Private Scattered Starlight

[Yula Perl]

// D E N O N​

“That didn’t take very long at all.”

Yula threw open the door to her flat and immediately collapsed into an unceremonious heap on the couch. The Zeltron flicked a dark disheveled lock from her forehead and grinned at Dagon. “I’d say we've earned some terrible takeout.”

Drug busts on Denon had become a strange hobby of theirs. Despite their mismatch on many levels, the pair found that they worked oddly well together. Even offworld—on Csilla, Sev Tok, Nar Kreeta—though they always seemed to gravitate back to Denon’s crime-ridden underworld.

They’d happened upon some good intel this time, which turned a night-long stakeout into a rapid, chaotic project of only a few hours. Some bruises and bumps along the way, and they’d narrowly eschewed a life-or-death experience. Her flat was the closest safehouse, convenient.

It wasn’t much different than the places they’d stayed before. A little bigger, more comfortably furnished, cleaner but messy. Various projects were strewn about her living area, half-composed droids and pieces of tech she’d ripped apart but hadn’t quite found the time to put back together again. In the corner near the tv, a large duffle back and null-hockey stick rested against the wall.

Yula brought up a few menus on her holopad, rotating through them with a swipe of her finger. “I think it’s your turn to pick.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"When you're patient and set up enough time to prepare, the hit's always quick and decisive." he said smirking. Prep time was everything.

Yet, even Dagon couldn't be prepared for this rapid change of...everything, really. He had found himself lately spending more and more time on Denon, a lot of leads on that 'conspiracy plot' he had been pursuing centered here on the world of corporations, but that was also an excuse - one here stubbornly refused to admit - to spend more time with Yula. For a short period of time they had gone through hell and back, three times and counting, and this bond - it was morphing in ways Dagon had initially not expected. Or rather feared to expect.

Attachments always led to disappointment and pain in the end.

He was adaptive in most circumstances, but this one. Life spent fighting crime and evil in the bowels of Coruscant had made him into a man who was used to coming back to his safehouses and crashing on the couch alone.

Now he had Yula to contend for that spot.

And she always sniped it.

"I could've sworn you said the same thing last time and contested every pick I made until I folded." he chuckled as he sat beside her and explored the options on the holopad. "You guys have Hutta Burger, no? Oh, yeah, there it is."

Before she could even think about changing it, Dagon ordered two large burger menus and shrugged with a dumb smile on his face.

He could snipe too.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula snorted. “I do not do that.” Still, her eyes followed his finger like a hawk as he ran through the menu options. “Listen, I can’t help your poor taste, Dag.” It was a slight concession, and despite her insistence, good humor danced in her eyes.

Dagon was intrusive, had a savior complex, and was irritatingly stubborn. The pair had consistently challenged eachother with their own separate brands of tenacity since they’d met, and she would have cut contact with the Jedi if it hadn’t been for the spark. The spark that was blooming into something else, something deeper, something neither spoke of or acknowledged. Something that, despite the numerous trials by fire, kept drawing them together with gradual intensity.

Something she hadn’t felt since Vik.

Yula nearly leapt out of her seat, her mouth hung open before she could complain.

“I’m not going to eat that!” She protested, more out of kneejerk principle than anything. She most certainly would eat that burger, and Dagon knew it. They'd gotten through enough cheap underworld eats to pick up on each other's tastes.

He was just being cheeky, and she jabbed him in the ribs with two fingers. “Change it,” She threatened with a pout. "Or I'll get the null hockey stick."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

You calling yourself poor taste?

Sable would probably agree.

The thought caught him in surprise, leaving him open for her two-fingered jab.

"Ow!" he grunted, catching her wrist. The fat goon earlier had punched him hard right there. A glance at the null hockey stick she mentioned and he snorted, "A hockey stick? Please—you only play dirty."

Dagon held her wrist firmly, then playfully twisted it around her back before his other hand jolted to shuffle through her jacket, "Where's the shiv?"

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

He had her in a sudden hold—not painful, but enough to surprise her.

“Hey!” She protested as he rifled through her jacket. “I know I owe you a jacket, but you really think this one will fit you?”

Yula twisted around enough so that her back wasn’t to his chest, attempting to elbow him away.

Still, somehow, she was laughing through her words.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

When you spend your days and nights chasing and fighting scum through the gutters, you rarely have time to unwind. You end up crashing on the couch, snoozing to catch a few winks before going back in the grinder.

That wasn't the case on Denon.

Dagon wondered if the leads bringing him here were just a plausible lie to be here with her.

The thought came and left, shoved away by the duo's little game of quips.

Yula flung around escaping his grip and turned around to face him.

"I don't know, you can take it off so I could try it." Dagon shrugged casually, but there was a glint in his eyes. A glint of inner desires.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

She recognized the look in his eyes. So, the spark had reached there too.

Dark brows lifted as she reciprocated something similar back to him. There were no pheromones in play—she couldn’t do that—but something in the air had shifted, something they both recognized.

Something that had lingered between them before, only to dissipate into the background of another battle or fight.

