Chapter Text
We’re sitting in the storage room in silence. He’s on a crate, I’m on a crate, maybe he’s looking at me but I’m looking at the floor, where the blanket sits in a neat pile like maybe we’ll use it, maybe we won’t. Pretty sure my ears are burning, pretty sure my whole body’s on fire, pretty sure I haven’t the faintest fucking clue what I’m doing because you could just take a picture and stick this under the dictionary for awkward as fuck.
I have to resist the urge to kick at the side of my crate, still giddy and silly with how light and floaty I feel, how weightless it feels it to have finally sorted out some of the tangle. I’m so afraid to look at him, though, thinking about the harsh rejection of his back the night before, the snapping heat in his voice that morning. I’m not sure he’ll even want what I’m willing to give, if there’s anything beautiful left for my ugly little rasp to take and shape into explanation.
Finally I lift my eyes, dare to look over at him. He’s looking so intently back at me, unflinching with it, so that I can’t help but lift my knees into my chest, curl over the thumping race of my heart. It bursts out of me, louder than usual, rough and scraping, shattered glass over rocks. “Sorry, didn’t – sorry, last night – wanted –“
Can’t say anything more, too tight and anxious to say anything more. I cringe tighter and hug my knees to my chest, completely fractured with how intensely I lack the words to explain myself, how twisted up and desperate I feel. I have so much that he needs to be told but none of the words to tell him, all my words broken, nothing but my ugly little rasp to give him.
“You don’t—“ He starts to say, and then pauses, like maybe he doesn’t have the words either, like maybe they’re something broken as well.
Silence between us again, everything so awkward. I hate how complicated this has to be, how the inferno of the Reliant is still between us, how nothing’s been the same since then even though it should, even though the ship is charred over, already begun to heal, the navigator and the fighter pulled from the ashes, I’ve been pulled from the ashes but still it’s so wrong, making me feel so scared. I bend into myself more, try to be as small as I can, not wanting to be noticed even though I’m the only thing in the room.
I’ve got my face pressed into my knees, knotted up with how anxious I feel. I just hear him, the shift of fabric and the change in the air. It’s nothing, just him sliding forward and bridging the space between us. It’s nothing, just his arms around me, just the tender way his lips brush my hair, how he kisses the top of my head. His voice, thick and choking, saying to me, “You don’t need to apologize for anything.”
It’s not as simple as that, but we both want so desperately for it to be true. He pulls me into him, holds me, strokes affection into my shoulders and down the rippling line of my spine. I have to try explaining things, explain everything like I promised I would, like I told the silly little navigator I would. I curl tighter, still just some tense and terrible lump for him to hug. Say, “Told Cain I – he knew you were there. Didn’t want him to. Wouldn’t have—“
“Deimos,” he says. Thick, tight, he’s the one who’s been strangled. His lips against my hair, my knees, whatever of me he can reach. Saying my task name because I told him I like it better, don’t like being some stupid sniveling boy or a goddamn new recruit, like being a fighter, something lean and dangerous, sharp with claws, just a little mouse that he’s trying to pet at with comfort.
“Deimos, it’s okay. You don’t need to apologize. If anything—“ He runs his hand through my hair, begging at me with such gentleness that I lift my face to him, tip my gaze up at him.
He takes advantage of the tilted angle, kisses me, soft and sweet about it, slow, pressing his lips to mine until I relent, become softness for him as well. He sits beside me on the crate and keeps an arm around me. “Deimos, I’m sorry for what I said last night. I was upset, but I shouldn’t have said – that. It was cruel of me, and I’m sorry.”
He cups my face, brushes aside my bangs, and kisses me again, soft and sweet. “I love you. I love being with you. I don’t want you to feel bad, like you have to be sorry, I just want you – Deimos, I know you’ve been trying. Everything with Sach—just, everything, it’s been hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault. I know you try. I love you so much for how hard you try. I’m trying, too, okay?”
I nod, slowly, search over his face until it’s too much, until I can’t look at him anymore, I have to look at my knees.
“Last night, this morning…” He pauses, kneads his hand into my shoulder. “I just needed some time to think. And, yeah. I’ll believe Cain did it for my benefit. He’s such an asshole like that.”
Makes me try to laugh, a horrible breathless trembling, something ugly. I flinch from the noise, bury my face again, try to stop making such a terrible sound, try to hide how ugly it is. I’m supposed to be the one explaining things, I need to be the one filling the awkwardness between us with words, but he’s already done it, already explained everything for me.
