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This was the sort of mission that went bad in the turn of a dime. He could feel it in his bones. Gilad was an old dog and when it came to ground missions, he had very good instincts. 

Even the weather was against them. Icy gusts of wind blew off the inland sea, whipping up needles of freezing rain that got in Gilad's eyes and made visibility poor. He was cold and wet and that led to distraction. 

He figured that bastard Thrawn would have been having a grand old time if he deigned to go on ground missions anymore. “Fucker,” he muttered under his breath as he slunk behind a large, gray duracrete wall. 

The duracrete was laced through with lead piping and that messed with their comms. It wasn't placed there by the cartels to hinder communication, this whole planet was just a cheap shit hole. 

Gilad heard a crackle in his ear. He stepped away from the wall, trying to get a better signal. The crackle turned into a murmur, deep in tenor and melodic. It was Thrawn. 

Gilad tried to not let his dick get in the way of his life and death mission, but he had always had a thing for his partner's comm voice. Something about the addition of that metallic twang really brought out the exotic and sexy quality of Thrawn's accent. “Sir?” he whispered into his mouthpiece. “Try channel nine.” 

The crackle changed and Thrawn's voice became a bit more clear. He was saying a word that Gilad could just make out. Gilad took one more step away from the wall. In a burst of static Thrawn's voice came through. “Cupcake! Do you read?”

“God dammit, Thrawn! I told you I'm not going by that codename!” he sputtered. He heard sounds on the other side of the wall. “Fuck,” he hissed. 

“Status update?” Thrawn said, his voice low. Like a purr. Gilad lowered his head, sweaty knuckles digging into his forehead, and mouthed a swear. 

“Status update,” Thrawn requested again. On the other side of the wall, the footsteps had moved off, petering down an unseen hallway. Gilad gave it a second before he dared to speak.

“Are you trying to get me killed, sir?” he said flatly. 

“Of course not,” Thrawn said. But after a pause, he added, “You always did like a spark of danger.”

“In the bedroom,” Gilad said. “Not in battle.”

“That explains Bilbringi,” Thrawn muttered, as if he’d forgotten to turn his speaker off. Gilad’s blood pressure shot up, planting white stars on the edge of his vision. 

“Are you trying to provoke me, sir?” he asked.

“Is it working?” said Thrawn silkily.

God damn him, he’d been insufferable ever since Gilad popped a boner mid-argument last year. And the worst part was that – whether because of the adrenaline of the mission or the spike of Gilad’s temper or just because of the dark velvet of Thrawn’s voice over comm – it was working. Gilad edged quietly into a better position and cupped himself between his legs. 

“It’s not working,” he said with flat disapproval even as he squeezed his dick. “And you have better things to do than interrupt my mission.”

Thrawn’s hum turned into static. “Remember your rank, Captain,” he said with a shade of danger in his voice. “I will decide how to best use my time.”

“Antagonizing me is not the best use,” Gilad said. 

“If I must hold your hand like a green ensign through his first ground mission than I will,” Thrawn said coldly, and Gilad could have throttled him, but instead his hand tightened convulsively on his own cock and he bit back a groan. “At your advanced age, you are fortunate I allowed a ground mission at all.”

“You’re older than me!” Gilad hissed. 

“And clearly far more capable,” Thrawn said. “Were I down there, the mission would have been completed two hours ago.”

“Were you down here, sir, you’d still be hobbling through the first passage, nursing that broken leg,” Gilad said. There was a scrape of white noise as Thrawn’s hand no doubt tightened on his comm. Gilad could picture his eyes narrowing, the irritable twitch of his good leg – the one he hadn’t shattered by sparring a goddamn battle droid in the dojo. The satisfaction of a blow well-landed made Gilad’s cock throb, and he shifted again, getting his legs out from under him in the narrow passage so he could rock his hips a little, his palm providing friction through his fatigues. 

No. This was stupid. He stopped himself, suddenly cognizant of the rasp of breath in his throat – probably audible over his comm. Sounding obnoxiously satisfied, Thrawn said,

“Status update, Cupcake.”

Gilad allowed the comm to pick up his sigh. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Completely unaroused, thanks to you,” he said. 

“Is arousal typically a high consideration for you on ground missions?”

“Not when you’re on the comm calling me ‘cupcake,’” Gilad said. “Who the devil taught you that?”

“Self-study,” Thrawn said smugly, which meant he’d been watching god-awful Corellian porn and no doubt categorizing it as ‘research’ in his log.

“Well, save it for some other dalliance,” Gilad said. He forced himself to get his head back on the mission, crawling inch by inch down the passage with his ear to the wall. Thrawn was silent for a moment but kept the channel open, probably listening with a cocked head to the shuffle and scrape of fabric on stone.

“Are you on your knees?” Thrawn asked suddenly, his voice a low hum. 

“Yes,” said Gilad. Then, trying to hide the thrill it gave him when he imagined what Thrawn was thinking: “Don’t get any ideas.”

“I only hope you brought kneepads,” Thrawn said. “At your age…?”

Alright, that was enough. Gilad unclipped his comm and growled, “Radio silence, sir,” into it before he thumbed it off. He continued down the passage, muttering to himself and shaking his head and – yes, goddammit – wishing he’d brought kneepads. When he reached the access point, he paused, steadied his breath, unholstered his blaster, and peered through a crack in the mortar at Moff Cater’s idiot son and the pirates who had kidnapped him. One part of his treacherous brain produced Thrawn’s voice for him, an auditory memory of the crackle of static and the artificial thickening of the accent, the deep smooth vibrations of Thrawn’s voice needling at his insecurities and provoking his temper until–

One year ago. Gilad yelling in Thrawn’s face, so close he felt Thrawn’s breath in a hot rush against his lips. The total violation of personal space as he drove Thrawn back against his own desk, too angry to remember his place, his rank. The self-satisfied smirk that touched Thrawn’s lips when Gilad grabbed him by the arm and shook him. 

He lowered his head. He raised his blaster. Between his legs was a regrettably large erection and his only consolation was that the pirates wouldn’t have much time to process that before they were dead.

Moff Cater’s son, on the other hand…