Title: Here at the Right Time (1/?)

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: PG for this part (guys kiss, one is blue)

Pairing/Characters: Thrawn/Jorj Car'das

Summary: Jorj Car'das learns that life is more interesting with a Chiss than without one. An AU of sorts taking place after the events of Timothy Zahn's Outbound Flight.

Notes: The title comes from a Josh Ritter song with the same name. I've tried to give this a pretend plot, but it's mostly about guys getting together in space. Even so, I've had to look a lot of stuff up, do some research, and improvise. And it's been fun. So far the time period it will span leads up to Thrawn's exile and possibly after wards. Because.

Seeing Quennto and Maris off had only give Car'das more time to think and grow apprehensive as he considered what little possessions he'd taken off the Bargain Hunter. He didn't feel particularly sad to part with his crew though he would miss both of them. He ought to have been excited, really.

Instead he found himself replaying old conversations in his mind and hesitating in the docking bay. A few minutes later, he was walking directly past the shuttle he was meant to board and down long gleaming halls until he arrived at back at Forward Visual One.

Thrawn stood at ease with both hands behind his back. Eyes were scouting the stars, seeing more than Jorj would ever see, but the Corellian found he preferred that Thrawn didn't look at him just yet. He was having a hard enough time organizing his thoughts without red eyes boring into his dull brown ones.

"One farewell was insufficient?" the commander asked in a mildly interested tone. As if this too was something he had foreseen while gazing out into the dark of space.

"When you listed my skills, you said… that you admired them too."

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. "Yes. I admire all of your qualities."

"Do you think I should take this job?"

The commander turned his gaze away from the panel in front of him and considered Car'das.

"You said I have the gifts for such a job," Car'das pointed out. "And when I explained why I'd accept the offer to Quennto and Farasi, all I could think of to say was I figured it was a good idea because you trust him."

Thrawn smiled thinly. "I am pleased that you value my opinion so highly."

"Then tell me. Is this really what I should be doing?"

"I cannot make that decision for you, Jorj."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Then what are you asking for?"

"Maybe this is a lot to take in. I think I just need someone else to tell me what they think of the whole thing without worrying about how I'll react. Or a this is for the good of the whole Republic spiel tossed in."

"Very well. I think it would be a good position for you if you are willing to focus and train. You are fully capable of being of—"

"What if I turn him down?"

Thrawn frowned minutely. "You can do as you like although I hardly see the point in rejecting the offer out of hand or on a mere whim. I cannot recall you speaking of Hutts with any particular fondness."

"No one speaks of Hutts with any particular fondness."

Thrawn shrugged. "Then surely you realize what this position will afford you in terms of status and connections. You're too young to be completely lacking in ambition."

"I have plenty of ambition. That's not the problem."

The Commander's expression softened a bit. "Then what is the problem?"

"What if I wanted…" Car'das cursed under his breath.

Thrawn waited.

Grumbling, the Corellian managed to get more words out. "What if I liked these last five weeks, okay? Because I liked them. A lot."

"I should hope that you did," the Chiss admitted. "I rather enjoyed them myself."

"It gets worse," Car'das insisted.

"Does it."

"I'm positive that teaching you what little I can and learning from you interests me more than becoming the head of an information ring."

"I am intensely flattered, of course, but—"

"Not flattered. We talked about this."

Thrawn nodded. "Touched then."

Car'das considered this. "Touched enough to let me stay?"

Thrawn inhaled sharply and looked back out into space. Nothing about his posture had changed too

drastically, but even in the dim lighting in the compact room, Car'das could see there was stiffness in his shoulders. The line of his jaw had tightened too.

"I would say that I often find myself questioning why anyone would stay here," he said in Basic, clearly unable to voice the opinion in Cheunh or even in Sy Bisti.

"I didn't mean here specifically," Car'das said. "I'm not staying for the view. Or for your people. I'd stay because—"

"I also wonder about my decision to speak to you and only you first," Thrawn continued as if Car'das hadn't spoken.

"Oh?"

"There were many factors that should have led me to that decision, but they were merely additional incentives. I could tell you that the notion behind my fixation was simply to put your Captain in his place or that I sensed that you were new to your role on board the Bargain Hunter. But my motives were far from complex."

"I had a hard time lying and you were curious. I was curious. It's fine."

Thrawn shook his head.

"No?"

"I was drawn to you. Not because you seemed clever, slow, smart, stupid, curious, dull, or any other adjective. I was simply… interested. You need to know this if you choose to stay."

Car'das blinked and laughed in spite of himself. "Do you think I want to stay because I want to improve my Cheunh that badly?"

Thrawn's gaze was intense and nearly hostile, but Car'das recognized it as a protective gesture. The Chiss did not like being laughed at. "I am sure I do not know why you wish to stay."

"Back when you told your men that I was your prisoner, my first thought was that you'd betrayed me somehow. Which is a crazy notion considering you were merely stating a fact, but it's hard to think badly of the guy who teaches you the difference between trade merchant and fishing boat. It was hard not to like you. Then all of a sudden, I wasn't sure you meant anything that you'd said. I couldn't decide what you were manipulating me into believing and what the truth was."

Thrawn sighed. "I was merely acting in our mutual best interest."

"Just listen. That was the position I was in, but now I'm not anymore. Right now I don't have to go anywhere I don't want to go."

"Such is the definition of freedom as I'm given to understand."

"Then why am I here?"

Thrawn was silent.

"Logically, I must I want to be here if I'm here. And then who is the only person here right now? You."

"What if I had not been here?"

"I would have kept looking for you."

