bakerstreet | when we were young

"Oh." Glenn blinks a little to process it, and then resolves to ignore the object entirely. So "Force" as a noun, not an adjective.

"So, one or the other? Not both?"

Sketchpad ignored for now, he watches Thrawn carefully, eyes subtly wide with unabashed curiosity, feet idly wiggling where he's perched them on the edge of the seat.

"What are they like? Those you met?"

"Hm, I suppose one could use both the light and the dark. After all, there must be a balance between the two. A halfway point, if you will, one who does not embody one extreme or the other. In fact, I believe that you could be one such person."

Thrawn presses a button on his desk, and brings up images of Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker, taken from old news holos.

"Anakin Skywalker was the Jedi. He was quite brave and loyal, but also reckless and stubborn. He is no longer with us." In a manner of speaking. "The Sith is Darth Vader. He is ruthless and cold, but efficient."

Glenn watches carefully, digesting this. This person-- thinks he could?

He looks carefully at the holos, nodding as he listens. Sometimes, he ducks his head to add doodles to his sketchpad, but he still listens raptly.

"Talk about extreme differences," he comments with a huff. Looking down at his drawings, he tries to organize his thoughts. It's a lot of information all at once, even though he's happy to listen to all of it, and take in all of it. Setting the sketchpad down on the desk, he gets up and bounces on his heels to try to feel less restless. He has the vague feeling that he's forgetting something, but it's hard to pin down.

His vision swims slightly, and he hastily grabs the back of the chair to avoid falling, blinking rapidly to try to clear it. Although faint, some of his hair is starting to shift of its own accord, turning from regular strands of hair to something softer and feather-pronged.

He blinks a little more, and then tries to ignore the waviness in his vision.

"I was gonna say something, but I forgot."

Thrawn notices the way Glenn's hair feathers, something he's not unfamiliar with. "If you remember, I wish to hear it."

He regards the artifact again. "Do you think you would be willing to examine that some more? I am trying to get it do perform a specific function, but I do not know how it works."

"Y-yeah. What are you trying to get it to do? It-- sort of talks? Is the best way I get it. So..."

Glenn reaches as if to grasp it, but stops mid-movement, remembering that this is not something to just touch for fun, and settles his hands on the desk. He shifts his weight more noticeably, working a little harder to maintain his orientation.

"I'll-- need a rest after. I'm starting to not feel that great. My vision's kind of blurry all of a sudden."

But he doesn't feel like he's dying, so he's probably just fine, he reasons.

"It has changed a friend of mine and I wish to restore him to his proper form. I was not in the room when the artifact changed him, so I do not know what he did that activated it."

Thrawn doesn't want to scare Glenn by telling him that he's supposed to be an adult of several hundred years, and that orb simply reverted him back to being a child.

"I have a bed you can sleep in." If Thrawn gets tired, he can use the couch.

"Okay... Okay."

Frowning a little, he squints in the hopes that his vision stops swirling, but it doesn't. Giving up on that with a sigh, he chalks it up to tiredness.

Regarding the artifact, Glenn gives it the very faintest of pokes with a fingertip. Nothing happens.

"Hey-- I'm sure you can hear more than me, right?"

Nose scrunching as the buzzing starts up again, Glenn makes a wholly unimpressed face and closes his eyes.

"Stupid! Just use pictures! I understood those better than-- whatever language you speak!"

Glenn waits to make sense of the artifact's reply, and slowly sounds it out as he does.

"It says-- it's.. already happening. Because his soul is.. stubborn, and.. remembers who and what he is. His spirit has accepted the.. path? with the Force. And is.. coming back. Because he knows.. where he wants to be. He... knows, and, he will remember.. what happened.. when he returns."

Opening his eyes, Glenn flails when the world swirls in some places, reflexively reaching out for the desk to keep his balance. He manages, barely, and swiftly shuts his eyes again to center himself.

Thrawn just nods, his face as stoic as ever. Yet, this is good news. Glenn is going to return to his proper age, and they can be together once more. It's also good to know that Glenn will have memories of this, and perhaps they can figure out the artifact together. Then again, Thrawn also might just lock the thing in his personal vault once they're through with it.

He comes to Glenn's side and helps him remain upright, looking down at the boy with kind eyes. "Would you like me to carry you to bed?"

Glenn startles slightly and flinches when he's touched, eyes wide as he looks up at Thrawn for a moment. In the next beat, he clings onto Thrawn's arm for support, not wanting to fall while his vision is swirling like a hula hoop. His grip is completely ordinary, even as the tightness of it causes wrinkles in the cloth.

