Cylical Part 1/?
Title: Cylical
Rating: T
Pairing: Adam/Lucas
Warnings: Slash
Summery: Adam and Lucas are both trying to put themselves back together
Disclaimer: I do not own Spooks.
It takes months for Lucas to notice, months for his hunger for Adam’s skin, his whole skin pressed against as much of Lucas’s as possible, to build to such a crescendo that he even notices it, Lucas has hungered for human touch for so long he almost forgot he was missing it and it is months, months of hot wet mouths, dark corners, desperation, and not enough time, for him to realize he still is hungry.
He realizes this trapped in one of the long briefing meetings he both loves and hates for their soothing organization of facts, motives, and people, and the knowledge that he hated them eight years age.
So when Adam lays out the plan, him as bait, Lucas as backup, for an elaborate underground sting operation on an English white slave trafficking ring, Lucas realizes, watching the tendons in Adam’s forearms flex as his passes out schedules, that he still wants Adam’s skin, not just hot and hard in his hand, but silk smooth with muscles rippling underneath. And as he sits there at this table, reeling from an anagnorisis no one else can understand, Lucas turns away from the big screen he is only just accustoming himself to and wonders that no one bats an eye at the plan, which sends their brilliant leader careening into danger with just Lucas, who questions his sanity every day, who can’t shower, who needs to be reminded to eat, to watch his back. No one, Ros, Harry, Jo, no one considers the manic glint in Adam’s eyes to be anything but normal.
So it takes all of Lucas’s finely honed control to sit and wait and let the briefing draw to its natural end, but he got good at waiting while he rotted and Russia, so he manages to mostly focus on the proceedings and not on the fact he let Adam down too, he didn’t notice and he had so much more reason to, because he doesn’t trust Adam, had viewed him with the same fear-suspicion he held everyone in during those first weeks, and now he sought desperate absolution in the tender skin below Adam’s ear and in his harsh gasps and somehow Lucas feels like he is letting Adam down. It makes him angry because, well, he doesn’t love Adam, he isn’t sure he even likes him, he certainly doesn’t trust him but he thinks he might need him and that makes Lucas shaky and terrified and furious.
Now, bending over the sink in the large empty bathroom of Thames House, Lucas understands better and worse, he knows why Adam is so painfully magnetic, tugging at the sharp fragments of his psyche so they prick at his skull, that tiny pain layered on top of all the others is almost unbearable.
Except sometimes in the quiet silence on a stakeout or in the gasping second when Adam rests his forehead against Lucas’s collarbone and breathes, eyes shut tightly, Adam’s pull aligns the pieces into parallel lines that don’t push memories at him or rub abrasively against his rawness or each other and he can forget this new terrifying world which is so much bigger then his suffocating dark cell.
Adam has secrets darker and messier then most agents squirreled away in the recesses of his mind, in the long corridor of cells everyone is this business has. But Adam’s inmates scream and rage until their voices are rough and harsh. They push Adam to take the most dangerous jobs, to smirk at men with guns, to crack jokes when his ribs already are busted, to drive cars with bombs at breakneck paces away from civilians. In short, they make Adam as brilliant as he is, as fearless as he is, because a part of him, real part, wants to die, to see if that will make it quiet. Lucas can tell, now that he is paying attention, that they, the memories, demons, thoughts, are always there buzzing and thrusting and never quite ignored.
Lucas thinks maybe they are what Adam hears when he buries his face desperately in the crook of Lucas’s neck. Lucas thinks maybe sometimes he makes Adam as peaceful as Adam does him. Lucas thinks maybe he and Adam are a little more similar then he wants them to be. Lucas thinks maybe Adam’s demons have him more firmly then anyone could possibly imagine.
Lucas thinks these things because since he noticed he has been going back over every interaction they had and he is a dismayed and disgusted to learn that his mind has been cataloging their times together more precisely then he was aware of.
Lucas has been fitting pieces together, how the shirt that Adam has tacitly lent him when he got back, (Lucas had only known it was Adam’s because the faint smell) fit his malnourished frame, the way he let totally unknown and traumatized Lucas tag along on his delicate mission, how no one is really aware of the quiet way he looks after all of them as so much more than a boss, but too distant for a friend.
