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Agen’s face is soft in sleep, peaceful and lovely, and Kix couldn’t keep himself from tracing soft hands over his skin even if he tried.
It’s quiet and Agen breathes out slowly, shifts groggily in his sleep. Kix hums, runs hands through soft hair and over horns and leans down, presses kisses against skin with soft words of comfort.
“Sleep, Agen,” he murmurs and Agen huffs drowsily, wraps an arm around Kix’s waist, buries his face gently into Kix’s side, careful to keep his horns from hurting Kix.
Careful, always careful to make sure he doesn’t hurt Kix.
Attack Dog, they call him, and Kix wonders how they could ever think that if they’ve seen Agen like this before, soft and kind and gentle. Thinks that anyone who could see Agen like this and still call him someone's attack dog has brain cells half as lonely and hasn’t figured out that you’ve got to point your blaster at someone to shoot them.
“You should sleep soon,” Agen shoots back, not quite an accusation.
Kix bites his lip, runs hands through long, soft hair and let’s the feeling of Agen, real and alive and under his hands, soothe him.
“I will,” he promises and Agen snorts, looks up at him with bleary eyes.
“Before, you need to go work,” he stresses and Kix smiles.
“I will,” he promises again, presses lips to skin and hums.
“Good,” Agen says, and his amusement rings clear in his voice. It’s a victory.
They fall into quiet again and Kix breathes out shakily as Agen’s breathing slowly evens out again.
He could have lost Agen today he knows, almost did, came too close to it to be comfortable.
Kix was made for war, knows that war takes everything first before it even considers giving anything, but he’s a medic too.
He will always believe first in helping those around him, will always try to keep them alive, will believe he can until the point where holding on any longer causes more pain than it stops.
It’s a decision he’s had to make too many times over the course of this war.
He’s glad he didn’t have to make that choice today.
He would’ve made the choice that was best for Agen, for the patient. He knows he would’ve, because otherwise there would be no point in calling himself a medic.
But it would’ve hurt.
He breathes out, slips a hand down to Agen’s pulse point, and the double beat of two hearts helps to reassure him.
“One day,” Agen murmurs, eyes closed, “I’ll find a way to get you to stop worrying so much.”
Kix smiles in spite of himself, “I’ve got good reason to worry.”
Agen shrugs in a quiet acknowledgment, shifts and settles. He looks peaceful and safe and if Kix focuses hard enough he can almost forget the way he looked standing on the battlefield surrounded by too many droids and with cannons aimed at him.
Kix is a medic, his hands don’t shake. But there’s an itch under his skin urging him to do something and—
Agen hums, sits up smoothly and slips out of the bed with ease. Kix bites back a disgruntled sound at the loss of both the warmth and the feeling of Agen’s pulse under his fingertips, watches as he rummages through a drawer for something.
It doesn’t take long for him to find what he’s looking for and come back to the bed, somehow it feels like hours.
“A hairbrush?” Kix asks, brain stuttering to a halt.
Agen grins, wry and soft, “I’ve seen you do Tup’s hair for him, you seemed to enjoy it.”
Kix swallows down the rush of affection he feels. Agen settles back onto the bed and passes the hairbrush over, never says a single thing about the anxiety he must feel coming from Kix like a homing beacon.
Agen offers a task for Kix to complete, something for his hands to do and his mind to fall into the steady motions of, and sometimes Kix thinks that it would be impossible to love him more than he already does.
They rearrange until Kix is behind Agen and leaning against the headboard atop the pillows, legs spread out and open, Agen settled between them. Kix reaches a hand out, traces the lines of Agen’s back through the fall of his long balck hair. He stops himself from pressing a kiss to Agen’s shoulder and then immediately berates himself for it and does it anyway.
Agen hums and Kix can feel the faint vibration of it buzz soothingly under his fingers.
‘Thank you,’ he taps out against Agen’s side, because the words catch in his throat and choke him and Agen deserves to hear them.
Agen rarely asks for anything, Kix has found, and it makes him ache sometimes.
He sighs, rolls out his neck and shoulders with a wince and another sigh at the ensuing cracks. Agen snorts and Kix taps gentle admonishment onto his side.
He gathers Agen’s hair in his hands, brushes through it gently, starting at the bottom and working his way slowly through tangled strands. The motion is easy, repetitive, calming, and the buzz under his skin quiets as he falls into it, pauses every now and then to press a kiss to bare skin, smooth fingers down sides and across scars and tattoos.
Agen sighs, body going loose-limbed relaxed and trusting.
Kix breathes shakily, sets the brush down and runs fingers gently through hair, parts it loosely and weaves the strands together gently.
‘Attack Dog,’ Kix has heard Agen called before, harsh and dangerous and cold.
Here, now, he braids Agen’s hair and listens to quiet breathing. Thinks of careful, kind, gentle hands and quick wit and hidden humour and thinks that couldn’t be more wrong.
He ties the braid off and lets it fall, wraps his arms around Agen and holds him close, closes his eyes and presses his lips to Agen’s neck, smiles at the content and sleepy hum.
He sighs, eyes heavy and mind calm and empty and barely feels when Agen gets an arm around him, turns them over like Kix weighs nothing and curls around him.
He’s awake long enough to feel the kiss pressed to his forehead and to hear the quiet murmur of Agen saying something, but not quite awake enough to make it out.
He sleeps and holds this precious thing he’s been given tight in his chest with careful hands.
He doesn’t Dream of death, for the first time in a very, very long time.