hector chasse. (ironarmor) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-02-12 22:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | hector chasse, npc: killian |
you held my hand tight waiting to watch me disappear.
WHO: Killian Stracke & Hector Chasse.
WHAT: Having their first actual relationship talk.
WHEN: Friday afternoon.
WHERE: Killian's apartment, Ganymede.
WARNINGS: Sexual situations, Feelings~ and brief PTSD & grief interludes.
Hector stood in the kitchen, naked except for the clean bandages wrapped around his chest, hands tight against the edge of the sink as he absently listened to the changing tone of the water filling his glass. It was afternoon, now. Long past the time when he would normally be up and about, exercising, or finding something to do with his hands — fixing something in the apartment, or sketching, or turning pages of a book, or playing cards. Anything to keep busy. But they hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. He'd been lying awake, turning over the complexities of his situation in his head, when Killian had begun trembling like a leaf in the wind, skin clammy; he'd shaken Killian out of sleep, and stroked his forehead and kissed his face, and they'd talked for a bit. Then words gave way to kisses, and they'd gotten tangled up in each other for hours, slow and exploratory as the world beyond their bed disappeared and the darkness of the room gave way to pale, pre-dawn light. He'd only gotten up to make them coffee before coming back to bed. They were on leave. There was nowhere they had to be, nothing stopping them from staying up all night like — like this was their first time, really. Just the two of them wanting to memorize every inch of each other this way, even a little broken and a little scarred. But alone in the kitchen, his thoughts were drifting. To the Kamikaze. The bounty — how they were faring without him. And, of course Sawyer. He'd been trying to figure out what to say to Killian, testing phrases in his head and searching for the right words, but everything sounded terrible. His emotions clawed at his throat whenever he tried to open his mouth, so he held back. He needed to say something soon; every passing moment was a lie, dishonesty towards both of them, and he needed to rectify that as soon as possible. He was not a dishonest person. But how? How could he ask for both of them when he wasn't even sure he deserved either? And how the hell had he gone from having no one, to having — too many people in his life? Realizing the glass was overflowing, he turned off the faucet with a flick of his hand and drank, the cool water soothing his throat a temporary distraction, at least. Making his way back through the apartment, he let himself into the dim bedroom and hid a smile at the sound of the mattress shifting, the sheets whispering as Killian stirred. "Here." Hector settled carefully down on the bed in the space he'd left behind, sliding to press his back against the headboard. "Drink." As the mattress had dipped, the semi-conscious pilot made a sound in his throat, though he rolled toward the sensation rather than away from it. It was an automatic gesture, a draw that had him, these days, gravitating closer. He'd felt it since the hospital; he could still feel it now, in these waking moments. "You drink," he mumbled childishly, still half-tangled in the arms of sleep. Snorting softly, Hector set the glass on the bedside table. "I did, idiot." Feeling Killian tucked against his side, reaching down to stroke his fingertips slowly through those soft brown waves, his throat knotted slowly tighter against the wave of deep affection and anxiety. For a long moment, he just sat there under the weight of the mounting tension. He could swallow all of this back. He could close his eyes and just stay here, drift off in this moment sitting sentry over Killian's dreams. No. He really couldn't. "Kill," came his quiet sigh. "Kill, sit up. I have to...talk to you." The urgency laced through those words was enough to pique Killian's attention, drawing him most of the way out his post-sleep daze. The effort to draw himself up onto an elbow before easing up into a seated position had the sheets slipping, pooling around his hips, and instead of settling for a frown, all he could manage was a dumb stare, the concern open and uncurbed. Hector's gaze flickered down, to the artful way the sheets draped over his lover, to the narrow expanse of thigh slipping out from beneath it, and — He looked up into Killian's eyes, guileless and worried, and that was almost worse. Turning his chin, he studied the wall instead, its utterly neutral and smooth surface offering no distraction. One leg drew up beneath the sheets, and he rested his palm against his thigh; the other ached to wrap around Killian's shoulders and hold him close, but he wouldn't allow it. Not yet. Not until Killian had heard him out. "It's about Sawyer," Hector forced the words out, even and measured, his voice under strict control. Not betraying anything more of what he felt because he couldn't, couldn't let any of it spill over into his tone or he wouldn't be able to talk at all, wouldn't be able to do much more than choke on the sentiments and struggle to breathe. Still: he knew this speech was going to be halting at best, incoherent at worst. For all his intelligence, eloquence was not his strength. "How he was...there for me. In the hospital. I —" His calm was disrupted by the memory: Sawyer's thumb stroking his cheekbone and his palm against Hector's chest as he lost it, as he fucking folded, collapsing under his terror and helplessness and Sawyer had just — climbed in the bed with him and held him, wordlessly, and — Hector closed his eyes, jaw tightening. "I asked him to stay. He wasn't just there for me as the medic, he was there because — he cares about me, despite the fact that I've — fucking done everything I could to push him away. I all but told him to fuck off, I treated him like shit, and despite that, he was still...there for me, when I needed it." His chin dipped down, then, as he studied his palm curled in his lap instead. "When he saw us together, I guess he could — read between the lines, he could tell there was something — unresolved, between