Lucas remembers Adam vividly from those first few hours when the sights and smells were so strong and new that they hurt and he almost wished for his cell because after 16 months, 1 week, and 4 days he had made himself numb, and chips were so hot that they hurt his mouth and didn’t occur to him that he could slow down and wait for them to cool, that his food was safe, until Adam grinned and with smooth ease, idly shook the chip Lucas had offered him until it cooled and then popped it in his mouth. Lucas thinks he may have loved in him that moment or he may have hated him.
Lucas isn’t any less sure now, now that he understands he isn’t the most damaged goods at Thames House, which is horrible to contemplate because still hasn’t managed to sleep on a bed and running water for tea still makes his hands shake. That’s why he hates Adam a little now, not only for deluding him so effectively but for having perfected his disguise so well. Lucas is still so raw and Adam is so smooth, concrete over fissures instead of tissue paper over cracks.
The worst part, Lucas thinks examining himself in the mirror, is the others take their cue from him, so somehow Malcolm knows not to ask him to make tea and no on reacts when his mask slips and his apathy or his bitterness or his anger rise to mark his face.
Lucas hates Adam for understanding, for being able to empathize with the trauma, hates him for not telling Lucas, hates him because all Lucas really knows is that there is an aching screaming vacuum of pain hovering under the delicate skin below Adam’s eyes that his has pressed open mouthed kisses into. But he doesn’t know the details and in this game that is their lives he can’t feel safe like that. Worst all of all, however, Lucas hates Adam the most not for his betrayal or for shaking Lucas’ tiny new world but for wanting to self destruct so badly while they all hang their hopes on him.
Because Adam is the bright light they all revolve around, Adam is pulling Jo back from the brink, and still handling the toughest assignments and quietly reminding Harry of his real mission even when Harry doesn’t want it and always, always, stopping Harry before he makes a choice he can’t live with and somehow Wes is this tiny happy thing whose father hugs him and smiles and no one, not even Lucas, notices what an effort it is, the way Adam’s consciously fidgets or smiles so when they catch him still and wary the team, trained for intelligence work, can ignore their boss sitting beside them bleeding and in pieces.
Except now Lucas has noticed, and he is a Spook so he needs all the facts and he knows he doesn’t have them and he ignores a tiny thread of fear being spun in his head as he considers how vulnerable he must be if Adam took him in so well and how he is already more deeply invested then he wants to be because a part of him shudders away from laying Adam bare, because he knows, with the same surety that he knows this of himself, that letting all the demons out of their boxes might break Adam and he doesn’t want to do that, isn’t sure he can do that.
And suddenly Lucas is angry at Adam again, angry at him for making all of them need him so much and still wanting to die (even though he isn’t sure Adam is even aware consciously of that anymore, wear mask long enough and sometimes you forget it’s a mask).
He is angry at him for still sealing himself up like this because he can either need to be needed or he can want to die, but when he does both he sets them all up to fall and Lucas is so furious at Adam for putting him here in this position that he doesn’t process the presence walking down that hall, until Adam is pushing in door of the bathroom open and stepping up to the sink next to Lucas and Lucas is just madder that Adam barely turns on the faucet so it doesn’t gush and he doesn’t shake and doesn’t feel memories pushing up and he doesn’t want to be so pathetically grateful to Adam.
His resentment means he is angry when he spins Adam around, angry when he kisses him, hard and vicious and his mood is not tempered by the way Adam leans into his force making tiny needy sounds because either Adam wants to be hurt or is willing to let Lucas hurt him and neither of those is acceptable and Lucas acknowledges that he probably does like Adam since he cares this much but that doesn’t really change anything, does it?
Still seething, Lucas spins them both, mouth still locked against Adam’s, one hand at the back of his neck pressing Adam into him, refusing to let him dictate when they come up to air, the other arm wrapped around the small of his back, his whole forearm pressing into the slight curve and his hand curled around Adam’s waist, and of course, Lucas gets it now, why the shirt fit, why Adam is always offering food, stealing food, ordering food, but never quite eating it, because it would be stupid for a spook like Adam who runs into danger faster then he runs away from it to be well nourished. Russian prison could strip him of everything but his sense of irony apparently.
