have to obscure it.
“I wasn’t expecting you to fight Soliea for my honor,” Syril says, thinking it best to make a joke. “I don’t think you would’ve won.”
It works: Elio smiles. “I don’t think so, either.” He’s not drunk in the way that most beings would define it, but his words bump into each other at the edges the way night bumps into dawn, or consciousness bumps into sleep. “I could have tried, though. I should have. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” I, on the other hand, should start apologizing to you now.
Elio’s eyes meet his. It occurs to him then, that in defiance of the building and the boardwalks and the traffic above their heads, they are alone. Coruscant is watching in the ways that it always does, but there’s nothing in their vicinity but flickering walkway lamps and smoke. The night around them seems to hold its breath.
“Come inside,” Elio says. Perhaps it’s the alcohol, or perhaps it’s the circumstances, or perhaps it’s his sorrow over Soliea, but the playfulness sloughs off of him. He’s as sincere as he’s ever been, standing with a wall of gold at his back but no one by his side. “Let me make you a drink.”
Syril’s throat tightens. He huffs out a choked, dizzy sound. “Is the water better here?”
“We can talk about the case.” Elio sidesteps his joke, not teasing, hands wedged in his pockets. “There’s a jacket I’m trying to alter—we can talk about that. We can talk about anything. Whatever you’d like, for as long as you want.”
He seems… nervous, Syril thinks, in a way he’s not seen from him before. Generally, even when he’s drunk, Elio exudes the sort of upper-class confidence that solidifies in one’s bones. When he’s at ease, there’s a liquidity to him—he moves, talks, and even breathes like water flowing downstream, like light shining through a window. Here, that confidence is dammed. Here, on this empty walkway bridging the gap between opulence and worn-down concrete, Elio falters.
“Let’s talk tomorrow.” Syril’s pulse quickens. “It’s late.”
If he goes inside, he’ll tell him about Dedra. That much, Syril knows — he won’t be able to sit in Elio’s apartment, a glass of fancy water in hand, and keep up the façade that everything is fine. The version of him that enters through those gold-plated doors will not be the version of him that exits, and Dedra and Elio will both be worse off if he shares what he knows.
And if Soliea Dorn had made anything clear to Syril that evening, it was that Elio deserves companionship of his own social class. For all their bonding over cups of caf and adjoining desks at the office, Syril cannot modify his history. He cannot erase his past or his lack of status, and at times like these, on evenings like this, he can hardly believe Elio would ask anything of him. That it should matter to Elio how he responds.
Does it matter to him, really? Or is there some sliver of him, some deeply rooted bit, that sees you as Soliea does? Is his affection genuine, or is it pity? Charity? The terrible thoughts congeal and morph, becoming one beastly, horrid question: Had Elio not defended him not because he’d been intimidated by Soliea, but because, on some level, he agreed with her?
No, don’t think that. He’s not his sister. He left his family. What an awful thing to even— Head spinning, Syril stops himself.
It’s late.
It’s late, and exhaustion is draining the life from him in slow, deep gulps, and half of his head never left the assessment room at the Reintegration Institute. Half of his heart might still be there, too, thumping uselessly. A scuffed-up thing laying on the tile.
“I don’t think now’s a good time,” Syril says, adding a fresh layer of guilt to the guilt that was already there. “A different day?”
That guilt solidifies to rock as he’s forced to take in Elio’s reaction; a series of quick, almost stunned blinks; a visible inhale; a nod too deep for acquiescence, and a smile that doesn’t shine. The clear glass behind him catches the glow of the advertisements and reflects it back on Elio’s cheeks, smearing them with a stream of neon tears.
“Sure.” Elio nods again, and the angle of the light changes. The tears dry. The smile shrinks. “We should both get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Syril nods in return, his hands in his own pockets. “See you tomorrow.”
Then he watches Elio walk away. Waits on the boardwalk until the door shuts, and empty wealth and opulence has swallowed him whole.