Sarge Potteiger
Emotional Damage
Corellia
Coronet
Before Everything
Anaya was gone, and Coryth had passed through the week before. A short list of past romantic entanglements; one physical, the other emotional. A short and entirely incomplete list. For all the jokes about his whorish ways, he'd really not done as much as people liked to think he did. Part of that came from his desire to avoid putting himself out there emotionally; a key component of any relationship.
And the exact reason why he and Cira would likely never be.
Just as he didn't, neither did she. A frown crossed his lips as he walked into his bedroom, pulling his shirt off and discarding it without a care onto the floor. Blinking some sleep away, he trod the well worn path to his own personal bathroom where he turned a light on to brush his teeth in a quick, hurried fashion. He was tired. Bone tired. The Protectorship was weighing heavily on him.
There was too much reliance on the isolationist natives of Kaeshana, and beyond them it seemed Naboo was the only other place where he could find people willing to work towards a future of any sort. But even then, the two never intersected. Everyone in their own corner. Everyone to their own drum.
How did he put them together? Being an NCO had been easy. You gave orders, you shouted, people listened. There was no grumbling, at least not openly. They understood it was for a greater good. He spit out his cleaner, cleaning off the brush. Turning to leave the bathroom, he paused in the doorway, an indiscernible shape clearly taking up the edge of his bed. No alarms had gone off.
This wasn't Anya. Or Coryth.
So whoever this was had snuck in here... to sleep in his bed... without setting off the alarms. He debated the merits of grabbing one of his many weapons, but something told him this was different. The only person who'd felt comfortable in his bed had been Mara, and even she had only felt comfortable in it when he was there. She'd not liked sleeping alone. Or sleeping, really.
But he could think of only one person who would ever be comfortable in his place and with the capability of avoiding alarms. Ayden. But as he shut off the light and went to wake up the man in the bed he couldn't help but realize how stupid that was. Ayden would never sleep in his bed.
Nor would he do so without warning. The man was a specter while Sarge was a wraith. Inhaling, he realized something.
It was a woman.
And he could almost feel the tears threatening to break out of his eyes. Breath hitching in his throat, he stripped down to his underwear and moved to the untaken side of the bed where he lowered himself down. Crawling under the covers, he laid there a few long moments, puzzled and caught between action and inaction. Did he do something? Or act like nothing was occurring?
Was it even [member="Cira"]?
He didn't know, but he rolled onto his side and curled up behind her, arm draped over her waist. A feeling of 'this isn't right' settled upon him, but he chalked it up to the fact it was, technically, a stranger for the moment. He wasn't capable of dealing with more conflict today. If it turned out this was some random woman, what did he care. Wouldn't be the first time he woke up holding a stranger.