Listen to Teacher
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"Atton, how can you spend all day couped up in this whomp rat hole of a cockpit?"
Falen watched with a small smile tugging at her lips, her words hanging in the air unnoticed by the cockpits one occupant. Atton Rand sat sideways in the pilot's chair, his long legs thrown haphazardly across the chair's low arms and his handsome face scrunched in concentration. He seemed to be building a tower of pazzak cards on the ship's central consol. His fringe dangled over one eye, causing him to mutter and shove it out of the way. The fringe however, had other ideas.
She chuckled as she watched him, tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrated, stacking the colourful cards in little compact triangles. She repeated herself, and got no reply. After a second time of being ignored Falen began to get irritated. Usually she had endless patience, but when Atton came into the picture it went straight out the window. That in itself irritated her to no end.
With a sigh she waved her hand, the pazzak cards tumbling in flashes of blue, red, yellow and green. Atton gave a strangled cry as his hours of work tumbled to the ground. He then spotted Falen standing in the doorway with a guilty little smile on her face and glared.
"Thanks." He snapped. "I spent three hours trying to stack those little buggers and you swan in here and blow them over so you can get a little attention."
"Well, you know me, Atton." she replied jokingly. "I just can't live without attention."
The anger melted from his face as she grinned at him, the genuine laughter and good-humour in her strange eyes soothing his temper. He kicked back in the chair and watched her intently.
"Whatever blows your skirt up, Gorgeous. Look, if you're gonna stay can you actually walk into the room? My neck's staring to hurt looking at you from this angle."
She laughed and stepped into the room, sweeping up his discarded jacket and tumbled pazzak cards as she went. She draped the jacket over the back of his chair and placed the cards on the consol, ruffling his already messy hair affectionately. He tried to snag her hand, but she moved smoothly out of his reach, falling down into the co-pilots chair. He leaned forward to fiddle with the ship's controls, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
"So, what was it you were saying before?" he asked absently.
"Oh, so you actually heard that?" she sounded surprised.
"Of course I heard you." He smiled. "I just wasn't paying attention."
"Gee, that's really nice, Atton. Makes me feel so special." Her tone was so dry it almost hurt.
"We all know you're special, Gorgeous. But what were you actually saying?" he stopped his fiddling to stare at her.
"Well..." she said, looking uncomfortable under the intensity of his stare. She hated it when he did this. He would stare like everything she had to say was so important. That stare mad her feel as if she were the only thing in the galaxy. "I was wondering how you can stand being stuck in this cockpit all day, but now I see that you build pazzak towers."
"Among other things." He amended sheepishly.
"Other things I'm sure I don't want to know about."
He ignored the jibe and continued to watch her, grinning as she became more and more uncomfortable. "Well, I list hyperspace routes, count the ticks in the hyperdrive, built pazzak towers and fly the ship. That enough for you, Gorgeous? I know it's not up to your hectic schedule."
"But it honestly can't take so long to fly the ship, Atton. You only ever leave here to sleep, eat or when I ask you to come along." She seemed intent on getting an answer from him.
"Well maybe you don't ask me often enough?" he replied evenly. It was true; he was feeling a little forgotten since the scary red-head and that snivelling Disciple had come aboard. Her face fell at his words, she knew too how she had been neglecting him in light of her other companions. But he was a grown man; he didn't need her to hold his hand, right?
"But there are three other people onboard who can pilot, Atton. You should give yourself a break sometimes."
"Yeah, but those others all have jobs to do. The red-head keeps our grenades up to scratch, Bao's always busy from keeping the Hawk from falling apart around us and Vynn keeps everyone under control. Plus, I like it here, it's quiet."
She smiled at the simplicity of it. He wanted to feel needed. To know he had something worthwhile to contribute to this venture. She knew he would never admit it, what he had just said was as close as she would ever get to a full admission, but it was enough.
"Well, I'd fly if I could." She murmured quietly after a few moments of comfortable silence.
"Well, I could teach you if you want to learn." He seemed to brighten at the prospect. Falen on the other hand looked like a Kath hound caught in a speeder's headlights. She back peddled as fast as humanly possible.
"Oh, no Atton. It's fine, really. I was going to ask Vynn later…"
"Enough excuses, Gorgeous. I'll teach you, and don't look at me like that. Vynn hasn't slept in thirty-seven hours, and he's only just left to go to sleep. Give the guy a break."
She caved, looking guilty as she did so. "All right, Atton."
"Great." He grinned and shuffled back in his seat, patting the newly created space. "Come sit here."
She stared at him, none too pleased. "You're kidding?"
"Nope."
"Then no."
"C'mon, Gorgeous." He whined. "Do you want to learn or not?"
"Oh, I'll learn." She replied tartly. "Just not sitting between your legs, Atton."
"Trust me, Fal. It's much easier to learn this way. This is the way my father taught me how to fly."
