Chapter Text
He was supposed to get rid of it. It was just some meaningless piece of some ancient meteorite, nothing special about it except the somewhat eerie glow and the accompanying warmth emanating from it in soft, gentle waves, and he was supposed to throw it down the nearest trash chute and be done with it.
Yet it still sits in his cabin on the shelf where he vaguely recalls placing it and never actually touching it since, where it slowly pulsates its yellowish orange light and the warmth washes across the cabin in pleasant waves, more intense close and barely registrable at the door.
Slowly he stops paying any mind to it, like it's just another piece of furniture, a blinking light on a console, a heating system that actually works on the ship that feels suddenly very cold. It's not just the air, but the people too, the entire atmosphere, and the harder the realization hits, the colder he feels. He's not sure if it's a physical feeling (he's sure it's not fever from some infection: he got a thorough examination in the medbay after his return from the moon and got as clean a bill of health as he could in his state: slight hypothermia, mild signs of frostbite on his fingers and toes and the leg was bad, but nothing rest and proper care wouldn't take care of although the medical officers weren't entirely convinced he could ever walk well without aid and suggested all kinds of cybernetic alternatives, all of which he declined. He'd bite that bullet if the time ever came) or if it's just in his head, but it is disconcerting nevertheless and distracting in all possible ways he can imagine.
It still hurts, his leg, like it's cold all the time, like this frozen spike pierces it sometimes when he walks down a corridor with the cane he got from medbay to help him walk without exerting the injured leg too much. He asks about the cold, but medical officers seem a bit confused and tell him it sounds unusual, but might be that the injury messed up the peripheral bloodflow: they'll look into it, and he goes through a series of bothersome tests and examinations that reveal nothing new.
He gets back to work as quickly as possible – just paperwork, for now – but he's suddenly aware of how other people treat him onboard; how other agents address him over holocomm, and it's all this coldness, efficiency for the sake of something impersonal, all business conducted the same way every time and he feels more like a machine than a man, and slowly the coldness that was mostly in his leg spreads, reaching its tendrils to trap him in the heat death of his self. It's all coming down to an equilibrium of cold, of maximum thermodynamic entropy of nothing, and he imagines that as he sluggishly drags himself down the corridors of the ship, shivering in his mind, back to his own cabin where he rests the cane against the wall next to his bed.
And for the first time ever since the moment he put the meteorite down on the shelf, he recognizes that it's there, and the cold spreads and brings this numbness in its wake when he realizes that the people he considers his comrades: the people he fights with and for think of him as nothing more than a disposable asset. He wasn't important enough for the Empire to make them allocate more resources to continue the search for him: just another ISB agent probably would-be written off as MIA. There was probably someone vying for his place even the very moment he was back on their figurative doorstep and even then nobody paid any attention. Made a mark that Agent Kallus was for whatever reason back – no mention of his ingenuity for surviving and making it back on his own, of course – and after medical check likely ready to continue in the service of the Empire. He remembers Admiral Konstantine not even looking at him, paying his passing respects like he didn't even recognize him, and he surely wasn't gone that long, and he wonders if it has always been that way, he just hasn't noticed out of some self-perceived vanity or sense of importance.
He remembers warmth as something that used to be but is now just as alien as the reason why he's even there, and he reaches out for the meteorite and takes it in his hand, hard but warm, and the first wave of warmth envelops him and purges the frost from the marrow of his bones, makes the ache in his leg stop, dissipates the haze of apathy from his mind. There is a surge of energy crackling like plasma down his spine reactivating nerve endings as it goes and he experiences warmth. He lays down, places the glowing piece of meteorite carefully on his nightstand, like a reassuring nightlight, warmth washing over him in gentle waves, like an ocean made of gold and conductivity.
For a while, everything works again. His leg feels better and he occasionally leaves the cane, walking with only a slight limp but figuring the leg needs the strength if he ever wants to walk properly again without becoming half a droid (funny though that would be since most people still treat him like he is actually a droid who just carries out orders perfectly and effectively without asking questions and it slowly occurs to him that it's the way he's always been treated: there are no people in the Empire, there are only machines). The meteorite is now a nightlight, a beacon of warmth and odd familiarity in a place that is becoming increasingly upsetting and strange, and cold, and he sometimes falls asleep with his hand curled softly over the light and the warmth, and his mind, in sleep, goes to dark, inherently freezing and inhospitable places full of monsters. The dreams are still warmer and brighter and fuller of hope than anything he can recall. He wakes up and disregards the faint memories aside from the warmth that is keeping him sane.
He starts slowly carrying out real missions. Simple recon mostly because he is yet in no condition to do actual combat, with a small squad of Stormtroopers at his disposal to call to his aid if he does need firepower for any reason. He gathers intelligence like he's supposed to, he accomplishes his missions, notices upsettingly the underlying cold tone of 'well done, Agent' without any attempt at recognizing the work that went into capturing that particular piece of information regarding alleged rebel activity in Sullust or the slowly brewing signs of unrelated underground revolution spread over several systems on the far reaches of the Outer Rim.
He's now aware that the cold is something his mind experiences rather than what his body actually does after having asked technicians to turn on the heat in his cabin to whatever maximum was allowed and received a puzzled "but it's already as high as it can go," (without bypassing the limiter, of course) "Agent Kallus, sir", but he has sternly decided not to think about why that is since he is working again and not just being idly ignored aboard the ship. He is still ignored, but he can shrug it off when he can put his mind in work on other, more pressing matters.
When he returns to his cabin, exhausted and out of energy as per usual, there is nary any light. The meteorite on his nightstand is dim, the light pulsing lazily now like the warmth emanating from it does, and never reaches the brightness it used to. It is profoundly distressing, the way that makes him feel, and he makes a dash for the nightstand, grabbing the meteorite and finding it cool, only barely the temperature of his hand. The now-pale yellowish orange flickers lazily between his fingers, doesn't shine through them like before.
He sits on his bed with the meteorite in his hand, and everything slowly comes to a stop again as he finally lays down and drifts off to sleep where no warmth can be found anymore and the frozen cave he dreams of is just dark and full of monsters.
When he wakes the meteorite is just a rock, cold against his fingers, his leg radiates the dull old pain he's pretty sure is only psychosomatic, and there is no light. He puts the rock aside and turns to his other side, laboriously drifting off to sleep again and everything in the universe has come to a standstill, the equilibrium of no heat that could be transferred; the very death of everything.