Lucas nearly pulls his mouth away to laugh at the idea of Adam being either stupid or safe, but Lucas can feel the jut of Adam’s ribs, oddly fragile under his fingers, through Adam’s shirt and he gentles the kiss just a little, but makes up for it by slamming Adam back against the wall. He knows Adam will bruise, he knows that the wind was knocked out of him, because Lucas felt the air rush into his mouth from Adam’s lungs but he keeps kissing him for a moment, just to impress on him that he can’t take Lucas’ control from him (but hadn’t he already?) No, Lucas still had his power, (doesn’t he?) He was one in control of the situation, Adam had nothing, no escape with Lucas smothering him with his lips and his body, if Adam were to struggle, his gestures would be meaningless…
Lucas yanks his mouth away, breathing high and fast because he isn’t-he doesn’t--- Lucas will not go back to that dark room and the line of men and the terrible chance that it might be him next, he might be chosen. So Lucas grabs Adam’s collar and yanks it down, feeling the cloth pull tight under his hand still grasping the back of Adam’s neck. He press his mouth hard into the juncture between Adam’s neck and shoulder, biting and licking and sucking until the desperate scent of Adam overwhelms the memories and bruises rise up under Adam’s skin.
But as he starts to move his mouth downward, Adam does what he always does and Lucas’s stomach churns with rage and fear and horror and how-had-he-not-noticed- before as Adam dips his head under Lucas’s, shirt pulling tighter, chafing his neck, and now it is Adam’s turn to press kisses like benedictions, warm and soft into Lucas’ neck, sliding his hands down Lucas’ body. And, fuck, but no! This is not happening again, Adam doesn’t get to hide and distract and fucking take it like always. Lucas knows it’s really bad when he is the more stable one in this twisted relationship.
So he pulls back gasping and shaking and suddenly aware that there are eyes everywhere in Thames House, and this is certainly neither to time nor the place to confront Adam like this. Lucas knows that Adam will never risk ripping open old scars on the grid where his people and his enemies can see his blood splatter on the white porcelain of the men’s room and Lucas doesn’t want him to.
So he takes a step back and then another from the pull of Adam’s skin, which promises warmth and pleasure, not just the absence of pain, but pleasure, and best of all, sometimes escape and forgetfulness before they must jerk their pants up and step away from the wall or the doorframe or the table and return to their lives. Except sometimes, when Adam stays the night, always at Lucas’s and then they both tumble into bed already sated, because Adam was so impatient never waiting to get to the bed, never waiting for all the clothes to be off, and Lucas hates to admit, even to himself, that he can only sleep on a mattress when Adam is there.
Lucas promised himself at the end of his first year as a Spook that he would always be honest with himself, and that has kept him alive thus far. So he accepts this odd, unexpected tenderness for Adam because to deny it would be foolish, so he doesn’t speak as Adam pulls himself together, he doesn’t comment on how wide Adam’s pupils have blown or how his hands shake as he pulls his collar up over reddened skin and he doesn’t ask the questions he feels the need to answer so desperately.
He lets Adam remain in the one box Lucas hates to fill, the box that makes his flesh crawl beneath his skin because he isn’t safe, he isn’t in control, and that could shatter him. Lucas slides Adam into his mental file labeled unknown quantity and wonders if lying to himself might have actually compromised him less then breaking the rules that kept him alive through the cold and the starvation and the water on his face of the last eight years.
“This is neither the time nor the place” Adam murmurs, voice rough. “We’ve got…We’ve got to…tomorrow…” He trails off and Lucas understands, tomorrow they are going on a perilous undercover mission, one wrong look or move and Adam is probably dead and their chance to stop large men stealing children and street people from their lives and selling them for sex is gone.
The sensible thing, the safe thing to do, would be to bury this, to repress it, as they both do so well, but there will always be another operation, and playing it safe is something Adam has ever done and Lucas doesn’t know what safe is anymore and they both feel themselves crossing a line as they exit the bathroom and walk down to the car park elbows brushing occasionally.
Lucas drives for once. Normally when they do this he is clawing his way back to breaking point from the wrong side in the passenger seat or Adam shows up at his door, eyes dark and hands desperate, and Lucas is a little comforted to be reminded that Adam need this, whatever it is or them he supposes, too.
But Lucas drives and he can feel Adam thinking and he stifles a grin when he feels Adam realize that Lucas has seen through his cover. He is still a little angry after all. His amusement vanishes though as he senses the panic coursing through Adam in palpable waves, and Lucas knows that if he were to turn his head, Adam’s face would be totally blank.