Thrawn's brow furrowed.

"I don't have to be a genius to figure out there's clearly some unfinished here. For me or for you. Either way this makes things a bit confusing. Because if that's all true, then why am I going back to straight to the center of the Republic to get a job I don't want with people I don't really know or want to know?"

"You don't know me all that well either."

"That's different," Car'das explained. "I want to know you. Besides, time isn't what determines how well you know a person. I only knew Maris and Quennto for six months."

"They were your crew, and they were not situated quite a distance away from your planet. My people may not be actively hostile towards your system or your government, but we are hardly likely to visit your world. Nor can I imagine sending you back to it on a regular basis."

"That doesn't bother me." Not enough to stop him from wanting to stick around the one Chiss he did know.

"You really would make up your mind as easily as that," Thrawn mused. "You could honestly give up a perfectly good position and remain with an alien race you know next to nothing about to continue to educate me about your languages and customs."

"Not just that. I want to see what else you do. What else you become. Naturally curious, remember?" Car'das pointed out. "Besides, I doubt I'll be the first Corellian to pass up a great deal to pursue something potentially more frivolous or dangerous." Or the last.

"Perhaps not." Thrawn eyed Car'das thoughtfully for what seemed like an eternity. "Are you typical of your people?"

"Probably," Car'das admitted. "Anyway, I guess I'll have to go explain myself first. So I might as well hitch a ride back. I have some things to take care of and I should stop home, but basically I want to stay here."

"Then you hardly need my permission, Jorj, but you have my approval."

Car'das grinned, feeling a little less out of sorts than before. "Is this where we do something besides stand here in the dark and talk?"

The Chiss shook his head. "Tempting as that offer is, you should decide for yourself if this is really what you want."

Car'das kept himself from telling Thrawn that he was pretty slow on the uptake for such a tactical genius, but maybe the commander needed time to analyze the new data he'd been presented with.

He imagined Thrawn wasn't typically voicing his interest in others leaving him with little idea of what to make of rejection or acceptance. Maybe he had never been interested in his own kind who couldn't have thought too highly of someone who wanted to leap and bound ahead when the rules and customs clearly dictated that one waddled through life and through battles. Or maybe Thrawn wasn't too pleased to find that he had such an active interest in pale aliens from Corellia with black hair and bland eyes that couldn't pinpoint ships without sensors.

"You want to take this slow," Car'das murmured. "Fine. We can take it slow."

Thrawn snorted. "Certainly not," he said, keeping his glowing eyes focused out the window. "I merely need you to be certain of what you're doing before I put this dim lighting and pleasant view to better use."

"Nothing's certain."

"You need to understand that I am serious then."

Car'das blinked. "I don't mind."

"You might," Thrawn murmured, looking over his shoulder. His eyes were narrowed focused on Car'das. As the stare continued only to intensify, the Corellian found himself turning a faint shade of crimson. "I am willing to let you go and I hardly would intend to keep you here by force if you leave now. But if you stay, then I mean to have you. Completely."

"Oh."

Thrawn looked away.

Car'das wasn't sure if this was supposed to trouble him or not. He did know, however, that he was intrigued and perhaps more so than Thrawn had intended. Was the Chiss really that interested underneath that gloomy and chilly albeit handsome exterior? He certainly sounded that way.

But they remained as distant physically from one another as ever. Car'das wasn't sure what to do with his hands, but he was fairly certain he wasn't supposed to touch Thrawn at the moment even if the gesture he intended to make was simply one of reassurance. He wanted to know what the Chiss was thinking and wished he could just transmit his interest from his brain to the other man's without having to actually confess aloud that being had completely was perfectly acceptable.

It was a shame that he wasn't as easy for Thrawn to interpret as Thernbee mud painting might have been. Not that Car'das tended to liken his physical appearence to a Thernbee mud painting, but the analogy would work in a pinch.

"Is that supposed to send me running for the nearest shuttle?" he eventually asked when it became quite clear that the Chiss was going to remain mute.

Thrawn shrugged stiffly.

"Look. There's something we do back where I'm from when we're interested in someone. I think the two of us should give that a try."

Thrawn turned around with a stony, resigned expression on his face.

"So I'm just going to do this and then I'm going to go. And I'll come back." He paused, gauging

Thrawn's reaction and not getting much for his troubles.

"If that's all right with you?" Car'das prompted.

"Very well."

Kissing Thrawn was sort of like kissing a very blue, very tense statue, but Car'das didn't actively dislike the experience even if he had to lean up to reach the Chiss' face. He had been expecting Thrawn's lips to be a little cold somehow if only because the Commander's demeanor had been so frigid, but they radiated subtle, comfortable warmth.

Somewhere in the middle of the kiss, right as Car'das was starting to think Thrawn had only meant that he was serious about his linguistic studies and overly particular about his tutors, Thrawn thawed a bit and returned the gesture. His blue hands wandered over the Corellian's hips and up his sides as the Chiss added his tongue to the kiss.

The need for oxygen turned one kiss into several, and Thrawn took over with Car'das following his lead, relishing the feel of cool fingers clutching at him as he was pressed up against the glass panel that had originally been in front of them.

Far too soon, Car'das was released and the other man was staring at him with a bemused expression on his features as if he was in the process of sorting out a very complicated battle stratagem.

"Um. So that's all."

"This custom is hardly unique to your people," Thrawn wryly observed.

Car'das colored slightly before smiling when Thrawn touched his cheek, tracing cool fingers over the back of his neck. "No, I guess not."

"That said, I appreciate your enthusiasm and eagerly await your return."