“Hey,” he says. Quiet about it, scratching his fingers into my hair. “You know I love the way you sound, right? You have such a pretty voice, Deimos. Your laugh, too, it’s really pretty.”
I lift my head up, scowl at him. “Liar,” I rasp.
He looks so serious, smiling in a way that’s sad because he knows I can’t believe such a well-intended lie. He leans toward me, kisses the corner of my eye, curve of my jaw, starts to set his mouth against the side of my neck and then stops, abrupt about it, pulls away and looks contrite. He’s got his hand high on my shoulder, almost against the back of my neck, and he lowers that touch as well. Makes a fucking force-field of worry away from my throat
Scalding heat runs over my face, makes me tighten up into a furious glare. “It’s fine.” Pure mumble, my stupid little rasp slurring the words together. “Don’t have to – doesn’t bother me. It’s fine.”
“Deimos,” he says. Wounded, worried, being stupid about it because the mad dog had to go and prove a point. “You know I don’t want to hurt you.”
I huff about it, try not to be frustrated because we’re trying to be sweet, he’s trying to be nice, this is such a nice fucking moment that I’m going to make awkward if I snap at him. I lower my legs over his, unfold from my tense ball, practically crawl right up into his lap so he’ll stop looking so worried.
I take his hand, shift it right up against my neck, so he can feel me swallow. Mostly against my side, fingers curled toward the back, the round curve of his palm over my pulse. Leaves one side clear, leaves it so it isn’t what makes me nervous, because it’s a stupid fucking embarrassing thing that I’ve got to make him stop worrying about. Yeah, it makes me tense, but he’s just as tense, trying to keep still, not putting any pressure on me, one eye big and his brows wide to pull the scars beneath the patch.
“Fine,” I tell him. Maybe he can feel the little vibration of it, the hissing roughness, the ruin and ugliness. “Okay?”
I think he might not understand because of the haste with which he moves his hand away as soon as I let go. He bends his head toward me, so I lift up, eager to kiss him, but he keeps going, kisses my neck instead. “Okay,” he says. Whispering it right into my fucking pulse, lips hot, mouth eager, so it’s shivery nervousness in a good way.
I close my eyes, tilt my head back, arching my throat toward him. Imagine that he’s kissing away all the ruin even if he’s not, even if it’s still rasping and ugly when I say, “Love you.”
Makes him still for a moment, so I think maybe it came out wrong, maybe I said the wrong thing, maybe the beautiful little words were just too ugly in my voice because he’s a liar, we both know my voice isn’t pretty, both know there’s nothing pretty about a scrawny grey mouse.
At last he moves, pushes at me, hot and eager with the way he nips at me, nuzzles into the soft skin. His fingers dig into my back, bringing me toward him, puts his mouth over mine so it’s crushing and deep, brilliantly intense. He has to stop kissing me to talk, can’t quite manage it, so the words fall against my lips in pieces. “Heard you tell Cain, heard you say—“
I start to clutch back at him, push at his clothes the same way he’s pushing at mine, the two of getting hot and eager. I keep whispering at him. Now there are too many words, so that they hurt to keep inside. “It’s true,” I tell him. “I love you.”
Makes him laugh, shaky and breathless, hands trembling as he tries to work the clasp of my belt. “Stop,” he says. Playful about it, so I don’t take him seriously, know that he’s happy. “That’s too much. I won’t be able to, oh!”
Because my hands aren’t shaking, they’re down the front of his pants, making him hard and weeping with just a few little touches. “Thought you liked my voice,” I say. I sway forward, bite at his ear, get so he can really hear me, so I can drop my voice into airless hush, where it can almost sound pretty like how he thinks. “I love you. Just you. Only you.”
“Oh, fuck.” Eye wide, breathless because of me, hot and eager as he shoves at me. Gentle, always gentle, just insistent, getting me to the floor, so fast about it that I’m surprised, that I laugh and I’m too surprised to care how breathless and terrible it sounds. He’s all over me, hands and mouth, like he can’t even decide which parts of me to touch and kiss.
He figures out where he wants to be, slid low between my legs. He shucks my pants down around my knees at the same time, gets his hands under my hips and lifts me up, lifts my ass into his mouth. Slicks the entrance with his tongue, whirls the wet tip over the sensitive clench of muscle, pulls me close so I’m rested back into my shoulders, hoisted toward him and helplessly splayed for him.
His breath is hot against my skin. “Fuck, Deimos, I love you, too—“ Kisses the words into me, teasing about it at first and then hard, tongue plunging, so I gasp and squirm.