This excessively neutral expression is the one Adam wears only in great crisis; when Lucas sees now, his façade is cracking and Adam can’t risk anyone seeing the darkness and cold reverberating through him, he can’t risk being vulnerable in the same way Lucas can’t and suddenly he feels oddly warm at the thought that Adam is sacrificing just as much for this thing that they have, maybe even more.
But the emotion is fleeting and unidentifiable and Lucas instead chooses to focus on the whys and hows and whos of Adam’s waking and sleeping nightmares because these night terrors are clearly a lot more then he assumed.
Every Spook has nightmares; it comes with the job, like the loneliness and the danger. So Lucas had mostly dismissed Adam’s as nothing outside the ordinary because Adam Carter shone too brightly to be as twisted and dirty and damaged as him.
Adam’s nightmares are utterly silent affairs that Lucas noticed first because the novelty of a warm body beside him held him awake for hours at once satisfied and fearful, and later when sleep claimed him because sleep was easier near Adam, and he grew accustomed to Adam’s presence his old instincts woke him just as surely when Adam tensed and grew utterly still in his sleep, face hard and tight and betraying nothing. Lucas would lie next to him, sometimes watching sometimes just feeling the tiny quakes of Adam’s body as they started then rose to a crescendo.
When Adam woke, Lucas would fain sleep, a skill he developed to perfection in Moscow, where surprise could keep you alive. Sometimes Adam just watched him, unconsciously mirroring Lucas, other times he left, totally silent and padded Lucas’ living room to read one to random books he had picked up when his neighbor commented on how bare the apartment was and he remember that he owned things now and Lucas pretended he could sleep alone.
But rarest of all, on bad nights, Adam who slide just a little closer, whisper in Arabic, voice hot and tight and an utterly incomprehensible confession to Lucas who knew nothing of the language. The last night Adam had done this whispering and shaking for hours until his voice grew rough and hoarse, Lucas had “woken” and fucked him, hard and forceful, and had happened to collapse, sweaty and calmer, next to Adam, shoulder brushing through Adam’s long sleeved cotton shirt and one arm carelessly flung over his chest. Neither commented when he didn’t move, just because neither lied to themselves didn’t mean they couldn’t try to lie to the other.
Rating: T
Pairing: Adam/Lucas
Warnings: Slash
Summery: Adam and Lucas are both trying to put themselves back together
Disclaimer: I do not own Spooks.
It takes months for Lucas to notice, months for his hunger for Adam’s skin, his whole skin pressed against as much of Lucas’s as possible, to build to such a crescendo that he even notices it, Lucas has hungered for human touch for so long he almost forgot he was missing it and it is months, months of hot wet mouths, dark corners, desperation, and not enough time, for him to realize he still is hungry.
He realizes this trapped in one of the long briefing meetings he both loves and hates for their soothing organization of facts, motives, and people, and the knowledge that he hated them eight years age.
So when Adam lays out the plan, him as bait, Lucas as backup, for an elaborate underground sting operation on an English white slave trafficking ring, Lucas realizes, watching the tendons in Adam’s forearms flex as his passes out schedules, that he still wants Adam’s skin, not just hot and hard in his hand, but silk smooth with muscles rippling underneath. And as he sits there at this table, reeling from an anagnorisis no one else can understand, Lucas turns away from the big screen he is only just accustoming himself to and wonders that no one bats an eye at the plan, which sends their brilliant leader careening into danger with just Lucas, who questions his sanity every day, who can’t shower, who needs to be reminded to eat, to watch his back. No one, Ros, Harry, Jo, no one considers the manic glint in Adam’s eyes to be anything but normal.
So it takes all of Lucas’s finely honed control to sit and wait and let the briefing draw to its natural end, but he got good at waiting while he rotted and Russia, so he manages to mostly focus on the proceedings and not on the fact he let Adam down too, he didn’t notice and he had so much more reason to, because he doesn’t trust Adam, had viewed him with the same fear-suspicion he held everyone in during those first weeks, and now he sought desperate absolution in the tender skin below Adam’s ear and in his harsh gasps and somehow Lucas feels like he is letting Adam down. It makes him angry because, well, he doesn’t love Adam, he isn’t sure he even likes him, he certainly doesn’t trust him but he thinks he might need him and that makes Lucas shaky and terrified and furious.
