Krennic opened his eyes, sitting up in his bed. He was breathing hard, and could feel the sweat in a sheen over his body. The room was still dark, and a glance at the chrono told him that it was still a couple of hours before he and Galen were due to wake to get ready for class. He could feel the flush of his features, and looked over to see Galen turned away from him, deep in sleep.
He let out another breath, running his hands over his face with a long breath in an effort to get his body to calm down and allow him to go back to sleep. He felt his face redden, as reminders of the dream that had woken him in this state came back into his mind.
It had been mostly images, physical feelings that mirrored those from reality, things that he had not known his brain would dare to imagine while awake. He was struck by the almost pure feelings that had been behind it, strong feelings that again he would never dare to show and could never remember allowing himself to think beforehand.
Galen had looked at him as he had stepped into the research lab, his face obscured by those glasses he always insisted on wearing. But he had smiled, the melancholy look that Krennic was used to seeing on his features gone. "Hello," He said, and climbed down off of his stool. In a feeling that felt like a mirror from their earlier embrace, only this time without the lingering of guilt or sadness, Galen wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. "Come see what I've finished." He said, pulling back to look Krennic in the eye through his glasses, keeping their bodies pressed together with his arm until he pulled back to pull him along.
"It's incredible." He heard himself say, though in his mind, he was not looking at the work in front of them and he knew it. He was looking at Galen, who's face twitched with the praise, his hands moving to pull the goggles off. He smiled that shy smile of genuine happiness, and Krennic knew what he was going to do before he ever did it. He put a hand up to Galen's face, tracing the sharp cut of his cheekbone for a moment before that small smile and happy eyes turned to him and they leaned in together for a kiss that exploded something deep within him. There was no resistance from Galen, who pull him in closer, deepening the kiss until Krennic pulled back, breathing hard, turning them suddenly to press Galen back against the table, kissing him again. And again and again until he could feel weathered hands pulling at his uniform and the beginning of a whispered phrase that had been so shocking the scene had stopped.
And now he was awake, letting a hand drift over his lips at the thought of a memory that wasn't real. Why had this happened? He looked again at Galen, still sleeping, and quickly turned away himself to face the wall. He had not seen this coming. To be sure, he had many indiscriminate partners in his time here: men, women, it didn't matter. He had even had dreams like this about faceless people, phantom touches, but never with that level of emotion that he had felt. Never enough to make him wake feeling slightly guilty but also as if he had just one some grand prize or promotion, enough to leave his face flushed, still aroused with the thought of where that dream might have been headed, but also a deep worry that Galen might notice something, and an unanswered question of when this all had started.
He pulled his blanket up over his head, letting his heart rate slow down and let the world dissolve again into dreams as he closed his eyes.
The next morning, when he woke, Galen was already gone. He had taken to rising early and going to lab when sleep did not come easy to him, and Krennic was almost relieved he wasn't in there. But that didn't stop him from being in Statics later that morning.
"Good morning." He said, as Krennic sat down, his datapad lit up with details of the reading from the night before.
"Morning." Krennic said, but even to him the word sounded odd. Was that all he was going to say? But what else should he say? Absolutely nothing, because that of course, was what Galen knew about all of this. To Galen, he was the same person he had been the day before, and that was how it had to remain. For Krennic's sake, perhaps more than Galen. As time wore on, he was starting to see more and more potential in Galen, buried under a façade that he didn't think his friend even knew was putting on. They could do great things together.
At that thought, his face flushed again, and he pressed his stylus to his lips. "Are you alright?" But he was spared answering by the professor's arrival and instead pretended to concentrate on what he was supposed to be learning that day. But his mind wondered, a rare experience for him, and it strayed right to the man he wished it wouldn't, who kept flicking and changing the colors of his pen so quickly that it seemed like part of the lecture.
What he had been about to say to him? In his mind, he knew what it was, but now that he was awake and he and Galen were engaged in no such activities, it all seemed very distant. He tried to think of the last time he had told someone that, and he thought that it might have been to an elderly woman with gnarled hands who also pressed down on his head and flattened his hair and offered him small bits of his favorite sugar candy in order to pacify him while she kept the home she occupied on Lexrule spotless. He had said it to her, he remembered, right before he had started his regular schooling, and he had known then that he hadn't meant it, but it had garnered him an extra cookie to take home after a pair of leathery lips had planted a kiss on his cheek. He hadn't meant it then, and he couldn't imagine saying it to anyone now.
But his gaze slipped to Galen, who was concentrating hard beside him, his lips flicking up and down at what the professor said as his hand moved almost as fast as his mind recording lecture notes. And he gave himself a brief second to imagine saying it before he physically shook his head and didn't allow himself to finish the thought.
The end bell came far too slowly for him, and he stood in a flourish to pack his bags, realizing he hadn't actually taken any notes. "Would you like to get lunch?" He heard Galen say, right as he was ready to make his escape. When he looked up, Galen's dark eyes looked almost fearful, but Krennic couldn't help the small leap of happiness that was tempered with the slightest twinge of fear. "If you have plans, we could eat some other time." He added after a moment of silence.
"Let's eat." Krennic said, "Sorry, I was a bit distracted." Galen cocked his head at him, offering up a small smile that seemed more and more common, Krennic realized, as they spent more and more time together. That thought again made him happy, with his characteristic red blush climbing up his neck that he quickly tried to cover with his hand. Galen was comfortable around him, not something he could say for any other person in this program. It was endearing, really. And would have given him a sort of morbid satisfaction that he had Galen Erso, obvious genius, to basically himself if he hadn't bene so damn afraid of his own feelings.
Feelings, he realized, that might get in the way.
"Do you think you could explain that last concept to me, Galen? I missed the notes." He friend nodded dutifully, and to Krennic's relief stopped looking at him as they walked to instead start running figures through his head.