Nightmares
by Commander Wedge
Nightmares
by Commander Wedge
The rain lashed against the windows of the pilot’s room; the deep rumble of thunder shaking the windowpanes and lightening lighting up the skies above the city. Sighing heavily as he crawled into bed and pulling the covers up, Wedge thought back - today had been just like their other days on the planet, going to one dinner after another, listening to boring conversations about their hosts’ exploits while trying to look interested; the only one who really seemed to be enjoying himself was Wes from all the attention the women paid him - Wedge just felt self-conscious from all the adoration.
The nightmares had begun again onboard the Allegiance as they traveled to Adumar but once they had arrived, they got worse; Wedge knew that it had been too much to expect them to have ceased entirely even though he had not suffered from them for some months now. They always began benignly enough - he often dreamt of the good times he had shared with his family while growing up on Corellia and Gus Treta or with the few people he had let get close to him after his parents’ death and joining the rebellion but the dreams quickly deteriorated into scenes of death and destruction; his friends and family calling out to him in their death throes, he unable to help. Tonight’s was no different as he relived - yet again - a battle at the Bilbringi shipyards shortly after the Battle of Endor - one of the rare times Wedge was shot down and forced to go Extra-vehicular - all because he had not reported to the Unit’s Flight Surgeon that he was not feeling 100%: at the time he thought it was just the beginning of a slight cold; what it turned out to be was Bilbringi Fever that laid him low, flat on his back in the Med Center for almost two months, with blinding headaches, fever, nausea and vomiting,. If it had not been for his wingman, Wes, seeing the TIE hit Wedge’s X-Wing and some fast thinking on the Taanabian pilot’s part, Wedge very well would have died as shrapnel from his destroyed cockpit had punctured the left shoulder of his flightsuit - within his suit’s self-sealing mag-con field, the Corellian pilot was slowly bleeding to death. Wedge broke out in a cold sweat as he shivered in his sleep at the memory of the cold; he struggled out of his t-shirt, leaving him only in light blue cotton skivvies as he curled up tighter around his stuffed bantha.
The nightmares continued, changing at times to the trench run of the first Death Star, the guilt of having to abandon Luke that far off day because he had been hit still gnawing at his gut, and than back to the original. The Corellian tossed and turned, throwing the covers to the floor when they threatened to tangle him within their clutches. Still clutching the stuffed bantha to his chest, he suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes wide with horror: staring straight ahead, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and wobbly stood. In an unconscious daze Wedge wondered from his room, out into the common living area he shared with Hobbie, Tycho and Wes; staggering around the living room he made his way to the kitchen: he proceeded to do something that he had not done for a long time, not since Yavin IV; rummaging around the refrigerator, he pulled out some cold grilled nerf, made himself a sandwich and poured a glass of blue bantha milk. His eyes still glazed with sleep, he silently ate his ‘midnight’ snack, his stuffed bantha sitting quietly on the table watching him eat. Finishing, he placed his plate and glass in the sink; he picked up Bantha by a foreleg and headed out of the kitchen and back to bed.
Padding back through the common area, he reaches the bedroom door and straggles in; laying down on the bed, he tucks Bantha close and pulls the covers up under his chin: he doesn’t make a sound nor twitch as muscle when a strong arm reaches around him and pulls him close as the arm’s owner snuggles their naked body close against Wedge’s bare back, murmuring as they do so. The nightmares cease, as though chased off by the comforting presence in the bed with him and in his sleep Wedge cuddled closer to his protector unaware that there is even anybody else in bed with him.
The Adumar morning dawned cool, bright and clear, the skies over Cartann scrubbed clean by the night’s storm, Wedge and his unknown protector have sleep soundly the remainder of the night, Wedge wrapped lightly in the other’s arms as he held Bantha close to him. The sounds and smells of cooking began to waft into the room bit by bit awakening Wedge’s protector: leaning over he kissed the dark haired man; opening his blue eyes, Wedge’s protector gazed down at the sleeping Corellian pilot; slowly he became aware of who it was that was in his bed and who he had just kissed. Exhausted, Wedge slept on. Slowly, very slowly, Wes Janson moved to his side of the bed and eased out of it; quickly retrieving a pair of sleep pants from off a near by chair and pulling them on as he headed towards the door leading to the common living area. "Tycho," he yelled as he exited the room, "Hobbie!!! I want to know which one of you thought this one up as a joke," he continued to yell as he made his way to the kitchen. Tycho looked up from his cup of caf as Hobbie continued cooking.
"Wes," Tycho said in his usual calm demeanor, "Neither of us have a clue as to what in all the Hells of Coruscant you are blabbering about."
"I am talking about which one of you thought up the cute idea of putting Wedge in my bed in the middle of the night. And with that ratty stuffed bantha no less."
Tycho and Hobbie stared incredulously at Wes then looked at each other before bursting out in gales of laughter.
Finis
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