“Alright,” She responded while shrugging the jacket from her shoulders, the beginnings of a wicked smirk twitching the corners of her lips. “Let me help you try it on.” Holding onto one sleeve, she tossed the body of the jacket over his shoulders, then caught the other sleeve in her free hand.

With a sharp tug, she pulled the Jedi forward and kissed him.

Enough with the stupid pretext.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dagon watched as she shrugged the jacket off, his heartbeats gradually accelerating in anticipation of what both had been denied for long, of the inevitable spark to combust. With each move of hers sliding the jacket over his shoulders, time slowed down before she pulled him in for the predestined kiss. The clocks stopped, locked in.

Goosebumps running across his body pushed the minute hand forward and Dagon wrapped his arms around her tight. There was no clinginess in the embrace, no desperation - just burning desire. Want. His left hand snuck beneath her shirt as he laid her back flat on the couch. In every touch of his, there was a fondness, an emotion, that lacked in the usual need sating nights. The dread of attachments that weighed on his shoulders ever since Ayana's death seemed to dissipate, drowned underneath the moment of the night. Stored away in the depths of his mind.

If he had one wish at that very moment - it was that the sun never dawned again.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

It was only when they’d stopped to catch their breath, did Yula realize that the spark was still there. Instead of being snuffed from the release of tension, the coals still burned. For her, that was an unusual feeling.

But not a wholly unwelcome one.

“I guess that jacket didn’t fit you after all.” She murmured, brushing the tips of her fingers against his forehead to push aside the locks of dark hair that had been matted with exertion. It gave her a good chance to look into his eyes—always this vibrant blue, somehow even more striking in the afterglow. The same eyes she’d seen furrowed in concern, hardened in anger, sharpened in concentration throughout their planetary escapades.

Her hand lingered in his hair, dropping to trace a feather-light outline along a bruise at his shoulder that had come from a hard landing during their earlier drug bust. Even in the dim lighting, it was the first time she’d seen the extent of his scarring, the marks left on his body from the galaxy. And he, her own.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Dag.” She teased with an almost delirious grin, shifting on the couch to throw her gaze at the door for a moment. “We probably missed the delivery guy.”

The small window to the side angled just so, throwing a dispersion of moonlight over them.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Embers.

He could feel them stoking warmth in his chest, a forgotten sensation - one he had denied himself for a long time instead adapting to the blank apathy that followed nights that merely quenched natural, human demands. This was certainly a different night. A night in which both had witnessed their scars and embraced them. The faint needle marks on her arm. He had taken her as she had come.

Their gazes locked in as her fingertips softly brushed away his raven locks away from his forehead. In her emerald eyes, beneath the veil of exhaustion both shared, he found a glimmer, illuminated by the thin ray of moonlight sneaking through the window, of the spark that both had ignited tonight. The fatigue had subdued his inner fear leaving him encapsulated in their shared moment of intimacy, free from all burdens and troubles.

They would all resurface tomorrow.

But tonight?

Tonight he would be counting stars.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Dag. We probably missed the delivery guy.”

A quip about her load moaning muffling the doorbell landed on the tip of his tongue. He filtered it through, "Maybe if someone wasn't so loud I'd hear the door ring." a lopsided, cocky grin tugged at his lips. His hand cupped her cheek, a thumb softly brushing away the little of the mascara that had leaked down beneath her eyes.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula chortled and rolled her eyes, but the natural flush of her face still deepened a shade at Dagon’s comment. “Yeah, like you would have stopped if you heard the door.” A pause, then she poked him in the chest with a finger in warning. “Do not answer that.”

She reached for the blanket, previously draped over the top of the couch, currently rumpled to one corner from the activity, and threw it haphazardly over them. The brush of his thumb against the corner of her eye coaxed an involuntary smile to her face, warm and genuine. His touch reminded her of earlier, when he’d done the same thing along the faint track marks of her arm, intentional or not. To be fair, they’d both done it—tracing scars with gentle fingertips, reading the unspoken stories of Yula and Dagon.

“I’ve been sober for a few weeks, you know.” She cleared her throat, trying to make it sound casual while wondering if the subject was even worth broaching. The last thing she wanted was to ruin such a rare, nice moment, but the swimming of her head urged her on. Whether or not this was a one-time deal didn't matter, surprisingly. She was fond Dagon all the same, and like it or not, he'd become a piece of her life.

Her chin gestured towards the corner of the room. “That’s what the hockey stick is for. New vice.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

“I’ve been sober for a few weeks, you know.”

His thumb froze at the sudden mention of one of their greatest divides, a bare twitch in his eyes before all resumed as normal. Dagon was not only too tired for that can of worms but also had no intention of ruining tonight. Even if that same savior-complex she berated him about kept edging closer to the tip of his tongue. He stole a glance at the hockey stick she mentioned and slightly arched an eyebrow. Hockey? Yula? The surprise disappeared when he recalled her temper. Fitting and-

"Happy to hear that." he said genuinely, turning his eyes back on her and his hand dropping back to his side. "Better get me some free tickets, then."

A question suddenly sprung up in his mind and before he could reign it in, it escaped his lips, "Why'd you text me that night?"