Forget I have a voice to give him, forget what I was saying earlier so I just feel it, feel warmth in my chest and heat in my dripping cock, loving him and all tangled up in desire. I want him, want more of him, but he’s giving me so much already because he’s strong enough to hold me there with one arm, resting my thighs into his shoulders so my legs are over his back, he’s got me almost all the way upside down so the angle’s deep, so he can stroke my cock at the same time, working his mouth on me.
I almost kick at him, he’s making me feel so wild and impatient. I try to find my voice again but it’s just small noises, little whimpers that make him tighten over me, almost growl into me, I can feel his teeth and, ah, I do actually kick at him a little then, squirming and gasping.
He lets me go, breathing hard and hot as he throws my weight around like it’s nothing. Gentle, maybe a little rough, so I kind of slide off him, get pushed off him, lose my pants entirely. I throw myself at him at the same time he grabs for me.
I’m trying to kiss him, hands burying into the silk-soft fall his hair. I pluck at the string of the eye patch with my fingers until it slides free, so it’s just him, nothing else between us. I bend his face to mine, and he’s trying to kiss me back, snipping with it because that’s just how it is, I’ve made him wild, waved a chair of words in his face to make the lion pounce and, oh, is it wonderful.
I’m in his lap, rolling my hips over him, he’s got his hands over the curve of my thigh, pushing me into him, so we’re just grinding together like we’ve forgotten there can be a better rhythm, a deeper connection. I shudder and writhe into him, fingers so tight through his hair I’m afraid it might be hurting him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He breaks from my lips, licks and nips beneath my jaw, teeth imprinting without sinking into the soft flesh of my neck, so I whimper and whine with a tumble of little noises.
“Oh, fuck—“ Breathes it at me, hands digging into my hips, jerking me forward to slide over his erection. We’re looking at each other, staring, chests heaving, he’s wide-eyed with lust, I’m going to fucking come all over his belly from just staring at him unless he—
I’m still wet from his mouth, tender and ready, it doesn’t take much for him to press me open with his fingers, one and then the second right away, so I’m still a little tight and hiss, arch my back and flex into his hand. I spread my knees, shift my thighs apart. I’m straddling him, braced against his shoulder. He’s sitting back, thighs spread under me, working me open fast, fumbling to get his cock lined up.
He thrusts up, I lower myself down, pressure and pushing in a way that makes my eyes roll back for a moment, makes it tight and wonderful. We’re breathing too fast and hard to kiss but sharing the same air all the same, faces close together, so I shudder around him, he shudders into me, it’s so intense.
“Aahn!” That’s me, my little cry, right over his low rumble. He stays there, sheathed into me fully, like he’s too stunned to start moving which is kind of how I feel about it. “Mmn!” Scrunch my eyes shut and arch, shift, lifting up and then back down again, the motion shaky because it’s so intense.
“Yeah, uhn!” Like he’s forgotten how words work, too, like his voice is just something broken as well. I can feel the strength of him, the heat and flex of his muscles, the way he seems to come to life beneath me and begin to move, driving up into me with slow, easy thrusts.
Being in me seems to calm him, makes him less wild, makes it so he’s just prowling at me, fiendish and oh so fucking sexy with it. He kneads at my hip, controlling the motions between us, making me sway and rock against him. “Yeah, you like that?”
I nod, tip my head back, glad he’s strong because I can’t remember how to move, I’m just feeling him all the way in me, feeling everything he’s giving me. “Mmn!”
“God, yes, like it, too. Love you.” Kisses my shoulder, bites at me, sets his teeth into me without pressure, just tasting me, rolling his hips up into me. All this strength and he’s so gentle with me.
“Nnhn—ah!” The leverage changes, the penetration is just enough different that he brushes right across where it’s white heat and, nope, I’m gone, quaking, shooting off too soon like some silly virgin.
I hear him say, “Oh, fuck, yeah, that’s so pretty, you’re so beautiful.”
That’s too much, that’s almost entirely too much, I thrash harder and jerk against him but he’s got me held, got me tight, fucking me through the helpless ecstasy, unrelenting with the slow, deep roll of him, the powerful, controlled thrusts. I sag into him, whimpering, pulling his hair, clawing at him, shivering with aftershocks, dribbling the last of my orgasm on to his belly.
He puts a hand between my shoulders to hold me upright. It’s barely anything, slow and calm, restrained, up and down motions that I feel all over. He nudges at me, so I lift my face to him, let him kiss me. He’s just as slow and thorough with the kiss as with the pumping flex and rise of his hips.
“Love you,” he says. Softly, right up against my lips, moving into me like he wants to do this for hours, like there’s no rush in the world, so unhurried when before he was being wild. And this is somehow all the more maddening for me, all the more intense, I came just a few seconds ago but it feels like we just started.
