J.C. An unlikely love story (Thrawnxf!reader)

Long awaited reunion

Amusingly enough, this is not because you moved in with Thrawn that you see him more often. Your schedule doesn't match most of the time and you work on a different ISD, only receiving his orders through the loudspeakers of your ship, most of the time you cross paths at a station or you catch the silhouette of his back when he goes and you arrive. So much time you rushed behind him to catch him and almost fell because of your mechanical legs but he's always too far away and you never join him in time before the doors close.

So you practically live alone, in this small apartment. Oh, you don't complain, this apartment is great, practical, sunny with large bay windows, in a rather calm neighborhood and most of all: full of memories. It's just that you moved in with the expectations of being two. So when you lay down, bathing in the sun in your living room/open kitchen looking at the white ceiling you feel... terribly alone.

And as one day you were idling around the flat, something struck you : ceiling? White, walls? White, bedroom sheets? White, dishes? White, sofa and poufs? gray/beige, towels? White, ect... You live in a goddamn hotel room without any charm. The most personalized thing here is the pile of mail at the name of your great uncle from his army of mistresses... You check the wardrobe, Thrawn's clothes are neatly folded taking just the space it needs, while you spread yours, taking all the spaces. You count three identical uniforms and as much civilian clothes, so basically nothing. You check the bathroom, here too it's the desert, only the chemical shower gel and shampoo the navy distributes, no perfume, no flavored toothpaste, the most personal thing here is his toothbrush. You check the kitchen and all your napkins are neatly folded in their place, untouched, he uses paper ones. You roam around the apartment, no pictures, no canvas, no plants, no nothing. It's like he never lived here, he barely colonized the place. You look up the living room, he didn't buy any holos, any music despite the stereo, any gaming console... True you did not either, but you just arrived, he's been here for more or less 8 years!

Is he afraid to take up too much space in a place that isn't his? Does he feel at home here? You're technically the proprietor but it is his home as much as yours.

Or so you thought...

He never let any traces of his passage, the bedsheets are always fresh when he leaves, his clothes smell of detergent and you can't compensate his absence by inhaling his scent on the pillows, he never left any leftovers in the fridge so you have no idea of his diet, and even less in his tastes in entertainment.

In some way it pierces your heart to live with a ghost conscious to erase any clues of his existence.

You sigh deeply, bathing in the sun.

But maybe his absence is more prominent at night.

When the nightmares seize you, and you wake up in tears, screaming.

When you relive those fateful days in this cavern, you would give everything to have Thrawn here, to embrace him, for him to cradle you and shush you to sleep, embraced by his warmth.

Maybe facing the angered neighbors that you woke up would be easier with his presence behind your back. Or if you could feel only his presence through his arrangement in the apartment.

For now your apartment is terribly... empty.

So one day, when you can't take it anymore, you send him a text through his comlink.

"I'm fed up with those bedsheets, they all look the same and mine are getting old. But I can't decide which one to buy in this catalog, could you make a first selection?"

You didn't hope for much, you didn't even hope for a response at all. He's busy and this message isn't about work or the safety of you both.

But...