I thought I'd never hear from you again. After what happened.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

No small part of Yula was relieved when he didn’t press for more information. He’d been so insistent about making her problem his business, and she hadn’t elaborated that this was the fourth or fifth time she’d tried to kick the spice habit. Seeing Kyra in that state rattled her to the core, serving as an aggressive wake-up call. She couldn’t get the picture of her baby sister laying in a spice den, delirious from her high, out of her head. Nor could she shake the similar images of Dagon.

"Why'd you text me that night?"

She tensed against him, and found she couldn’t form a diplomatic answer that would honor the nature of their relationship. Whatever the hell it was, anyway.

“Because I was worried about you, Dag.” Her eyes softened with the earnest words. “I know what coming down is like, so I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

If her position had made it comfortable to shrug, she would have. “You made me really mad that day, but that doesn’t mean that I still don’t like you.”

Granted, she had just gotten through showing Dagon just how much she liked him.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"You can be real cute when you care about someone, huh? Not a side of Yula I ever expected to see." he remarked, but before she could consider it as a quip, he sealed the honesty of his words with a peck kiss on her lips. Her fondness of him kept a smile on his face.

Dagon shifted, turning to lay flat on his back with his arms behind his head as he stared at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"We've been through a lot of chit for a short time, haven't we?" the Jedi commented, paused then added. "It's good to have someone by your side."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

He’d kissed her pout before she could even protest, a subtle testament to how easily she’d been read. The softness in her eyes was gone, replaced by a scrutinizing playfulness.

She was a little surprised that her admission hadn’t scared him. Maybe it would later once it had time to sink in, but to her, forming a bond was the most natural thing in the galaxy. When it came down to it, Yula held her individual connections with others in high regard.

That, and Dagon was difficult to get rid of once he’d set his mind on something.

As he shifted to his back, Yula rested her head against chest.

“It’s not surprising that I give a chit about you then, is it?” She mused to his comment with a yawn. “You’ve been bothering me for long enough, I might as well have your back when you do something stupid.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The warm smile on his face widened when she nestled her head over his chest, his fingers moved to lazily play with her locks of hair. Silken to the touch even with strands matted by sweat.

"Pssht." Dagon scoffed, "I've told you before - doing something stupid's your MO."

A pause.

A cocky smirk.

"But I wouldn't mind having your back."

A cockier smirk.

"At all."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

That comment earned him a jab right in the rib bruise.

She tilted her chin up in order to catch his eyes with her own, dark brows raising.

“That counts as something stupid.”

She couldn’t help but snicker to herself, settling down and enjoying the feeling of having his fingers twine idly in her hair. It was intimate, calming even. Yula realized that it had been a while - a few years, even - since she'd allowed herself this level of comfort around a partner after romping in the sheets.

“Aren’t Jedi supposed to be pure?” She teased, tracing a languid pattern over the scars on his abdomen. “I figured either you had good instincts, or..."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The jab at the fresh bruise on his ribs proved his point - Yula only played dirty. Their...rearrangement of the furniture minutes ago further verified that her dirtiness extended beyond the usual prism.

Not that Dagon was complaining.

He laughed at her trailing off quip; the definition of pure clearly had been distorted over the Jedi's eons-old history. Most had come to an agreement that it was not the indulgence in bedtime activities that clouded the mind but the forming of attachments. On another night, on another day, his own fear of bonding the way he had bonded with Ayana would've resurfaced and sent shivers down his spine. But not tonight. Tonight he had sealed it all away until the sun dawned and the first rays of light melted the locks.

"Guess we broke more than just the couch tonight." he grinned, his eyes tracing the soothing patterns of her fingers over his scars. The marks of battle had increased exponentially over the last year, the warnings of his master echoing in the back of his head. How much more could he physically take the brunt. For each wound healed, another two appeared. Yet, it was not the physical damage that worried him as much as the mental.

Dagon shoved the growing concerns away from his mind and said, "Besides, someone told me everyone's only pure till they meet a Zeltron."

THE Zeltron, in this case.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

“Mm, you’re buying me a new couch.” She decided, sounding rather lazy about it. Her eyes had fallen closed in rest, inadvertently allowing the Force to guide her trailing finger along his bruised flesh.

She did peek, however, at his second comment.

“Oh? Care to elaborate on that?”

There was a note of humor in her voice, and an equally distinct hint of warning.

Tread carefully…

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

If he had to purchase all the things Yula wanted on a whim, Dagon would certainly file for bankruptcy. Jedi aren't really known for their wealth, are they?

She hung on his last, thoughtless comment and he swallowed his tongue.

"Uhhh--" he glitched out, system reboot. Gone was the nonchalant, confident tone in his voice. A faint blush of red found itself on his cheeks. "--I mean.. like.. you know." he gestured something with his free hand, something that made no sense as he clawed his mind looking for words. "You know like, erm, Zeltrons..." boy, wasn't he going into racist territory right now. But it was a fact, no? It was a race trait, right? He was super certain about that before she challenged his off-hand half-joke. "--like they're irresistible or something." Dagon chuckled sheepishly.

drink every time dagon says like

Yula Perl