Now, bending over the sink in the large empty bathroom of Thames House, Lucas understands better and worse, he knows why Adam is so painfully magnetic, tugging at the sharp fragments of his psyche so they prick at his skull, that tiny pain layered on top of all the others is almost unbearable.
Except sometimes in the quiet silence on a stakeout or in the gasping second when Adam rests his forehead against Lucas’s collarbone and breathes, eyes shut tightly, Adam’s pull aligns the pieces into parallel lines that don’t push memories at him or rub abrasively against his rawness or each other and he can forget this new terrifying world which is so much bigger then his suffocating dark cell.
Adam has secrets darker and messier then most agents squirreled away in the recesses of his mind, in the long corridor of cells everyone is this business has. But Adam’s inmates scream and rage until their voices are rough and harsh. They push Adam to take the most dangerous jobs, to smirk at men with guns, to crack jokes when his ribs already are busted, to drive cars with bombs at breakneck paces away from civilians. In short, they make Adam as brilliant as he is, as fearless as he is, because a part of him, real part, wants to die, to see if that will make it quiet. Lucas can tell, now that he is paying attention, that they, the memories, demons, thoughts, are always there buzzing and thrusting and never quite ignored.
Lucas thinks maybe they are what Adam hears when he buries his face desperately in the crook of Lucas’s neck. Lucas thinks maybe sometimes he makes Adam as peaceful as Adam does him. Lucas thinks maybe he and Adam are a little more similar then he wants them to be. Lucas thinks maybe Adam’s demons have him more firmly then anyone could possibly imagine.
Lucas thinks these things because since he noticed he has been going back over every interaction they had and he is a dismayed and disgusted to learn that his mind has been cataloging their times together more precisely then he was aware of.
Lucas has been fitting pieces together, how the shirt that Adam has tacitly lent him when he got back, (Lucas had only known it was Adam’s because the faint smell) fit his malnourished frame, the way he let totally unknown and traumatized Lucas tag along on his delicate mission, how no one is really aware of the quiet way he looks after all of them as so much more than a boss, but too distant for a friend.
Lucas remembers Adam vividly from those first few hours when the sights and smells were so strong and new that they hurt and he almost wished for his cell because after 16 months, 1 week, and 4 days he had made himself numb, and chips were so hot that they hurt his mouth and didn’t occur to him that he could slow down and wait for them to cool, that his food was safe, until Adam grinned and with smooth ease, idly shook the chip Lucas had offered him until it cooled and then popped it in his mouth. Lucas thinks he may have loved in him that moment or he may have hated him.
Lucas isn’t any less sure now, now that he understands he isn’t the most damaged goods at Thames House, which is horrible to contemplate because still hasn’t managed to sleep on a bed and running water for tea still makes his hands shake. That’s why he hates Adam a little now, not only for deluding him so effectively but for having perfected his disguise so well. Lucas is still so raw and Adam is so smooth, concrete over fissures instead of tissue paper over cracks.
The worst part, Lucas thinks examining himself in the mirror, is the others take their cue from him, so somehow Malcolm knows not to ask him to make tea and no on reacts when his mask slips and his apathy or his bitterness or his anger rise to mark his face.
Lucas hates Adam for understanding, for being able to empathize with the trauma, hates him for not telling Lucas, hates him because all Lucas really knows is that there is an aching screaming vacuum of pain hovering under the delicate skin below Adam’s eyes that his has pressed open mouthed kisses into. But he doesn’t know the details and in this game that is their lives he can’t feel safe like that. Worst all of all, however, Lucas hates Adam the most not for his betrayal or for shaking Lucas’ tiny new world but for wanting to self destruct so badly while they all hang their hopes on him.
Because Adam is the bright light they all revolve around, Adam is pulling Jo back from the brink, and still handling the toughest assignments and quietly reminding Harry of his real mission even when Harry doesn’t want it and always, always, stopping Harry before he makes a choice he can’t live with and somehow Wes is this tiny happy thing whose father hugs him and smiles and no one, not even Lucas, notices what an effort it is, the way Adam’s consciously fidgets or smiles so when they catch him still and wary the team, trained for intelligence work, can ignore their boss sitting beside them bleeding and in pieces.
