Heaven's falling
Episode VIII: Shower habits
Now she understood why the Resistance pilot wanted to use the warmed up water for. She had secretly hoped he'd found a small stash of caf somewhere, because that was, apart from her bed, a shower and a decent meal, the thing she missed the most. Alex had to admit that the idea with her metal box was a good one. One she should have thought of herself. Alex eyed the pilot, who still had not noticed her presence, once from head to toe while he was washing sweat and dirt off his body.
As you should probably expect from a pilot flying an X-Wing and with that having to withstand the physical strain involved in flying, he appeared rather fit from the backside. And he appeared to have taken the crash way better than she did. Only a few bruises that were already turning into a greenish-yellow colour, on his legs, his back and his shoulder - probably from where the seatbelt had pressed him into his seat - and a few smaller cuts on his arm were the only signs he had crashed at all. Apart from that, she was able to make out some old, healed injuries. Which also was not really surprising at all. He was a soldier like her. It would have been naive to think that despite the usage of bacta-patches and bacta-tanks there wouldn't be any remains from former assignments and battles. Alex was probably not looking that different when it came to that. In general, she had to admit that the back-view he was offering her was quite appealing. Only about a minute later, she noticed what she was doing and shook her head about her action. So Alex took a deep breath and entered the cave, apparently unflustered.
„You could have told me what you needed the water for," a voice told Poe from the left. Poe flinched and started to cough due to the surge of water that was still pouring down on him. Alex walked by behind him, clearly unfazed, and attached the fur to two sticks close to the fire to dry. Poe just grabbed the closest item to himself, which was the metal box, holding it in front of his important body parts and turned around. "What are you doing here?" he asked confused. "If you haven't noticed yet, we share this cave," she replied. "You could have waited outside," he suggested. "How should I have known what you are doing in here? You didn't tell me," Poe sighed as he had a point. He probably should have told her that he wanted to shower, but he had thought she would be busy with her fur for quite a while longer.
When she showed no signs to go outside again or leave him some privacy, he cleared his throat. "Would you at least have the decency to turn around so I can get dressed?" Poe asked in a friendly but commanding way. Alex raised her left eyebrow and sat down at the fire. "Why?" she asked with an indifferent look on her face, which he returned rather stunned. "You are seriously asking why?" Alex shrugged and turned the meat Poe had started to cook over the fire. "Do you really think I have not seen a…" she started a sentence, but Poe gave her a glare of which she was confident it would have been able to kill her on instance. Annoyed, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. Then at least give me back my box, so I can collect some more snow." For that she got another glare. "You are making this unnecessarily difficult, you know?" she told him, reached into her clothes bag next to the fire and removed a black t-shirt from it. Then she stood up, walked over to the unclothed man, holding out the shirt for him. Poe alternated between looking at her and at the shirt, trying to figure out her plan. "What am I supposed to be doing with that?" "Don't you need a towel?" The pilot took the shirt with his free hand and exchanged it with the metal box. Alex grabbed the box and walked out. "You have five minutes," she shouted from outside.
When she returned back inside, Poe was sitting next to the fire in his orange flight suit, wrapped in his fur and was currently attaching his trousers and his shirt he had washed to some more sticks next to the fire. Alex put the snow filled metal box onto a stone at the edge of the fire so the snow inside could melt. Much to his surprise, she pulled off her boots and started to remove the bandages from her foot and her hand. "What are you doing?" he asked. "What does it look like? I like your idea, so why shouldn't I shower as well?" Alex replied. "Here?" "Where else? Outside in the cold?" „Now?" he inquired. „Why not?" Poe pointed at his clothes next to the fire as a sign he was only wearing his flight suit and the fur. "It's way too cold for me to go out in that state", Poe replied. "Compared to you, I am not sensitive. I don't care whether other people might see me showering," Alex told him and placed the wooden shin from her foot next to her. "But…"
She rolled her eyes again. „Sometimes I wonder how the Resistance is still working with all those ideals you have." "What?" "It's rather decent that you value privacy and gender separation that much, but it's annoying and unnecessary. In the end, we all are nothing more than small parts of something bigger and you should arrange everything as simple as possible," she told him and concentrated on her wrist. "You don't have separate showers?" She shook her head. „Should we? To build two sets of showers only causes twice the effort. And separating men and women just causes useless bureaucracy when it comes to the arrangements of quarters", Alex told him convinced. She could not understand his astonishment about this in the slightest bit. Since she had been with the First Order, which was all of her life, she had shared her quarters with her unit where it was completely irrelevant whether they were male or female. As a unit they shared everything, because they were a team. There was no space for individual interests or any kind of special treatment because of someone's gender. They were all the same and got the same. So for her it was one of the most usual things in the world to share her living accommodations with men.
