Light from the Nar Shadaa traffic slipped through the half-closed blinds and illuminated the bodies of two lovers. They lay together, her head against his shoulder, his fingertips lightly brushing down the length of her upper arm as he slipped into sleep's embrace.
However, thoughts of sleep were far from exile, Allia Obsan's, mind. Rather, her attention was focused on Atton's bare torso. Scars ran the length of it, some puckered and vividly red and some were faded and white. Each served as a reminder for all the times that she could have lost him.
"You haven't been letting me heal you," she murmured softly, tracing one of the new ones down the length of his side with her fingertip.
Atton opened one eye slowly, and then closed it again. "I can heal myself," he murmured, shifting slightly so that both arms were wrapped around Allia and his chest was obstructed from her view. Allia, however, refused to be dissuaded.
She pushed herself away from him, and touched the scar again. "But you haven't. You've been stitching these, not healing them."
Atton groaned softly. "Not now, Ali," he muttered, rolling over so that his back faced her. His back boasted its own assortment of scars, and that now became the focus of Allia's gaze. "How did you get this one?" she asked after some time, running her forefinger down the length of a near fatal blow near his kidney, the line silvery and aged.
Seeing that there was no hope of ignoring her, Atton propped himself up and blew out a soft sigh. "I was sixteen. Decided to get rough with someone bigger and stronger than I was."
"You haven't changed much," Allia mumbled under her breath, and Atton grinned. "What about this one? She asked hesitantly, indicating another white line that began at his collarbone and ended just above his second rib.
"I was twelve," Atton replied, his voice decidedly soft. Allia's eyes widened substantially, and her mouth fell open in surprise. "Everyone's got a past, kid," the man said, lightly chucking her chin. But his eyes were dark and his jaw set, letting Allia know that this was not a subject to be discussed.
"And this one?" she asked her hand brushing against his lower abdomen, where tightly coiled curls met hard muscle. Atton smiled, grateful that she had allowed him his privacy.
"Got involved with another man's wife," he said with a wink, and Allia removed her hand from his body in order to lightly slap the back of his head. "He wasn't too happy about it either," he continued. "So he decided to hit me where it hurt."
Allia bit back a laugh at that. "I don't blame him," she said, and then planted a light kiss on Atton's lips. "But thank the gods he missed," she murmured, reaching down between them to give his member a light squeeze. Atton's breath hitched as he half-strangled a moan, and then he let out a chuckle.
"Yeah. Thank the gods," he replied, his voice tight and strained. Allia's lips quirked in response as she released him and lightly ran her hands back up over his body, tracing the familiar scars- the ones he had received in his attempt to defend her from Darth Sion, the one on his side that came from a dark jedi's lightsaber, the scar left over from the blaster burn from their time on Dxun- as well as others that she recognized as landmarks on his body, but did not know the stories behind.
"This one?" she asked, lightly touching a faint, white line that ran from the skin just below his ear to the junction of his neck and shoulder. His muscles tensed under her fingertips, spasmed, and his gaze slid away from her, a hand reaching up to rub at the spot.
"My first jedi. I was…inexperienced. It was almost me instead of him," he murmured, and Allia swallowed hard. She did not have to ask what happened to the jedi; the few terrifying times that she had shared Atton's nightmares through their bond had left little to the imagination of what occurred in those blood splattered interrogation rooms. She let out a shaky breath, moving her hands away from his neck and allowing them to rove down his arm instead.
When she reached his left hand, she traced a scar that ran from the junction of the thumb and index finger to his wrist bone, an area that was usually covered by his fingerless gloves. This time she didn't have to ask what it came from, merely traced it and glanced up to meet his gaze.
"The first time I trained with a double sided vibroblade. It hurt like hell," he replied to her silent question, a wry twist to his lips, the darkness behind his gaze subtly beginning to shift and lighten "I mastered the kriffing thing eventually, though," he added, and Allia smiled, remembering the times that they'd fought back to back, defending each other to the death- she with her double bladed lightsaber, he with his double bladed vibroblade.
He shifted, propped himself up on his elbow and lightly brushed his knuckle down her body, making her shiver. He pressed a hand to her hipbone, where a scar puckered the flesh. "I've always wondered…What's this from?" he asked, moving his hand slightly so that his fingertips could brush against it. Allia shuddered a little at the contact, and met Atton's amused, knowing gaze.
"I don't remember… I don't remember a lot of what happened in the months after Malachor V," she replied, her voice a little breathier than she had intended for it to come out, and she bit her lip when he gently stroked his finger against it again before lazily gliding his hand to the flat plain between her hip bones.
His hand drifted up her body- over her navel, between her breasts, down the length of her arm- to grasp her right hand. He brushed his thumb over the little line of raised flesh on the inside of her ring finger, and he lifted a brow in question.
Allia actually flushed. "I was cutting a blumfruit and the knife slipped," she confessed, and her blush deepened when Atton let out a bark of laughter.
"Deadly with a lightsaber, inept at food preparation," he observed, his voice thick with mirth. Allia scowled, and the scowl turned into a gasp when he bent over her and lightly nipped at her neck. "I like it; it makes you seem more…human," he added, and then his hands were roving down her body again, his lips following in their wake.
His teeth lightly scraped over her hip bone, making her jerk and gasp, and then his lips lifted off her body entirely before pressing against a scar on her knee. "This one?" he asked, and Allia blinked several times, trying to clear her mind enough to form a coherent response to his question.
"The first time I got drunk. I broke my glass; fell on top of the shards when I tried to clean up the mess. I didn't even know I was bleeding until the soldiers I was drinking with bandaged it," she admitted, causing Atton's chest to rumble with laughter again.
"You never have been able to hold your liquor," he chuckled, and Allia found that she had to laugh in agreement with his assessment. Her laugh quickly morphed into a moan when he pressed his lips to a space high up on her inner thigh, and his hand ran up the length of her body to rest at her waist. "Sweets?" he murmured against her flesh, and she shuddered.
"Yes?" she gasped, and she could feel his cheeks lift into a smile at her reaction to his proximity.
"Can we finish show-and-tell another time? I can think of a couple of things I'd much rather do," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. Allia ran her hands through his dark, wavy hair, loving the texture of it between her fingers.
"What kind of things?" she replied in a breathy whisper, and Atton's hand moved its way down her body again.
"I was thinking we could start like this…" he replied softly, lightly running a finger against the triangle between her legs, making her hips buck and her hands fist into his hair. "Then see where things go from there," he added, moving his lips higher up her thigh, giving a kiss here, a nibble there.
"Sounds do-able," Allia breathed in response, relying on all of her jedi training to keep her mind functioning well enough for her to form a rational statement.
"Do-able, huh?" Atton replied, the humor in his voiced overshadowed by desire as he continued to kiss his way up her thigh, before pressing his mouth against that hyper-sensitive, secret place between her legs. Allia's breath came in short gasps, her back arched, and all coherent thought quickly fled her mind. She forgot the scars that both of them bore, forgot what it was that had kept her awake in the first place, her mind and body too pre-occupied with a handsome scoundrel to think about anything else.