Except now Lucas has noticed, and he is a Spook so he needs all the facts and he knows he doesn’t have them and he ignores a tiny thread of fear being spun in his head as he considers how vulnerable he must be if Adam took him in so well and how he is already more deeply invested then he wants to be because a part of him shudders away from laying Adam bare, because he knows, with the same surety that he knows this of himself, that letting all the demons out of their boxes might break Adam and he doesn’t want to do that, isn’t sure he can do that.
And suddenly Lucas is angry at Adam again, angry at him for making all of them need him so much and still wanting to die (even though he isn’t sure Adam is even aware consciously of that anymore, wear mask long enough and sometimes you forget it’s a mask).
He is angry at him for still sealing himself up like this because he can either need to be needed or he can want to die, but when he does both he sets them all up to fall and Lucas is so furious at Adam for putting him here in this position that he doesn’t process the presence walking down that hall, until Adam is pushing in door of the bathroom open and stepping up to the sink next to Lucas and Lucas is just madder that Adam barely turns on the faucet so it doesn’t gush and he doesn’t shake and doesn’t feel memories pushing up and he doesn’t want to be so pathetically grateful to Adam.
His resentment means he is angry when he spins Adam around, angry when he kisses him, hard and vicious and his mood is not tempered by the way Adam leans into his force making tiny needy sounds because either Adam wants to be hurt or is willing to let Lucas hurt him and neither of those is acceptable and Lucas acknowledges that he probably does like Adam since he cares this much but that doesn’t really change anything, does it?
Still seething, Lucas spins them both, mouth still locked against Adam’s, one hand at the back of his neck pressing Adam into him, refusing to let him dictate when they come up to air, the other arm wrapped around the small of his back, his whole forearm pressing into the slight curve and his hand curled around Adam’s waist, and of course, Lucas gets it now, why the shirt fit, why Adam is always offering food, stealing food, ordering food, but never quite eating it, because it would be stupid for a spook like Adam who runs into danger faster then he runs away from it to be well nourished. Russian prison could strip him of everything but his sense of irony apparently.
Lucas nearly pulls his mouth away to laugh at the idea of Adam being either stupid or safe, but Lucas can feel the jut of Adam’s ribs, oddly fragile under his fingers, through Adam’s shirt and he gentles the kiss just a little, but makes up for it by slamming Adam back against the wall. He knows Adam will bruise, he knows that the wind was knocked out of him, because Lucas felt the air rush into his mouth from Adam’s lungs but he keeps kissing him for a moment, just to impress on him that he can’t take Lucas’ control from him (but hadn’t he already?) No, Lucas still had his power, (doesn’t he?) He was one in control of the situation, Adam had nothing, no escape with Lucas smothering him with his lips and his body, if Adam were to struggle, his gestures would be meaningless…
Lucas yanks his mouth away, breathing high and fast because he isn’t-he doesn’t--- Lucas will not go back to that dark room and the line of men and the terrible chance that it might be him next, he might be chosen. So Lucas grabs Adam’s collar and yanks it down, feeling the cloth pull tight under his hand still grasping the back of Adam’s neck. He press his mouth hard into the juncture between Adam’s neck and shoulder, biting and licking and sucking until the desperate scent of Adam overwhelms the memories and bruises rise up under Adam’s skin.
But as he starts to move his mouth downward, Adam does what he always does and Lucas’s stomach churns with rage and fear and horror and how-had-he-not-noticed- before as Adam dips his head under Lucas’s, shirt pulling tighter, chafing his neck, and now it is Adam’s turn to press kisses like benedictions, warm and soft into Lucas’ neck, sliding his hands down Lucas’ body. And, fuck, but no! This is not happening again, Adam doesn’t get to hide and distract and fucking take it like always. Lucas knows it’s really bad when he is the more stable one in this twisted relationship.
So he pulls back gasping and shaking and suddenly aware that there are eyes everywhere in Thames House, and this is certainly neither to time nor the place to confront Adam like this. Lucas knows that Adam will never risk ripping open old scars on the grid where his people and his enemies can see his blood splatter on the white porcelain of the men’s room and Lucas doesn’t want him to.
So he takes a step back and then another from the pull of Adam’s skin, which promises warmth and pleasure, not just the absence of pain, but pleasure, and best of all, sometimes escape and forgetfulness before they must jerk their pants up and step away from the wall or the doorframe or the table and return to their lives. Except sometimes, when Adam stays the night, always at Lucas’s and then they both tumble into bed already sated, because Adam was so impatient never waiting to get to the bed, never waiting for all the clothes to be off, and Lucas hates to admit, even to himself, that he can only sleep on a mattress when Adam is there.