“Mmhn.” Whine it at him, nod.
He smiles, bumps his forehead into mine and holds it there, breath shivering over me. He asks, “Wanna be on top, baby? I like getting to see you.”
I nod again, slide off him slow. He lays back, lazy like getting into the sun, head still lifted so he can watch me, so I have to lean over him and push him all the way down with a kiss. I work my hands into his shoulders, massaging and rubbing so he sighs. I press my knees against his side, play his erection through my hand, stroking at him gently while I get into position. He’s watching me, eager, cock weeping, slick from being in me already.
I press down into him slow, hands resting lightly on his stomach, upright so he can see all of me. He sets his hands loose over my knees, watching, letting me bend and arch against him, watching me ride him slow and steady. I bet he expects me to be quick, bet he doesn’t think I’ve learned how to be gentle, how to draw this out and tease him. I play my hands over him, wide, smooth gestures in tandem with my hips.
“Aahn. Mmnh.” Let him know this feels good, give him all my small noises because he likes them, because they make his breath quicken and pupil darken. He brings his hips up, matching my slowness, watching me sway and roll over him. “Pah! Mmn!” I put my head back, fingers curling and scratching at him lightly.
“Oh, God.” Whispering it, reverent, watching me. He runs a hand over my leg, brushes at my stomach where it’s wet, smeared with come.
I grab his wrist, lean forward slightly as I lift his hand. Watch right back at him, let him see me put my tongue out. I close my eyes at the last second, so it’s just the taste of me on his fingertips, the salt and sharp of it, the slight sourness but the way it’s sweet. I keep sucking even when it’s just the taste of him, moving his hand into my mouth and pulling it back down again.
“Fuck, baby, yeah, you’re so—“ Strangled about it, voice tight, jerking his hips, no longer slow even though I am, I’m the one who gets to be calm now, I’m the one controlled.
I flex against him, smooth up and down motions. I let go of his hand, give it one final lick so it’s wet when he places it on my thigh again.
“Nng.” He lifts up into me. “Deimos, touch yourself, yeah? Mmn, hey?”
I shake my head, shudder around him. He’s got me hard again, I got hard sucking his hand, but him talking like that makes it worse, makes it hard to stay slow. How the hell does he always manage to be so slow? I manage somehow, rub into him, getting my whole body into the sway of it.
“I want to see you come again. Please, baby, it’s so pretty when you do.” Panting the words at me, unflinching about his eagerness.
I shake my head again. Keep rocking into him even though my thighs are starting to burn, even though I’m hot and tight all over.
“I’ll do it for you,” he says. “That okay?”
I nod, quick, ready, eager. I gasp when he touches me, strokes at me. Teasing at first, slow, so I lift and lower, ride him faster, and he responds, gets his big hand over me fully, pumps. Runs his thumb over the slit, slicking me, making me shudder and hitch little noises at him. I move up and down, press my hand into his arm for balance. Getting faster, I have no idea how he keeps so slow all the time, I’m aching deep inside and it’s building again, coiling heat, getting tight.
“Uhn, Deimos! Fuck, yeah, God, yes, baby, just like that you’re so—“ I can hear his jaw clench, the strain of it. I’m got him close and he’s trying to get me off first, doesn’t want to go until I do, so it sparks something in me, makes it a challenge.
I grind down on him, tip forward. Push and rock, forward at him. Want to smile and be playful, face flushed and heated all over, warm and wanting him to know why. “Luhh—“ Fuck, that’s not talking, that’s rattling, wheezing, my stupid ugly voice is too raspy, too wrecked. I lean back quickly, fake like maybe I wasn’t trying to say anything at all, heart thumping, rock into him faster so he won’t notice.
“Ah, baby, love you, too,” he says. So he heard me after all, found something pretty in it. He rolls his shoulders against the floor, flexes and shifts, shudders. The motion of his hand over my cock loses its rhythm as he gives it up first, I guess I sent him over anyway, so he’s filling me with heat all over, not just with the buck of his hips but also into the racing beat of my heart.
“Aahn! Saah!” Hissing, gasping, getting nothing out but trying anyway, “So! Ah!”
“Yeah, fuck, so good!” Groaned out from the shaking way he’s locked in climax. He pumps at me quick, remembering his hand, how hard I am, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m right behind him, spilling over his belly for a second time, tumbling forward over his chest at the same time, just a shaking little thing against him, unable to keep myself upright and wanting to feel him all over me.