us. And it...hurt him to think that...this whole time I was just — using him as some replacement for you, some...stand-in for what I couldn't have, and that's why he hasn't been back here. He didn't want to feel that way, and he didn't want to get between us, either." His exhale was heavy. "But I don't...I don't want him to disappear, Kill. I don't want to hurt him again, I've fucking done enough of that, and he actually deserves better. I'm saying that I —" He grimaced. "I — care about him." It was a heavy onslaught of confessions. So heavy with hesitation, with things that were hard to say, that Killian could do nothing but sit silently, listen. He watched the crack in Hector's composure widen, watched him struggle with the words, but he couldn't, didn't reach out. Not until he was finished, the confessions spread out between them, open for consideration. And when it seemed like the other man was done, at least for the moment, he could think of only one thing to say. "I know," then without pause, "dumbass." There was shock in Hector's eyes as his chin swung up again, and he finally met Killian's gaze. "You know?" Exhaustion made it easy for Killian to roll his eyes. "I've known you for almost sixteen years," he pointed out, as if the length of time would make an impact, somehow. "D'you seriously think I haven't learned how to read you by now?" A pause, and then a shuddering breath, from Hector. He rubbed at his mouth, scrubbing at his tightly pressed lips, and then shifted to rope one arm tightly around Killian's shoulders, pulling him close and burying his face in that soft, dark hair. Killian knew. Killian could read him around Sawyer, could tell that they were — something — whatever they were — and had still said what he'd said, and was still here in the bed with him, still wanted to be here. His heart pounded heavily in his chest. "I don't know what to do," he murmured into Killian's hair, even more unwilling to let go of him. "And I'm not...expecting you to have answers, I just...want you to know. I'd never fucking lie to you, Killian. And I'll do everything I can not to hurt you." With the space obliterated between them, the younger man could use touch to communicate: one hand sliding up to curl around the back of Hector's neck, a thumb behind his ear, grazing lightly. He didn't know what to say, in all honesty. The second he'd suspected something between those two, long before talks of relationships — or, rather, a lack thereof — or Secret Santas, he'd filed that information away for— not use, but for some purpose. It had never mattered to him, even back on the Kamikaze, who Hector had spent his time with. It didn't change anything on his end. Even so, Killian didn't know how to process this, or what it meant, fully. He certainly didn't have any answers. He could only deal with what he did know. His fingers drew small, light circles. "Just as long as you come back," to me, "once in a while." "Once in a while?" A soft growl rose up in his chest, but that hand at his neck was so warm and welcome that it was hard to even fake indignation. "You're not kicking me out of here that easily. I'm just starting to get used to this — what did he call it? A desert island?" He shifted, nuzzling lower, lips at Killian's temple. "Being stranded on this desert island with you." To that, a small, unseen smile. And then he took a deep, vital breath. "I need you," came his quiet, tight confession, on the heels of everything. The truth: "I'm — in love with you." The fingers stilled, breath caught. To feel it was one thing, but to hear it was another. Not like Killian hadn't been hearing it in every kiss, every look in the last several days, because he had, and it had thrown him how natural it felt, at how easy it was to sink into those arms. Arms he'd been in before, when his heart had beat just as fast, just as unsteadily. He moved his hand upward this time, sinking into short hair. Inhaled, the breath catching awkwardly, this time. "You know that one of my conditions for Phan, back then, was that I wanted the Kamikaze? I came back for the ship," catching, still— "I requested it for you. Even if I couldn't pilot it anymore, I stayed. For you." Hector's lips curled as he drew Killian's mouth toward him. "I've known you for almost sixteen years," he echoed, that ghost of a smirk lingering around his lips, "you really think I didn't know that?" It was easy to sink into that kiss. Easier still to press him back, shoulders sliding against pillows, until his spine found the mattress with Hector's hand curled in the small of his back. And it felt good to pin him down, again. Good to notch his hips into the space between Killian's thighs and graze his teeth over the rough stubble on his jaw. "I love you." It was tremendously easier the second time, a relief. "I fucking love you, Kill." The laugh that prompted was breathy, shaky, and Killian was glad their eyes hadn't met yet so that he could draw his legs in tighter, as close as they would go. So that his hands could slide up that spine, over open back. "Oh, good," he managed, "because this would be awkward if I didn't fucking love you, too, Hector Chasse." What escaped from Hector in return was half groan, half laughter — a groan of sheer emotion, a laugh of pure understanding and happiness — and for a long few heartbeats, he couldn't speak because his mouth was busy expressing those words through the connection between them, heated, slow, intense kisses — — and then, at Killian's ear, teeth tugging at the lobe: "you'll always have me, no matter what." This wasn't the time for Killian's heart to surge with doubt. Definitely not the time for memories of those same words in the past said by different lips, of rainy funerals, of wanting to hold onto everything, only to know it would inevitably slip through his fingers like sand. But the heat of this was real, lips and hands drawing him from those instinctive thoughts, particularly as he angled his hips upward, nails scraping over shoulderblades. He didn't have the words for that, could only rely on his body to do the talking for him, until speech became possible. "So," panted, "how are those ribs feeling?" "Like a million bucks," came the growling response. "Try me." |