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Waxer had held a secret close to his chest for the entirety of the war, shared only with one other person. A brilliant red line, coursing down his right palm, mirrored perfectly on the palm of his secret-keeper. They simply didn’t know what the line meant, not for the longest time, and after discovering… well, it just hadn’t been something they’d felt the need to share.
It’s not that his and Boil’s relationship had been a secret during the war. Not really. Everyone knew they preferred to bunk together; in the early days, it had been bartering with others to give up their bunks so one or the other could move in. Eventually, it always worked out; no vod wanted to get in the way.
Waxer hadn’t understood, at first, what pulled him towards Boil. It was like Boil was an entire planet and Waxer the moon in his orbit. Boil was grumpy but Waxer had been convinced that underneath that exterior shell was a soft-hearted person who simply needed a friend. That’s how it started out, Waxer just trying to spend time with the other man.
They didn’t understand the marks at first, just that they appeared and they had to mean something. Their hands slotted so perfectly together, the marks lining up neatly; they were pieces to the same puzzle. They didn’t need to know why, didn’t think it was important to ask.
It had been on a mission and the general had decided to navigate a karking asteroid field to get to some Outer Rim planet that the Separatists had been rumored to be making a move on. Waxer remembered how Boil had complained about the route, grumbling something about hyperspace and easier paths to take. When they’d hit turbulence, an unsettling feeling in space, Boil’s hand had shot out and grabbed Waxer’s. The shock of the moment was fleeting, quickly replaced by the pain searing across his palm.
They found out about soul marks through Wooley, who had come to them with a purple mark on his own palm. They were on mission with the 501st and he had been working in the medbay when a trooper from the 501st, Tup, had come in. When he’d been working to apply bacta to the trooper’s wounds, the marks had appeared.
Unlike Waxer and Boil, Wooley was someone who needed to know. He needed to understand everything that was happening to them. He discovered soul connections, shared them with Boil and Waxer. Their secret grew, but Wooley promised to keep it.
Waxer didn’t know why he didn’t want anyone to know. It was evident to anyone with eyes how important he and Boil were to one another. A matched pair, kisses no longer stolen in the dead of night but in front of cheering vode after tough missions. But to them, this was something… more. It was theirs.
It was because of Wooley that Waxer knew how painful it would be to lose the other half of your soul.
After the war, Waxer just simply couldn’t believe that they had survived. Suddenly, with everything that had come to light, keeping a soulmark a secret wasn’t important anymore. This decision to share was set into motion by the revelation that their commander and their general shared pieces of their souls with one another. The Jedi were beginning to openly share the truth.
All Waxer wanted to do was live out the rest of his life in peace.
“What about a farm?” Boil says suddenly, causing Waxer to startle from his train of thought.
Waxer cocks his head, quizzical. “A… farm?”
Boil nods. “What if we get a farm?”
He considers this for a moment. “Where?”
Kicking up his feet, Boil leans back against the coach cushions. They are their temporary apartment on Coruscant, in a building set up for the troopers who are still figuring out what they want to do with their newfound freedom. “Where’s Cody going again?”
Waxer blinks. “Cody?”
Boil rolls his eyes affectionately. “Yes, di’kut, Cody. And, by extension, General Kenobi.”
“Obi-Wan,” Waxer reminds him, instinctively.
“I’d rather not,” Boil replies. “Too familiar, too soon.”
“And why do you want to move where they do?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know it just… feels right, I guess.”
And it really does. Feel right. When Waxer thinks of family, he thinks of the 212th. He thinks of Cody, specifically, and their general. Of the vode he held in his arms as they died, of those whose lives have become fully intertwined with his own.
“Naboo, I believe,” Waxer finally says. “I think they said there’s some good farmlands there, if you really want that life?”
Boil smirks. “I’m sure I could adjust,” he says.
Waxer blinks and responds, almost incredulously, “adjust? You suggested it!”
“Because that’s what you want,” Boil says, voice softening.
Something slots into place, in Waxer’s chest. Had he told Boil that? Had he ever even realized that himself? He doesn’t think so. It feels like both the first time the idea has occurred to him and yet like something is finally coming true, being realized.
“I do?”
“Don’t you?”
“I… I think I’d love that,” Waxer admits.
Boil leans forward again, moving into Waxer’s space now, and kisses him on the cheek. “Thought so.”
They get their farm on Naboo.