„Even if we had separate showers, I have seen enough naked men in life and you surely have seen enough naked women. So there surely wouldn't be anything to see you haven't seen before, right? We both know you have to lose a reputation here", she told him grinning and got down to her flight suit. "I guess you are right, but…" "But, what? Something ugly might happen, when men and women shower together? Do you seriously thing you have not enough self-restraint to not touch, pull down and fuck a naked women when you see one?"
„Pardon?" he asked, appalled. Alex did not flinch, but continued to look at him indifferently. "You heard me. This is one of those silly arguments everyone comes up with, pretending none of us is able of some self-restraint, presuming everyone's brain just shuts down as soon as we see some naked skin. I don't know how you handle it, but I am perfectly able to see someone without pouncing on him. Because there are men I don't consider attractive. And even if someone is attractive, I know how to keep decent," she told him, trying to push down the zipper of her flight suit but was apparently stuck from the cold. "Same for me," Poe assured her. "Where is the problem, then?" she asked. Poe shrugged. She definitely had a point. Maybe it was a thing of his different upbringing and customs that the thought of sharing a shower seemed strange for him. He leaned back and grinned. "If you think so. It's you not me that wants to get undressed," he told her amused. He did not have a reason to complain at all, because he would get the show. "Well then."
After several seconds of silence, she gestured to her flight suit. "Can you help me? The zipper is stuck and I can't open it with one hand," she told him. Poe decided to not take this seriously anymore, because this was way too strange to be serious. "Now you even want me to undress you? Are you sure you don't have a hidden agenda?" he asked amused. Alex rolled her eyes. "Sorry, but you are not my type, Dameron," she replied. What the hell was he thinking? Poe grinned again. „So now we have already changed to last names for safety reasons? You are not really convincing." Alex continued to pick on the zipper of her flight suit, trying to open it. "You should be happy I am using your name after all. You are consequently not using mine, so I could call you whatever I want to call you," she snapped. The pilot smiled. "You don't have a last name I could use. Unless I would make one up," he suggested. „Don't," she replied quickly. Even though she had to admit she started to like the name he had given her, she did not want him to make up another one. He turned his head. "Are you sure? It would surely be magnificent."
The First Order pilot was starting to be really annoyed about the fact that he did not do what he was supposed to. "Shut up and just do it," she ordered. Poe however decided to have a bit more fun instead. "Are you so eager to get undressed by me? Usually I tend to do those things a bit more slowly," he told her with a twinkle. She rolled her eyes. "You should be eager, because the more you annoy me, the higher the probability of me forgetting our agreement and shooting you."
The Resistance pilot just continued to grin. The situation was hilarious and it was so much fun. The look on her face just said everything. "You wouldn't do that. You insist on not believing any of the gossip of your base, but I don't believe you. I am confident that you are quite curious about whether the rumours about me are true. Who knows what you are planning," he told her. Alex opened her mouth to say something but stopped before doing so as Poe softly touched her cheek to remove a strain of hair. "We said that everything that happens here, stays here. Maybe there are more things that could stay here than you imagine," he told her and smiled. She looked into his brown eyes. Force, she hated him for trying that on her. And she hated herself even more, because a part of her did not reject that as much as her brain did. Alex took a deep breath. "I believe it's more your agenda than mine, Dameron. I know you think your smile is incredibly handsome, but I am still not interested in you." The Resistance pilot started to laugh. "Good, because I am not interested in you either," he said, grabbed the zipper of her flight suit with both hands and pulled it down forcefully so she was able to do the rest herself.
Alex slipped out of her flight suit, got up and limped over to the corner of the cave Poe had chosen to be the shower spot with the metal box in her hand. There, she put the bot onto the ground and started, with her back turned to Poe, remove the rest of her clothes. Meanwhile Poe was desperately searching for a way to distract himself, because his sense of decency clearly rejected watching her shower. The fact that she did not seem to care did not really make the feeling in his gut make it feel less wrong. When Alex was just about to remove her last shirt, Poe decided to act and quickly. So he turned to face the wall on the other side, trying to think about what they could do with the rest of the day. The snowfall had not eased, which probably meant they had to stay inside.
