This is not the smut you're looking for. Move along.

[neverwantedtobesith]

It's been two or three months since the planet with the blizzard from out of nowhere--Garth'zel isn't quite sure how long it's been as such a long stay in carbonite has done interesting things to his ability to tell how much time has gone by--and he's spent all that time traveling with the Jedi who kept him from freezing. The time's been spent drifting from planet to planet, never staying at any too long, the longest stay being almost a week once. Over that time, he slowly opened up about his past, gliding past most of the things that were still too painful for him to be willing to talk about. Those will come in time.

The first few times Arha invited herself into his bed to finish out the rest of the night sleeping when he's had a particularly bad night, he was rather sleepily startled. After awhile though, he started getting used to it and rarely stirred when she joined him. In fact, he usually went still, her presence helping to calm whatever was disturbing his sleep.

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[lightsider]

Arha hasn't pressed for information, she never has and she never will. What comes, comes in its own time. It's becoming habit, though, when he can't sleep, when she can't. Tonight's the same. She would have thought the lull of the engines would do its best to help sleep along but it doesn't. Again, she finds her way to his cabin and works her way into his bed, tucking herself around and against him, her unruly hair pinned up and away from her face.

Even if neither of them truly slept, it helped.

Like now, as her cheek nestled against his shoulder, there was a quietness to it, a little bit of peace.

[neverwantedtobesith]

On the times he's actually awake instead of just sleeping badly and having to cope with nightmares, he usually falls asleep reasonably quickly when she shows up. Although tonight, isn't one of those times when he drifts off.

He's calm enough, leaning against her with his eyes closed but sleep isn't on his mind. Exactly. In the months he's been in this era, his pain regarding Ashara gradually lessened and he started to remember that she wouldn't want him to stay alone, even if he hadn't been all that inclined to do anything about it. Knowing it and finding himself in an emotional place to act on it were two different things.

Still. There's one aspect of not being alone that he's starting to think he was up for again.

[lightsider]

Arha's nose nudged his jawline a little as she mentally drifted, sensing the edges of his emotions by habit but never truly intruding. Her palm against his chest is light, her fingers absently brushing patterns she's not particularly tracking. There were other things she could be doing, like meditating, or practising forms, or basically any other Jedi-approved occupation save curling up in bed with Garth. Any number of Jedi Master voices marched through her mind but she banished them all.

This was not about the Order and it really never had been.

It was about comfort and giving what she could because she was here in this place, now, for a reason. After all, the Force had led her here, and she had yet to find a reason to leave. There was always some reason for her to stay, so she had.

She supposed the same applied to this moment.

[neverwantedtobesith]

Garth'zel is well aware of the Order's views on attachment. He's had to patiently wait for Ashara to work her way through the conflict caused in her due to Jedi non-attachment being drilled into her and yet starting to fall in love with him, after all.

He makes a quiet sound, shifting in place a little; not really moving anywhere, just adjusting his current position. Along with draping an arm over Arha to help hold her a little closer.

"Thinking about anything in particular, or just letting your mind wander?" he murmurs after a moment, eyes still closed.

[lightsider]

"Wandering, as usual. It's good to drift," she says with a smile. "I suppose, though, I was thinking about stuffy Jedi Masters and their opinions. Not that I pay them much mind these days. They may have gotten the message that it's best to let me do what I will."

There's very definite laughter there and a bright sparkle of teasing rebellion.

"They'd honestly benefit from loosening up. I'm afraid that it may be their undoing, one day."

[neverwantedtobesith]

"I suppose your current location is what's brought that on?" Garth'zel asks in an amused tone. "I've noticed the Order seems to have changed very little from what it was in my time. With the changes not being for the better."

He shakes his head slightly. "A good amount of the others are too busy sitting in their Temples meditating on the Force, instead of going out among the people they supposedly serve to get to know them and, more importantly, let them get to know them. Let them realize Jedi are people, too."

There are entirely too many thems in that, but he's pretty sure she'll get what he means.

[lightsider]

She gave him an amused look and shrugged a little. He was right, of course, about all of it. It was the sort of view she'd long held.

"I think it would lessen the pressure at the very least," Arha murmured. "It honestly seems like straightforward logic to me, but tradition, as ever, is difficult to break and some Masters, I think, enjoy the control."