He lets me huddle into him, puts arm around me to hold me there, both of us rolling through the last of the orgasm and breathing hard. I nuzzle into his shoulder, nudge him with my nose, hum a little from deep in my throat. He nods, pulls his trapped hand out from between us and wipes it on the edge of the blanket. I’m trembling a while afterward, even when his breathing slows, the thump of his heart beneath my ear is slow, when he runs his hand over my back slow and steady. He lets me press against him, he’s still inside me, so close together that he’s everything.
Eventually I push myself upright and he slips free of me with a little sigh, sounding content about it, satisfied and replete, lazy with the way he kisses my shoulder. He cups my face for a moment, brushes at my bangs. “Was that all okay?” he asks.
I stare at him until it makes him look almost embarrassed. He turns away to hunt for the pieces of our uniforms, to start sorting out mine from his. After a moment he talks again, without looking at me, trying to sound casual. “It’s just, I want to make sure – I mean, Deimos, I want you to enjoy yourself.”
I stare at him more, accept the pieces of my uniform and start putting them on slow.
When I don’t respond, it makes him ramble. “It’s only because you’re so good, you know? And I, it isn’t like I haven’t before, I have, it’s just, it’s different with you. I want you to like it. I want to do things you like.”
And I realize what he’s trying to say without saying it, calling me good when he means I’m a whore, when he means how I’ve been a slut on my knees enough times that he knows it, can tell I know my way around a dick, how I can swallow without flinching and let him go as fast or slow as he likes without getting hurt. Bright, hot, terrible heat, all over my face and ears, I’m burning with shame and have to stare at my socks like they’ve become foreign objects, like I don’t know how to put them on my feet but I sure as hell know how to bend over and take it up the ass.
“Deimos?” Noticing that I’ve gone quiet and still, sounding concerned about it. “Hey, what is it? Was it not okay? Did you not like that?”
I shake my head. Whisper, very small, not caring that it’s rasping. “Liked it fine.”
“What’s wrong? What did—? Baby, I’m sorry.” He gets up close to me, puts his big hand over my little one. “I wish you were my first, okay? I didn’t mean—“
Sudden, flinching silence, so he’s probably figured out that he sure as hell isn’t my first and we both know it. “Oh, Deimos, honey, no, you know I don’t care about that. Honest, it doesn’t matter to me. You make me feel good, okay? That’s all I meant by that. I just want to do the same back to you, make you feel good, too. I want to see you start smiling again, like you were before, oh, baby, you were so happy earlier, please.”
He rambles about it, pets at me, scoops me into his lap and holds me, kisses at me. I’m just some stupid slutty mouse in his arms, sulky and cold, unresisting but unyielding all the same. “Please don’t think that about yourself, okay? You’re good, baby, I mean that. You’re hot, yeah, the sex is great, but you’re also just a good person. You make me really happy, Deimos.”
I bring my eyes up, look at him. Search at him, pleading without words because I’m scared to see he’s lying, maybe scared more to see him think it’s the truth.
He’s so serious, expression soft and anxious, honest all the way through. “Hey,” he says gently. He puts his fingers through my bangs, pulling them aside. “It’s different, right? With me.”
My brow works into a frown. I don’t really understand, but I nod anyway.
“It’s because I love you. And you love me. So, that makes it different.” He gives me a soft smile, and it pulls my mouth into one as well. I duck my face, try to hide by turning my head to the side. He laughs slightly, cups my cheek and urges me back around to look at him. “I do love you, very much. I guess it’s a bit stupid to ask if it was okay when you came twice.”
It just bursts out of me, breathless and rasping, my stupid ugly laugh. I flinch back, try to get my hand over my mouth, try to stop myself, but he laughs as well. “Now you’ll be expecting three every time. You’ll wear me out.”
And I can’t stop laughing because he won’t stop, so I have to kiss him, throw my arms over his neck and squeeze tight until he’s quiet, until it’s silence. Kiss him until it’s all together different breathless little noises we’re making, until we either have to quit or start taking off our clothes again.
We finished getting dressed, pick up the area some because we like to pretend it’s ours just because no one else ever comes here. He kisses me again, just quick and sweet, saying goodbye even though we hold hands in the lift, even though I press up against him a bit too close while he keys open the dorm door.
There are two mattresses pushed together on the floor and a pale rolled up lump against the wall waiting for us, so we lay down and get comfortable, tangle together and fall asleep that way, wake up that way. Pressed together, he’s close and warm, I know he’s awake and he knows I’m awake but we pretend to be asleep just a little longer, wanting to stay together like this because that’s just the way it is.
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Tomoscloud made a music video for this fic!