"You know you are way too decent for this galaxy," she told him after what seemed to be an eternity. Poe turned in the strong belief that she was finished, but found her still standing on the same spot, with her back turned towards him, fiddling with some knots in her wet hair. "It's kind of interesting that you are checking whether I am watching you," he told her amused. Alex grinned. "You have been strangely silent. I just wanted to make sure you did not die," she said without turning. The Resistance pilot could not help himself from checking her out. Not that he had thought about it that much, but he had known right from the beginning that she was attractive. So the status of her body did not really surprise him and was not way off from his expectations.
When he turned around the next time, Alex had successfully washed her flight suit, put it up next to the fire and had slipped back into her uniform. Much to his surprise, she had decided to not use her new fur. "Did you..?" he started, but got a glare in return. „Don't ask." The Resistance pilot just nodded and made a gesture for her to come over to him so he could help her bandaging her wrist and ankle again. Compared to the days before, where he had to argue with her about it, she did not hesitate to walk over and sat down in front of him, so he could put the fur around her shoulders as well. "We could continue to build the sub-construction for our sleigh today," he suggested as some point while still bandaging her hand. "Now we are suddenly in a hurry to leave this planet?" she asked. "Didn't we always want to leave this planet fast? I really don't want to stay here longer than necessary and I think you don't want that either." Alex nodded. Even though the company had turned out to be way better than imagined, she really had to leave. She had to get back before someone started to think she defected. Additionally she needed to get home quickly, because the Resistance pilot started to be on her mind way more often than needed.
After both of them had warmed up and Alex wrist and ankle were bandaged, they continued to work on their sleigh. While Poe was busy cutting another branch into the second skid for the sleigh, Alex took her toolbox and sat down next to the pile of stuff they got from the ships. Now and then, Poe couldn't help himself from looking at what she was doing. It seemed like she had already identified some useful parts in the large pile, because she had started to build something. Poe could not yet identify the purpose of it, but she seemed confident. Late at night, both had managed to build a sub-construction for the sleigh made of the two skids, several smaller wooden parts and debris from the planes and some bolts. They would already be able to use it as a transport aid to carry more stuff to their cave.
After another involuntary night with only one fur as a blanket, both set off early the next morning, wrapped in their dried clothes and fur, towards the crash sites to get more stuff from there. Poe had to admit they had even managed to find a good way of working together. And even communication went way easier, because the day before they had been able to identify a topic both had a lot to say about: Ships. While both had been working on their respective part of the sleigh, they had been peacefully, but controversially discussing pros and cons of several types of transport and fighter planes.
While Alex had started to work on the power unit they wanted to put on the sleigh, Poe went off, armed with only a hammer and a screwdriver to build a construction to put onto the sleigh upon what they would put the hatch of Poe's X-Wing as a roof. To determine the measurements of his construction, he sat down on his usual position inside the cockpit of his X-Wing. Despite the coldk he noticed quickly that this was a place where he could stay for hours. His hand searched for the familiar feeling of the control stick inside it. He was quite sure that during the last five years there had not been a period without flying as long as it was now.
„Already getting sentimental?" He looked down to Alex, who appeared to have worked on the computers of her TIE-fighter and therefore had small screens, cables and circuit boards in both of her hands. "Maybe…" he replied with a smile. Alex nodded, put her stuff onto the sleigh and climbed up to him. She eyed the interior of the cockpit quite interested. She had been thinking about flying one of them before, now that she was seeing the interior it did not get better at all. It did not appear to be as modern as her TIE-fighters and a bit more mechanical in the controls than hers, but she immediately started to analyse all knobs and levers for their function. Poe noticed her interest and grinned from the side. "Do you want to sit in it?" he asked. Alex knew she should not do this if she ever wanted to lose her interest in the X-Wing, but who was here to care? Additionally, it would surely be an advantage in her next fight to know exactly how her opponent's ship worked. "Why not…"
Poe just wanted to get out of the cockpit when a loud bang sounded from the distance and the ground started to vibrate slightly. As both had not foreseen this, they got startled and lost the balance. Poe fell back into his seat and landed rather comfortably on the soft cushion. Alex, who had been standing on the side of the cockpit and had tried to grasp something on the ship fell, backwards into the cockpit. Poe somehow managed to catch her, so she landed halfway on his lap and halfway in his arms. Both exchanged a confused look. "Everything okay?" he asked without loosening his grip on her. She laughed. "I had a rather soft landing. I should rather ask you." The other pilot just nodded as a sign that nothing happened to him either. "What was that?" Alex then asked. The resistance pilot smiled. "I guess that was the proof that we are not alone on this planet."