Lucas promised himself at the end of his first year as a Spook that he would always be honest with himself, and that has kept him alive thus far. So he accepts this odd, unexpected tenderness for Adam because to deny it would be foolish, so he doesn’t speak as Adam pulls himself together, he doesn’t comment on how wide Adam’s pupils have blown or how his hands shake as he pulls his collar up over reddened skin and he doesn’t ask the questions he feels the need to answer so desperately.
He lets Adam remain in the one box Lucas hates to fill, the box that makes his flesh crawl beneath his skin because he isn’t safe, he isn’t in control, and that could shatter him. Lucas slides Adam into his mental file labeled unknown quantity and wonders if lying to himself might have actually compromised him less then breaking the rules that kept him alive through the cold and the starvation and the water on his face of the last eight years.
“This is neither the time nor the place” Adam murmurs, voice rough. “We’ve got…We’ve got to…tomorrow…” He trails off and Lucas understands, tomorrow they are going on a perilous undercover mission, one wrong look or move and Adam is probably dead and their chance to stop large men stealing children and street people from their lives and selling them for sex is gone.
The sensible thing, the safe thing to do, would be to bury this, to repress it, as they both do so well, but there will always be another operation, and playing it safe is something Adam has ever done and Lucas doesn’t know what safe is anymore and they both feel themselves crossing a line as they exit the bathroom and walk down to the car park elbows brushing occasionally.
Lucas drives for once. Normally when they do this he is clawing his way back to breaking point from the wrong side in the passenger seat or Adam shows up at his door, eyes dark and hands desperate, and Lucas is a little comforted to be reminded that Adam need this, whatever it is or them he supposes, too.
But Lucas drives and he can feel Adam thinking and he stifles a grin when he feels Adam realize that Lucas has seen through his cover. He is still a little angry after all. His amusement vanishes though as he senses the panic coursing through Adam in palpable waves, and Lucas knows that if he were to turn his head, Adam’s face would be totally blank.
This excessively neutral expression is the one Adam wears only in great crisis; when Lucas sees now, his façade is cracking and Adam can’t risk anyone seeing the darkness and cold reverberating through him, he can’t risk being vulnerable in the same way Lucas can’t and suddenly he feels oddly warm at the thought that Adam is sacrificing just as much for this thing that they have, maybe even more.
But the emotion is fleeting and unidentifiable and Lucas instead chooses to focus on the whys and hows and whos of Adam’s waking and sleeping nightmares because these night terrors are clearly a lot more then he assumed.
Every Spook has nightmares; it comes with the job, like the loneliness and the danger. So Lucas had mostly dismissed Adam’s as nothing outside the ordinary because Adam Carter shone too brightly to be as twisted and dirty and damaged as him.
Adam’s nightmares are utterly silent affairs that Lucas noticed first because the novelty of a warm body beside him held him awake for hours at once satisfied and fearful, and later when sleep claimed him because sleep was easier near Adam, and he grew accustomed to Adam’s presence his old instincts woke him just as surely when Adam tensed and grew utterly still in his sleep, face hard and tight and betraying nothing. Lucas would lie next to him, sometimes watching sometimes just feeling the tiny quakes of Adam’s body as they started then rose to a crescendo.
When Adam woke, Lucas would fain sleep, a skill he developed to perfection in Moscow, where surprise could keep you alive. Sometimes Adam just watched him, unconsciously mirroring Lucas, other times he left, totally silent and padded Lucas’ living room to read one to random books he had picked up when his neighbor commented on how bare the apartment was and he remember that he owned things now and Lucas pretended he could sleep alone.
But rarest of all, on bad nights, Adam who slide just a little closer, whisper in Arabic, voice hot and tight and an utterly incomprehensible confession to Lucas who knew nothing of the language. The last night Adam had done this whispering and shaking for hours until his voice grew rough and hoarse, Lucas had “woken” and fucked him, hard and forceful, and had happened to collapse, sweaty and calmer, next to Adam, shoulder brushing through Adam’s long sleeved cotton shirt and one arm carelessly flung over his chest. Neither commented when he didn’t move, just because neither lied to themselves didn’t mean they couldn’t try to lie to the other.