Shyly, Glenn nods and averts his gaze towards the floor, cheeks burning slightly pink. Even his feet look like they're not real, but ripples in a pond.

"I-- think so. My vision's... weird. I wonder if I'm getting sick... I-I can handle it if I do. So..."

Perhaps contrarily to the implications of his words, his grip tightens. A few more strands adopt that fluffier look, and even one of them starts to curl up in his usual uncannily long cowlick.

"...I can take care of myself if I get sick. Mom told me that self-sufficiency is important."

"Indeed it is. It is important that one is able to take care of themselves. However, it is also important to know that there is no shame in asking for help."

Thrawn carefully picks Glenn up and carries him out of the office and into his quarters, where he lays the boy down in his bed. He also lays his datapad on his bedside drawer. "If you need anything, tap that and it will send me a notification."

Glenn holds onto him firmly, thoughts muddled. How strange-- did Thrawn always smell this sharply?

"...Okay."

The bed is large compared to his small body, and once Thrawn nears the bed again, Glenn reaches out again to grab his tunic, without thinking, brow furrowing.

"Um..."

His mouth works for a few seconds before he manages the actual words. His gaze drifts in and out of focus. Slowly, his body heat rises.

"Could you.. stay, just a little bit? I'm-- a little scared, with everything looking so wobbly, and.. mom's usually too busy, even when she's home."

Thrawn regards the boy for a second, memories coming back to him of another time, from the Ascendancy. For a moment, they make him feel homesick. He shakes it off and nods at Glenn.

"Of course," Gently pulling out of Glenn's grip, Thrawn sits on the edge of the bed and takes up his datapad. Perhaps there's something he can read to the boy to help him go to sleep. He selects a detective novel that he has stored on his datapad and starts reading out loud.

Glenn eventually grabs onto his clothes again - just the hem of his tunic where it's bunched from sitting, rather than Thrawn's wrist, where he'd prefer to hold. It's hard to focus, but the calm flow of Thrawn's words eventually soothes him more than the content. He's out in about fifteen minutes, idly thinking about the content of the novel, until his thoughts dissolve into the dark.

Glenn's body continues to gradually change as he sleeps, however slowly. For now, Glenn's grip is still on par with a young human's strength. He's mildly feverish, for a human, but otherwise has no signs of discomfort.

Thrawn stays with Glenn the entire time, until he goes to sleep. Once Glenn's passed out, he closes the book and sets the datapad back down. Silently, he leaves the bedroom and goes back to his office to take scans of the artifact and compare them with other holos of similar artifacts.

Once asleep, reverting occurs much more rapidly. The first thing that Glenn notices is the discomfort of getting bigger in clothes that are too small, and so the garments are completely shredded in the process of him wiggling to get them off awhile still asleep. The transition takes a little while all the same. Before the hour is up, deep contented purring softly resounds from Thrawn's bedroom as Glenn shoves his face against the pillow that smells like his mate.

Thrawn returns to his quarters to check on Glenn and sees that he's already back in adult body. And the clothes have been shredded. Those can be recycled.

For now, Thrawn approaches his mate and gently touches his shoulder.

Glenn's purring gets louder, and deeper, until he registers the touch and hums sleepily, reaching out with tentacles while still clinging to the pillow.

Until his own quickened purring, and Thrawn's touch, makes him stir further. His tendrils coil around his mate's arms for a moment as he wakes up, thoughts foggy, but vision clear.

"Oh... hey..."

He gently gives his mate's wrist a squeeze with that tendril and loosens his hold, wiggling a little to turn over, and frowning when scraps of cloth tear further.

That makes his eyes fly open, and he sits up, looking at a piece of the torn clothing in confusion, and then dawning understanding.

"...So that was about the weirdest experience I have ever had."

Thrawn's fully prepared for the tentacles at this point, recognizing them as an unconscious gesture, an innate desire to touch his mate and pull him in. Oh yes, Glenn is most certainly back to normal.

"Indeed." The artifact told Glenn that he would remember upon returning to his normal age, he recalls. "It is fortunate that the effect was only temporary. I still have the clothes you were wearing when you reverted into a child in my office."

"Well, yes. How strange-- to look back on it, it is..."

Gaze flicking up towards Thrawn's, he smiles a little shyly and draws his mate in closer, to brush his lips against his mate's in a slow, chaste kiss.