She was caught off-guard by the sudden glimmer of his past. She still knew very little of whom Atton actually was, only that he was from Eres III and now that his father had taught him how to fly. The knowledge seemed to put a sentimental twist to the whole situation, as if he were passing on some special family secret to her. It was this thought that finally made her acquiesce.
She settled uncertainly on the seat, deep down not trusting the womanising scoundrel to keep his hands to himself. She'd hate to have to hurt him. He shifted behind her, obviously making himself comfortable. Even sitting as they were made Atton's height obvious. Her head fitted neatly under his chin. Atton cleared his throat and thus the lesson began.
"See this?" he indicated to a u-shaped thing in front of her. She nodded, already forgetting her previous uncertainty as her willingness to learn took over. "This is the manual steering rig, you put your hands like this…" his big hands picked up her own, placing the on the steering control. "And that's how you manually control the ship. Do you think you're ready to try it out?"
They were not in hyperspace, as Bao was tinkering with the drive, so Atton could easily take the Hawk off auto-pilot. With a shallow breath and a jerky nod Falen decided. He chuckled, Falen feeling his chest rumble against her back, and he leaned past to flick the switches that controlled the auto-pilot functions. The change was immediate.
The previously placid control jumped to life under her hands, pulling with a will of its own. Atton predicted her moment's hesitation and clasped his hands over her own, keeping the ship steady while she readied herself. Once she seemed more prepared he loosened his grip, but did not let go. Falen found his hands over her own an immense comfort.
For moments she simply kept the ship steady, getting a feel for the controls. But soon her confidence grew. Atton grinned to himself as he saw it. She began lightly, gently moving the ship from side to side, up and down. The simple movements became more complex as her comfort with the machines controls grew. Soon she was flying the ship on its side, the internal gravity boosters keeping them from toppling from their seat. All the time Atton's hands were over her own, ready to help as soon as she needed it.
Then, all of a sudden, Atton laughed behind her and pulled the controls sharply towards them. The Hawk barrelled upwards preforming a complex series of loop-de-loops. Falen squealed. Later she would burn with shame at the memory. But then, when Atton snagged the controls from her she was terrified. He then had the Hawk doing barrel rolls and drop turns, and all kinds of turns that made her head spin. Behind her she could hear the outraged cries of the other passengers, suddenly being thrown about.
"Atton, stop!" she demanded, trying to take back the controls. He relinquished them easily, chuckling away to himself. She pulled the ship back into its normal flight path, keeping it steady and under control.
"I can't believe you squealed, Gorgeous. You actually squealed." He rested his forehead on her shoulder, his chuckling growing into full-blown laughter.
"Shut up, Atton." she snapped, elbowing him in the stomach. His laughter died with a muffled oof.
"Settle down," he murmured, leaning forward to place the ship back under auto-pilot. "You did very well for your first time… even if you did squeal."
"I said shut up, Atton!"
"You did very well, Gorgeous." This time his tone was different, huskier. Falen noticed immediately how close they were, his chest pressed against her back, his lips near her ear, hands over her own, breath tickling her neck…
"Thank you." She replied, her voice sounding small and unsure to her own ears.
He hummed something in her ear, his arms wrapping themselves slowly around her waist, pulling her back to lean against his chest. Falen closed her eyes, totally overcome by the sudden sensation of warmth. She hadn't been this close to anyone for a very, very long time. She hadn't felt this… safe since the last time Malak had held her in the same way.
She sighed wistfully at the thought of her old lover, missing him terribly yet knowing that what had happened to him was the will of the Force, nothing could have changed it. She slowly moved away from the sombre thoughts concentration on the man behind her. He held her surprisingly gently, nothing demanding or needy as she had once speculated. He seemed content to simply sit with her.
She could never have asked for more from him then.
Falen turned her head, letting it fall against his shoulder. His head moved to rest upon her exposed shoulder, lips pressed lightly against the skin if her neck.
"What is this?" she asked after a long silence.
"Hrmmm?" he murmured dazedly.
"Between us? What is this?"
"I don't know, Gorgeous." He replied uncertainty ringing in his voice.
She looked up at him, almost smiling. "I like it."
His chest jumped with a short, sharp bark of laughter. "Well, I do too."
She laughed and stretched to kiss him in return.
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A/N: Not sure if I like this one too much. I far too much of a perfectionist to put everything I write up for you to read, but I thought this one was good enough. Tell me what you think. It's a discarded and slightly altered scene from Esoteric Pilgrim, one I though added nothing to the overall story and just really had no purpose other that to feed my desire for fluff. Lol
I put this up to all my regular readers (you know who you are:P) over until I can get the next few Chapters of EP complete. I'm writing around four at any one time so please bear with me.
Anyway, enjoy this little pointless thing, review if you like and keep your eyes peeled for the next update of EP.
BTW: the mention of 'Vynn' in this ficlet will all be explained in EP soon enough. Keep reading and all will be revealed my young padawans. lol