Summary: They live ordinary lives, just that regular fighting an evil empire thing and breaking a little under the pressure; oh yes, and there's being constantly torn between finding your droid partner charming and infuriating.
Notes: For smaragdbird for Not Prime Time 2017.
.
Ordinary Lives for Ordinary Men
by Artemis1000
As soon as the doors to their quarters closed behind them, Cassian turned to Kay, shooting him a sharp look. "Thank you for your vote of confidence in the command room."
He didn't stay and wait for his complaint to be acknowledged before starting to make himself comfortable. He shrugged out of his padded vest and sat on the edge of the bed, his posture relaxed despite all peevishness. Cassian leant back, reclining propped up on his arms behind his back, legs stretched out. It gave him a nice panoramic view on K-2SO, albeit currently only on his backside.
Kay didn't face him till he had finished locking their room with the nearly unslicable security algorithms he had programmed solely to put Cassian's paranoia at ease. It had, in fact, been his anniversary present last year.
He tilted his head and shuttered his brightly glowing optics with an audible noise. "It was a pleasure, Cassian. I like being helpful."
Cassian snorted. He balled up his discarded vest and threw it in Kaytoo's direction. "Rust bucket."
"You called my alloy lustrous last night," Kay replied cheerfully as he caught the vest in mid-air, "and stop making a mess. You get grumpy if our room's untidy, and I'm no service droid."
Cassian flopped back onto the mattress and watched Kay put away his vest just as neatly as Cassian liked it. He really was a good boyfriend.
When he wasn't being insufferable, that was.
"You know, you didn't have to laugh when I was suggested for that Coruscant mission."
Kay straightened in indignation. "You would have had to seduce an informant. Of course I laughed."
Cassian rolled onto his side to keep watching Kay while he dug around in the mission bag. Cassian would be giving it another look-over before they left; not because he distrusted Kay but just because it was part of his pre-mission ritual. But as for the actual act of replenishing it and adding equipment specifically required for this mission, he was happy to leave that to Kay.
His eyes softened as he watched large, deft durasteel hands take apart his sniper rifle. "I wouldn't seduce an informant. You know that, don't you, Kay?" He sat up and reached out for the rifle, murmuring, "let me?"
Kay placed the parts of his blaster rifle and a polishing cloth into Cassian's outstretched hands, but he didn't go back to inspecting the bag.
He kept looking at him with very bright-white, attentive optics, and when Cassian arched his brows expectantly, he exclaimed, "Of course I know that!"
Cassian ducked his head to hide a smile. Kay's optics on him felt like a warm embrace. He felt himself heat up a little more yet as he thought of the effect him holding a weapon could have on his lover. Kay was nothing if not droid-efficient. He liked getting to appreciate all his favorite things at the same time.
"So I take it you weren't jealous; you were genuinely mocking me."
There was a huff-like venting of air. "Maybe."
As he worked, he kept pretending that he was oblivious to Kay's attention. He focused on polishing his rifle, on checking and double-checking it, and wished that the padded beige jumpsuit of his Hoth officer's uniform didn't prove Kay right. You really couldn't seduce anyone in this, or at least he didn't think he could.
After a while Kay sat down next to him. He unceremoniously picked up Cassian's left leg and pulled off his knee-high snow boot before repeating the process with the right boot.
Cassian's hands didn't falter as he asked, "Are you trying to seduce me, Kay?"
The black pupil-like lenses in Kay's eyes shifted audibly. "If it's working my answer is yes."
Head still bowed over the rifle, Cassian peered up at him from underneath his lashes. The polishing cloth he'd used for his rifle was soft and left an oily sheen in its wake. Kay would be far more appreciative of its attentions than his blaster could ever be, and the rewards for Cassian would be greater, too. His fingers itched to touch Kay's frame. Maybe his lips would follow the path of his fingers. Maybe he would slip behind him, and nibble on the white tips of his antennas till he had Kay all flustered and indignant.