[neverwantedtobesith]

"Tradition has it's place, but not at the cost of holding people back or making needed changes. A number of Sith from my time also had a certain... inflexibility. Like Darth Thanaton." Also known as the Sith who hated Garth'zel's Master enough to want both her and everyone connected to her dead and who was replaced by Garth'zel on the Dark Council at the end of that struggle.

"It tended to get them killed. I suppose they may decide to collectively have a stroke if I point out that wanting to maintain control is a very Sith thing to do," he comments dryly.

[lightsider]

"There are those that very well might. It is quite sad, I find," she moves a little, propping herself up on an elbow to glance down at him with a wry smile, "that such a simple things like inflexibility and fear of change keep so many in the dark."

And then she drops a kiss on the tip of his nose.

"A little light and flexibility are sorely needed when it comes to growth."

[neverwantedtobesith]

"You say to someone who uses the Dark," Garth'zel points out amused as he loosens his hold on her enough for her to be able to move. Yes, he's aware that's not the point. Just a light poke at her choice of words.

"Flexibility is what's helped me survive." Without it, being willing to work with Jedi to oppose threats to everyone wouldn't have happened.

"So. How flexible are you," he says, giving her a challenging look, as a hand runs up along her back to cup the back of her neck.

[lightsider]

"Just because you use the Dark," she murmured, "doesn't mean you can't use a little Light here and there. Beware of bulkheads and chairs, mm?"

Arha laughed at his question and her smile spread.

"As flexible as I need to be for any given occasion."

[neverwantedtobesith]

He's not going to bother responding to the quip about furniture and walls. Not with more interesting things potentially in the works.

"Oh really?" he purrs, using the hand on the back of her neck to pull her face closer to his. "Care to prove it?"

[lightsider]

"Tch," she murmured, leaning down to kiss him. "Proving?" Arha nipped his bottom lip sharply. "Sharing. I share and play well with others. This is is an entirely different discourse on, mm, compatability, after all."

[neverwantedtobesith]

A slight shudder runs through him at the nip, although he's not going to let it distract him.

"Perhaps," he says, running his hand back down her back, using the other to shove the blankets aside to try to keep anyone from getting tangled up in them. "Out of curiosity, what's your experience level in this arena?"

Might be nice to know what he's dealing with so neither of them get any potentially unpleasant surprises.

[lightsider]

"Never enough," she said with a shake of her head. "I have had some very good teachers, though. Not all of them men." Her shoulders shrug a little. "I follow the Force where it leads me, after all." She kisses him again, slowly, the tip of her tongue brushing gently against the spot she'd nipped him moments before.

"Everyone is different and it does take time to learn each new person you are with."

[neverwantedtobesith]

"Mmm." He presses into the kiss for a moment before breaking off so he could respond. "While I know Jedi aren't celibate in theory, I'm aware that often enough, that's how it turns out in practice because of the whole non-attachment thing."

Hence, him asking. He's aware that emotions tend to get tangled up in sex, which is only natural. Resulting in a good-sized amount deciding not to even take the risk.

[lightsider]

"I am attached to all things," Arha says quietly. "The Force flows through me as the Force flows through you, as it does all things. Everything has its time. Some cannot handle endings but they do come, eventually, and then they become beginnings, new journeys, even final ones."

Her fingertips touch his jaw and cheek.

"This is our time and what we make of it is ours as well, wherever and whenever it goes. All things end but if you are careful the memories will sustain you when you need them most."

[neverwantedtobesith]

He closes his eyes at her touch to his face with a quiet sigh, letting her words settle before opening them and giving her a weak smile. "How do we turn almost everything into either politics or philosophy?"

He distinctly recalls intentions to do more than just talk before they got side-tracked.

[lightsider]

"We may be too intelligent for our own good," she says with a laugh. "I suppose that these things are in our nature as we are two shades of the same Force. For myself, I was the student who said but why in every lecture until I was on library duty and could ask all the questions and snoop around until I found my answers."

She gently booped him on the nose and then kissed him gently.

"We are all that we are," Arha says against his lips, her bright laughter more in the wash of the Force around her than aloud.

[neverwantedtobesith]

"'But why' wasn't exactly encouraged on Korriban, and I knew better than to ask," Garth'zel says wryly. "I saved that for Lord Zash, after she picked me as an apprentice."

At least she was actually helpful, mostly. When she wasn't manipulating him.

Although really, that was quite enough of that and they risked getting side-tracked yet again. He starts focusing on tugging up her tunic to get it off her. While their conversations are fun, he's looking for a different kind right now.