Chapter Text
Ezra had gotten really good at lightsaber training. Like really, really good. He’s grown very confident in his movements and mastered the forms well. And how well a few years of training had done him, in more than one way. Sabine could tell, not just by his stance or how he wielded his lightsaber in combat, but because Ezra often preferred to train shirtless.
It was Atollon climate’s fault, actually. The dry weather and hot sun made training very sweaty. So it was more practical to train with less sticky clothes. Master and padawan would pick a spot a bit away from the base to train. Sabine would often follow and stay nearby, like a loth-cat pretending to be uninterested while being clingy. She was smooth like that.
Her excuse was that she was not watching them, she was simply sketching the local wildlife and vegetation. A poor excuse, because there wasn’t much on this planet. (No offense to the Kryknas.)
However, Sabine always ended up sketching Ezra. To be fair, the excuse had been real the first few times. Contrary to popular opinion, she liked having company while sketching. Just far away from her, so she didn’t have any distractions. That was, until she noticed the shirtless Jedi was the most interesting thing on this planet. Now, that was a distraction she didn’t mind.
She considered getting closer to get a better look, but she realized that might be too obvious. If her cover gets blown, she’d never live it down. So she added a zoom-in gadget to her helmet. Glad she had her priorities straight in these trying times. Not that it wouldn’t be useful on a mission, but her intentions weren’t so pure.
Luckily, Ezra never seemed to be very aware of her presence, instead focusing hard on training. Sabine was sure he knew she was there, but he didn’t seem to know she was there for him specifically. And Sabine thought Kanan hadn’t really noticed either, focusing all his other senses in all the Jedi stuff.
Until today, when she was ogling Ezra while he was doing forms and Kanan jumpscared her looking directly her way. Karabast. The kriffing Jedi and their high perception of things, even without sight. Which was useful in most situations, of course, just very unfortunate in this one.
Sabine panicked for a second. She knew Kanan knew. Even with the mask, she felt like he was watching straight at her. She messed up her current sketch a bit by accidentally tracing a deep, long line all over it. The tip of the pencil broke from the pressure.
If Kanan knew, had Ezra noticed too? Oh, stars.
Naturally, Sabine did one of the things she was best at: running away. She took her helmet off, collected her stuff and headed back to the Ghost. She locked herself in her room and finished the piece she’d been working on before she’d been rudely found out. She checked her other sketches for reference, but she did it mostly by memory.
That didn’t mean anything. She was pretty certain she could draw her other crewmates by memory too. Just not half-undressed, obviously. Hmm. She’d love to draw Ezra’s full anatomy, but—
Wait, no! Hold on. Huh. Maybe it did mean something, but that would be a problem for another day.
Sabine’s luck had apparently run out, though, because when she came out of her room the next day, the worst imaginable thing happened: Kanan joined her in the kitchen where she was making herself a bowl of blue milk and oats.
That wasn’t the worst part, obviously. She expected to run into him soon, they lived together and all, and she loved Kanan. The worst part was that he decided to bring it up.
“Hey, Sabine. Nice of you to keep us company from a distance. I’m sure Ezra appreciates it.”
“Sure,” she replied after taking a spoonful of her food. “I was just sketching.”
Sabine hoped Kanan couldn’t sense the drop of sweat hanging from her forehead. He probably did.
Kanan nodded approvingly. “What have you been sketching lately? A shame I can’t see it. I’m sure it’s great.”
“He sure is.” A pause. “Um! I was just sketching some plants, you know. And the—the sand.” She almost rolled her eyes at her own response.
Kanan smiled knowingly. “I didn’t know you liked the sand, Sabine.”
“I don’t,” she was quick to say. “I just… paint what I see.”
“I don’t see you sketching the rest of the… sand here. You seem to really like that particular sand.”
Sabine put her bowl down and put her arms up. “Oh, fine, I give up. You can stop the ambush now.” She sighed and put her arms down. “Yeah, maybe I like that sand, so what?”
Kanan laughed. “Then you should tell him. He is as dense as the sand, you know.”
Well, at least Ezra didn’t know.
“Yeah, no. Not gonna do that.” Sabine crossed her arms. “And why do you care so much? You usually don’t meddle in this kind of stuff.”
Kanan cleared his throat. “Uh, well, it’s getting hard to ignore…”
“What, watching him train? I’m not distracting him, he never looks my way.”
“No, that’s not the problem.” His shoulders tensed and he cleared his throat. “You, uh, send out an energy. In the Force. That’s hard to ignore. If I picked out on it without intending to, Ezra will eventually, too.”
Sabine raised an eyebrow. “An energy?”
Kanan nodded. She thought it through a few times until she understood what he meant. Her cheeks turned red.
“Oh, for Force’s sake. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. This is worse than The Mandalorian Talk.”
She instinctively covered her face with her hands, though it was no use. She accepted her defeat. Kanan did his best to hide his amused grin.
“You know,” she went on, “I was gonna come to terms with it in like a year o r two. So thanks for that.”
“I know that was sarcasm, but you’re welcome. And you know, we might not have that much time.”
She hated how wise Kanan is sometimes. And how he kinda sucked at pep-talks while being great at it at the same time.
Sabine straightened herself, trying to regain composure. Kanan didn’t add anything else, knowing his point had been made and that that was enough emotional vulnerability for her in one day.
“Hey, what were you two talking about?” Zeb asked as he entered the room, ready to get breakfast.
“Sand,” Kanan and Sabine answered together.
Zeb raised an eyebrow. “Nevermind, I don’t wanna know.”
Sabine took the unwise decision of avoiding Ezra as much as she could.