"I still feel warm from how you treated me. If I'd had someone like you in my life, growing up..." Briefly, he catches his bottom lip between his teeth.

"Never mind. In any case, let us see about that artifact. After I put my clothes back on."

Pulling back, tentacles wiggling with excitement, Glenn starts pulling off the torn remains of those temporary clothes.

His voice hastens in excitement, and he gestures similarly as he speaks.

"It's a nasty thing. Useful for theoretical immortality, at least. Although I fail to see how useful forgetting my current self's memories in favor of the past is useful, but perhaps for someone more nefarious, it might be so."

Once settled, Glenn heads back to the office, still talking, even as he starts putting his proper clothes back on. His tentacles sometimes gesture in emphasis.

"Judging by how I felt then, and looking upon those memories now, along with my own research, it's very likely a Sith artifact. Or has very close leanings to it. Call it a hunch, but I do not think a purely Jedi artifact would hiss like a snake and promise power. Even so, its appearance is cleverly disguised to show neither inclination of Sith nor Jedi, from what I can remember of other art holos regarding them. I'm willing to bet it's to keep it from being destroyed by either party if found. So it's fortunate that we have. Although, perhaps, certain... entities of the Empire might have want for such a thing."

He's seen holos of Emperor Palpatine. If anyone, he would definitely benefit from the temporary reversal of time's march. And who knows if the return forward can be delayed or not.

"If anything, certain people could repeatedly enter and re-enter their prime years. And potentially keep their memories with enough revisits.

"Even as a child, I could feel some minor draw to you. I could sense that you were safe, and that you were somehow increasingly familiar to me. It's-- why I felt so inclined to show you my vulnerability. How lonely I felt. And that I trusted you not to sweep me aside, even if I was afraid of that possibility."

Edited 2020-09-12 05:16 (UTC)

"Perhaps things would have been different, yes, had we met while you were still very young." Thrawn would have been a caretaker and parent figure, rather than a romantic one. It's an interesting thing to ponder.

Once they're back in the office, Thrawn regards the artifact. "Whatever Sith created this, or whatever culture did, it may have been used as a meditation device, or, as you theorized, partial immorality. I would need to compare it to similar artifacts to know for sure." He turns away from the item and looks at Glenn. "Perhaps it is best if we keep the artifact and its uses to ourselves for now."

Thrawn is loyal to Palpatine, but only on the surface. He knows when to hide certain things from the Emperor. Though, now he's wondering what would happen if he were to give it to a former sky-walker who had long since lost their powers. So many possibilities are open.

"Keeping it a secret goes without saying."

Once his clothing is situated, he regards it thoughtfully, one hand resting briefly on his hip.

"...Looks like I will be studying the Force for the time being. If it wasn't lying in a misguided attempt to inflate my ego, then clearly such abilities, if I am capable, could only be an asset."

Given what he remembers of the Force and what different sides of it can do, somehow straddling the line between both extremes will be incredibly useful. Given the gist of how each side operates, it is probably within his capacity to utilize, he thinks.

"Though I am unsure how successful such attempts in practicality will be."

Either way, even developing such skills hold their risks, but if it works, then that's just one extra way he can protect Thrawn, and others.

"Such abilities would prove useful. However, you need not put pressure on yourself to learn such abilities." Useful or not, Thrawn would rather not see his mate burn himself out trying to reach a goal that may or may not even be reachable. They have no idea how the Force works in the Igeas, after all.

"Certainly not. But, there's no harm in making an attempt."

His gaze continues to focus on the artifact for a moment, and then returns to his mate's face.

"Either way, my ability to hear the artifact is diminished. So I won't be wringing my hands over something that ends up impossible. But if it is something possible, it can be utilized. Even if mastery is not particularly feasible at this point, if at all."

Either way, he offers a smile.

"If it means it is another way to protect you and others, all the better."

"Interesting. Perhaps your potential to develop your powers was at its peak when you were small. Nonetheless, it may be worth studying further, yes."

Thrawn approaches Glenn and runs his hand through his mate's hair. "You protect me quite well already. You are already powerful as you are."

Being reassured that he already protects Thrawn well enough, Glenn relaxes further. Especially with the touch to his hair. It's just such a good feeling.

So Glenn just gives his mate a nonsensical mumbling purr in reply, pushing his head against his hand for a moment, and then nuzzles in close for a hug. If he was in dog form, his tail would be wagging.

"I am glad to hear it." While this isn't the first time he's been told so, it still feels good to hear.

"Even so, I still wish to persist, if only out of curiosity."

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