But he wasn't done yet, neither with his blaster nor with Kay.
He hid a smirk. "My answer is: I'm working."
Kay vented a whoosh of hot air at him. "See? You couldn't seduce anyone."
Cassian shot him an arch look. "Excuse me! I've read the handbook!"
"Not very well."
"I…"
Cassian scowled, and deliberately put down his rifle. Fine. Fine.
He shifted into a kneeling position and slipped his arms around Kay's slender neck, forcing him, in turn, to shift towards Cassian.
"Not very well, hm? Remind me, Kaytoo…" He lowered his voice to a sultry whisper, or the closest to it his voice, more used to barking orders, could get. His face was close to Kay's, the tip of his nose almost brushing against his face plates. "What was it you called me last night?"
Five years ago, maybe even two years ago, Cassian wouldn't have been so confident, or so at ease. But as he molded his body against Kay's frame and inhaled the metallic smells he had come to associate with his droid lover, he had no doubt of his welcome, or the effect he would have on him. There was no hesitation to his deft touch as he slipped oil-slick fingers between the plate-like sections that made up Kay's neck, or trailed his other hand down his back.
He pressed down harder than he would with a human, Kay's surface sensors were very advanced, but they were designed to take note of violent impacts, not of gentle caresses. Over the years, they had both learned to adjust their programming.
"Annoying?" Kay quipped.
Cassian snorted. Kay's fans had picked up as his systems strove to take in all the new stimuli. Cassian had no doubt Kay was running simulations, too – most likely to figure out how he could best irritate him. He mouthed at one of the little sensor pins on Kay's chin. "Think later last night."
"Very annoying." Cassian's nails scraped over the small ports on his back, and his vocoder made a sweet little staticky noise.
Success. Cassian pulled his fingers away from the ports, and tapped a finger against Kay's chest. "Lay down. I'd wrestle you, but you're too heavy."
"And you're bossy."
A hint of a smile tugged at Cassian's lips as he watched Kay lay down on his back. He looked very indignant, too, and Cassian felt all the smugger for perching on top of him like a victorious hunter. "You did call me that."
The droid's noises changed slightly, the distinctive high-pitched sounds that accompanied Kay overclocking joining the normal humming and whirring that made his mechanical heartbeat.
"I said your uniform is annoying, too."
Cassian did not help, but neither did he hinder the hands tugging open his overalls. He didn't help, not for as far as Kay's long arms could reach, and only then he did slip it off all the way. He didn't look where his uniform landed. He didn't care.
The cold of Hoth couldn't be fully banished anywhere on base, not even in their quarters. Goosebumps rose on Cassian's skin within moments, but he didn't care, for he had Kaytoo. A KX-series' body was not shaped to be cuddled with, Kay was all sharp angles and hard planes, but Cassian pressed against him now and sighed in pleasure as rapidly heating metal chased away the chill before it could settle in his bones.
"You spoil me."
Kay shifted them around, gently, so very gentle in how unyielding metal hands cradled Cassian to his chest. He settled over Cassian, trapping him in a warm and safe cocoon between the blankets beneath him and the running-hot droid above him.
Under Kay's hands, his spine arched as he rose to meet him, then sank down again, breathless and needy; shivering. His fingers curled around Kay's outer antenna, thumb flicking over the tip of it. Kay's vocabulator made a noise like metal grinding against metal and Cassian's own body, so attuned to droid pleasure, thrummed in response.
"I thought…" He bit down on his bottom lip to stifle a whimper as a hand slipped between his legs, his legs snapped shut around it, trapping it. Sweat beaded on Cassian's forehead. His breath came in short, quick gasps, and Kay's hand burned him, but still he fought to regain his composure, unwilling to surrender just yet. "I thought I'd be seducing you?"
"But you are, Cassian."
Oh. "Kay…"
His legs fell open, mouth slack as he gave himself to pleasure.
