It doesn’t snow on Coruscant, not anymore. It sleets, though, icy slush coming down in torrents to soak the upper levels. All the rain’s acidic. It’s bitter in Quinlan’s mouth.
Come on, Vos. Get up.
A particularly large bit of slush hits him right between the eyes. Force, but it’s cold. He blinks hard, scrunching his eyes closed until the worst of the ice slides away. It burns.
Come on. Can’t die here.
Something’s wrong with his arms. It takes an inordinate amount of embarrassingly uncoordinated flopping to get his wrist to his eyes and in the process of drying them, he manages to smear even more acid slush into them. Ow.
Let’s go. Fox is expecting you. Aayla’s waiting. Gotta get up.
Slowly, painfully, he flips onto his stomach. Gods, but it burns. He’s a little confused, but he’s pretty sure there’s something wrong with his ribs. He might have fallen? Been hit? Kicked? He thinks they’re broken.
Where is he?
Oh, Force, he’s not even sure what level he’s on. Okay, backtrack. He was on a mission following some spice traders. They came up from the lower levels to do a pickup, something had gone wrong, and then…?
He doesn’t think the dealers attacked him. They were shitheads, but they weren’t aggressive shitheads. Only reason he was bothering with them was because they’d somehow stumbled their way into owing the Seppies money. He tries to think back further, make sense of the flashing images and sense-memories of fighting, but his head is pounding in time with his ribs and his mouth is bone-dry and he’s so, so cold.
He’s got to get up. He’s got a date with Fox tonight, he’s pretty sure. Maybe right now. He’s not sure how long he’s been out for, or even if he’d ever been unconscious. He hopes there’s nothing wrong with his legs. It doesn’t feel like it, but at this point, he’s not sure he can trust any of the messages his body’s sending him beyond the ones that say ‘cold.’
He hauls himself to his feet. His head spins, but somehow, he stays upright. It’s too dark to see much of his surroundings, but he can tell he’s still in the alley he passed out in.
“Vos!”
What? He spins around, feeling for his lightsaber. It’s not there, but there’s a holster like somewhere he might have a blaster—
“Vos. Quinlan!”
Oh. “Hey, Foxy,” he drawls, pulling together the last of his energy to give Fox a grin. “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
Fox steps towards him, a red-and-white blur of safe. “You called me, remember?”
“Really? Sounds like something I’d do.” His knees are starting to feel a little watery. Fox takes one last step closer, the final one, the one that brings him within arms’ length. “You’re always right where I need you,” Quinlan manages, then promptly collapses in Fox’s arms.”
“Fucking hells, Quinlan.”
“...Don’t know, think it might be poison.”
“God damnit, Vos, always fucking something with you.”
Cards on a scratched plastoid table, brothers’ laughter, he’s got a full house but if memory serves Zipper’s got a flush
—Tugs Quinlan closer to his chest. It’s Fox, has to be, Fox always carries him like he’s going to disappear. Dang, how many times had Fox carried him for Quinlan to know he has a way—
Someone’s poking at him, leaning over him and
“Easy, Quinlan, calm down. It’s just Hemlock.”
Someone takes his hand.
“How did you break this many ribs?”
“...’M special tha’ way.”
“You are special, that’s for sure.”
Quinlan drifts back into his own head to the tune of Fox bitching at someone. It’s comfortingly familiar, and he almost drifts off again. Then, he realizes that he is the object of the bitching.
“Come on, wake your ass up. I am not carrying you back to the barracks.”
“Mm?” Quinlan rubs the sleep from his eyes. “M’wha?”
Fox is leaning over him with the medbay light shining around him like a halo. The whole effect is sort of enhanced by the blurriness of his vision, and with the soft curls and the pissy face he sort of looks like an avenging angel. Quinlan reaches up to touch his face and Fox catches his hand. His expression softens. He cradles Quinlan’s hand to his cheek, kissing his palm.
“Come on,” Fox repeats. “Let’s get up. Holly cleared ya, we’ll go to the barracks and sleep.” He kisses Quinlan’s hand again and then takes the other. Quinlan’s wearing his gloves, he realizes. Fox must have put them back on after—he checks his clothes—after whoever undressed him undressed him. And the hospital gown must be new, because he’s not getting many impressions off of it.
A laugh has him blinking blearily. “Wow, Holly said you’d be a space cadet, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad.” Fox tugs gently on one of his locs, bringing everything back into fuzzy focus.
“‘S not my fault,” Quinlan protests.
“No, it’s not. Up you get.” Fox tugs on his hands, easing him upright.
Quinlan’s ribs don’t appreciate that. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow, Fox, ow.”
“Sorry, sorry, I know.” Fox slips an arm under his shoulders. “Here, lean.”
“You know,” Fox mumbles into the back of his neck. “Tomorrow’s Life Day.”
Quinlan hums, pulling Fox’s arm tighter around him. They’re curled up in Fox’s bunk with the lights turned down low, Fox wrapped around Quinlan like a warm, overprotective exoskeleton. In the middle of the floor, Thorn and Stone are playing cards. “Oh, yeah. Suppose it is.”
“We were supposed to go on a nice date.”
Quinlan’s eyelids are awfully heavy. The poison made you confused and the antidote’ll make you sleepy, Holly had warned. Quinlan’s pretty sure he was putting it mildly. “Oh. Is that what I was forgetting?”
Fox sighs. “Yup.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
Fox squeezes him tighter, pushing his knee between Quinlan’s thighs and nuzzling the back of his neck. “It’s alright. Just. Try not to do that, yeah? I thought you were dead.”
“Sorry.”
“Make him stop apologizing, Fox,” Stone calls. “He sounds sad.”
Fox snorts. “Stop apologizing, Vos. Stone thinks you sound sad.”
“...’Kay. Love you.”
“I love you, too,” Fox murmurs, tugging the blankets up over their shoulders and cuddling closer. “Happy Life Day.”
“Happy Life Day, Foxy.”