It’s nothing grand, a small plot of land compared to some of the Gungan farms surrounding them.
But it’s theirs.
It’s close enough to Cody’s new home for them to walk there, but tucked away in its own space that affords them privacy. After years of constantly being surrounded by vode and the Jedi, the silence is simultaneously unsettling and centering. Boil seems to revel in it, in having his own space; yet, even he reaches points where he wants, needs, to be near family again. In those moments, they can visit Cody or reach out to another vod to stay a while. And, when they need it, the quiet comes again quickly enough.
It’s a simple existence and Waxer loves it.
He loves the garden they grow, the food that can sustain them. The meals they cook together. The trips to the market to sell, the food exchanges they begin to set up. He even enjoys their neighbors, with their strange way of speaking and their even stranger kindness. Kindness is something he will have to learn to be okay with.
People weren’t naturally kind to him and the other troopers during the war. Nor, really, immediately after the war. Waxer had never been as close to Rex as Cody or some other members of the 212th had been, but he admires him so much, now, for the work he is doing with Ahsoka to make the world a better place for their vode.
Sometimes, Waxer wishes he was doing more. In those moments, where he has this sudden overwhelming feeling of failure, Boil always seems to know. He comes and gathers Waxer into his arms and whispers soothing words into his ear.
“Why do we deserve this quiet life,” Waxer asks suddenly one day, standing in the kitchen, “when others are still struggling?”
Boil looks up from where he’s watching dishes, considering. With a sigh, he wipes his soapy hands on his pants and moves closer to Waxer, framing his face between his palms. “What makes you think we don’t, cyar’ika? ”
Waxer bites his lip, casting his eyes down, the idea of staring back into Boil’s face overwhelming in the moment. “Don’t know,” he mumbles.
Boil increases the pressure on his face, ducking his head down to try and catch Waxer’s eyes. “Talk to me, please.”
“I just…” Waxer begins and when he blinks, he’s shocked to realize he’s begun to cry. “I feel like there’s so many vode still suffering. And here I am,” he continues in a trembling tone, “making my own little life like it’s something I’ve earned.”
Boil hums and Waxer can tell there’s a fraction of frustration in there. He knows that Boil isn’t frustrated with him, more with the idea that he values himself so little. Without Boil saying it, he can feel it in his bones and it only makes him shake more.
“Haven’t we suffered enough?” Boil asks.
“Haven’t they?” Waxer counters.
“They have,” Boil agrees. “But we have lost so much and we have saved so many and eventually… Eventually, we all earn our rest.”
“Have we?”
“We have,” Boil insists. “Waxer, we have earned this. We are not made to be the heroes in everyone’s stories.”
“I don’t think I’m a hero at all,” Waxer admits.
“You’re my hero,” Boil says and… oh, oh, his voice is hard now. “You saved me.”
Waxer’s knees go weak and Boil pulls him into a keldabe, humming again.
Eventually, Waxer is able to pull away. He takes a deep breath and gives Boil a weak smile. “I was being an utreekov again, yeah?”
Boil shakes his head. “No, no. It’s… how did the mindhealers put it? Oh, it’s survivor’s guilt, that’s what they said. You’re just… we’re just… it’s hard,” he finishes, grimacing a little.
But Waxer understands what he’s trying to say. “Tup, the other vode that died… Sometimes I don’t understand why I didn’t, ” he admits.
“Maybe the fates knew I couldn’t bear to lose you,” Boil offers and Waxer’s broken heart mends a bit more in that moment. Oh, how he loves him.
“And I you,” he responds.
“Come,” Boil says, grabbing his hand. “Let’s get some air.”
Later, Boil asks Waxer what he wants to do. If he wants to leave their farm. How he thinks they can help. When Boil asks, Waxer realizes how much it would pain him to leave behind the life they are building. But, he also knows he needs to help.
“Maybe we can ask Rex how we can help?” He suggests. “If there’s food we can send or vode who need help finding a home?”
“Whatever you want,” Boil says, but it’s not flippant or unfeeling. It’s the opposite. He says it with so much resolution that Waxer knows that he wants it, too. That he’s been strong for Waxer. It is in that resolution that Waxer realizes Boil’s own fears and decides he will do anything to solve them.
That’s what they do for one another.
They save each other.
Waxer kisses Boil under the stars on their little farm in Naboo.
As long as he has Boil, he can do anything.
The End