In this, like in everything else, Kay was nothing if not droid-thorough. Yet there was nothing mechanical to the way he played his body, all the vaulted analytical processing power aimed at drawing out Cassian's lust until his eyes were hazy and he had forgotten that the walls were thin.
K-2SO didn't feel human, he didn't sound human, he didn't taste human when Cassian mouthed at his neck in his own desperate human need to give in the same way he took. He delighted in their differences these days; they had turned long ago from insurmountable to tantalizing challenges.
His heels dug into the mattress, a whimper of, "Kay, please," his body clenching around unyielding metal fingers buried so deep within him. It wasn't enough because Kay was still toying with him, still so perfectly walking the edge of more than Cassian could bear, but not enough.
"Please," again, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his hips working up and down in sync with Kay's fingers within him. With every upwards roll of his hips the tip of his cock rubbed against Kay's frame, leaving another glistening streak on gunmetal-black transparisteel until his pleasure crested and broke. He was left awash, clinging to Kay with the whirring of his systems impossibly loud in his ears.
His release stained them both and Cassian delighted in that, too, he always did when he left his synthetic-perfect lover looking a little bit less unruffled.
Cassian sighed softly in contended pleasure, a puff of wet air against Kay's chest plate. He tilted his head back and reached out to run still shaky fingers over his smooth skull. They found the place at the back of the skull where you could jack into a KX droid, and mapped the tiny little crevices and seams of the many parts that made his head.
When Cassian was lazy and gentled by the aftermath of their pleasure, he liked to trace the tiny components with his tongue. There wasn't a part of Kaytoo's frame he hadn't explored yet with lips and tongue, no sensor that hadn't once transmitted the bewilderingly soft feedback of kisses.
He slung tired legs around him and arched up, pressing his own soft human body, slick with cooling sweat, against the sharp angles and jutting pieces of Kay's metal frame. "Your turn."
.
.
"You are performing 7% below peak capacity, Cassian. Are you sure you are in any state to be mountain climbing?"
Cassian shot him his most withering scowl, not that Kaytoo looked even the least bit impressed. He just revved his fans with a smug little whir.
"And you're going to perform two hands short if you keep that up."
"You are the one who kept demanding them. I warned you your recharge period would be insufficient if we continued."
He thrust the mission bag at Kay and stomped ahead of him. "Walk."
The steep trail they were following was quickly growing too narrow to walk side-by side, and that was his excuse. It wasn't like he worried Kay would take note of his face, red and burning hot even in the cold of this bleak, rocky moon.
It was a simple enough mission. Land undetected, sneak into the imperial outpost they were carving into this mountain range, and blow it up. Simple enough compared to other missions they went on, anyway. With some luck there would be barely any military presence yet, just construction droids.
"And to think we could be on Coruscant, you seducing a Moff."
Cassian stopped short, shot another scowl over his shoulder, not that he expected this one to do any better than the other two or three dozen glares he'd sent at him, and snapped, "Shut off!"
"I know. I would rather you seduce me, too."
There was no bearing with Kaytoo when he was in a good mood. He kept walking.
They walked in silence for a while, Cassian marveling that Kay was capable of such self-restraint and Kay likely to be plotting whatever latest devilry was running through his processor.
"This is boring," Kay announced out of the blue.
Cassian checked their position on his datapad, and heaved a disgruntled sigh. "If you're next going to ask are we there yet? the answer is no."
"I'm analyzing your responses last night."
That did it. Cassian's resolve broke, he peered over his shoulder, half expecting Kay's face to give him answers though he should know better by now. He really had an unfair advantage with his expressionless metal face, though his optics and body language betrayed him at times – to Cassian, at least, who knew to read him as well as any human.
He had also referred to last night, Cassian noted. If he were truly as smugly unaffected as he wanted to pretend, or were just seeking to annoy Cassian, he would have used far blunter terms.
Cassian would never forget that one mortifying day when Kay had brusquely informed General Draven in the middle of Command, your simulations will have to wait, I'm updating my files on Cassian's copulatory behavior.
"Are you?" he muttered, and ducked his head a little. Kay might not be particularly hostile right now, but he was still doing a good job flustering him. He coughed, then coughed again, louder, and straightened his shoulders. "But we're discussing that later. Keep your RAM on the mission."
"But I'm not done with my simulations," Kay declared cheerfully.
Cassian sighed.
It was back to silence for them. Cassian mentally reviewed the mission parameters again, it had to be the fifth time by now. He wasn't concerned, despite all his antics Kay was perfectly professional on missions.
.
.
Once they made it to the top of the ridge their progress slowed, having to move slowly and carefully, and keep pausing or backtracking to avoid the ever denser net of surveillance droids.
There was no more banter, just the occasional curt, hissed warning or command. They were intricately aware of another, moving together fluidly, a mere glance enough to know what the other was planning.
Cassian took quiet joy in it, even as the rest of his mind was focused on his mission, and he began to shut down his emotions in preparation for the deaths to come. People turned to statistics, the complexity of their lives reduced to threat levels in Cassian's mind. He knew the same change was taking place in Kay's processor, if he ever thought otherwise of them at all.
They arrived by nightfall, just as Kay had calculated.
Despite having nearly finished deadening himself against what was to come, Cassian felt a chill run down his spine when he realized the base was crawling with Stormtroopers, most of them in factory-new gleaming uniforms. Shinies. Logically speaking, he should have preferred them to hardened troopers. He didn't.
They got lucky sneaking onto the base, and waited by a shed at the edge of the tarmac for a patrol to pass them by.
There were three to it. Two died quickly. One died slower, he had the misfortune of being Cassian's height, and they needed his armor free of scorch marks.
If he had had thoughts to spare for it, Cassian would have been appalled by how easy they made it look.
Kay was guiding them with the results of his constantly updated simulations, Cassian did the talking whenever it was necessary, together they were perfectly destructive.
There was nothing playful or light-hearted about the way they mined the base, though they did make a competition out of finding the best hiding spots. Kay always won these, he had the height advantage. It wasn't playful, their affairs were far too grim for that, but Cassian was still content in his own way to have his lover at his side, helping him carry the burden.
They were nearly to the top of the mountain ridge when the base blew. Kay looked back, he needed to gather all available data to improve future simulations. Cassian didn't, so he simply trusted him to have his back.
.
.
"Do you still wish I had seduced the Moff on Coruscant?" Cassian asked as he sat down on the bed in the back of their tiny ship.
He was freshly showered, hair still damp and skin flushed from the steamy heat. He hadn't bothered with more than a towel.
Kay had been sitting on the floor studying a flexi – a mere nod to organic sensibilities, as he could just as easily open the file in his own systems, and he didn't tire any faster from standing than sitting. He was always very delicate with Cassian after missions with a death toll. He looked up, tilting his head as he studied him, and weighed his wan attempt at a joke against whatever statistics he had compiled on Cassian's post-mission behavior.
"I wouldn't want you to seduce anyone but me."
He stood up and grabbed a cloth and small bottle of polish from the gear bag. "I'm in need of maintenance," he declared and sat down next to Cassian.
Cassian still felt half numb as he accepted the cloth and poured a dap of translucent polish onto it. Kay wasn't dirty beyond a thin layer of dust, but Cassian wiped him down anyway, and with every swipe of the cloth he felt himself uncover another little part of himself he'd had to lock away for the mission.
When Kay's frame gleamed and his own soul felt raw and trembling, Cassian pressed his forehead against his Kay's and pleaded in a shaky whisper, "Stay with me tonight?"
Kay didn't note that Cassian always asked, or that he always stayed.
He ran his fingers through Cassian's hair, his touch nearly unbearably gentle though his metal hands were strong enough to crush bones. "I will stay."