I'm runing out of clever Saturday headers...
Got it done a little earlier than promised through determination, guilt over that cliffhanger, and a 41 ounce bag of Skittles that's now missing all the reds and purples. <3
Links to past chapters found on The Masterlist.
Title: Next Saturday
Chapter: 9/?.........Real
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Dave/Hal
Spoilers: MGS1 and MGS2
Summery: There's only so far two men can bend. What happens when they break?
Ever since that first hint of real attraction set in-loving the man instead of just the idea-Hal always thought that if it ever actually happened it would feel like a dream. Constant second guessing, wondering if it was real... never being able to fully give in because it would simply be too good to be true.
He was glad, happy, elated, that it wasn't the case.
"Mph, wait," the hacker leaned back and looked at his partner seriously. "What I was going to say, um..."
Dave just grinned that sexy, cocky grin, ran his hand down the other man's arm, and replied, "I think I get the picture."
And then it was the stubble scraping against his face, the strong arms holding him tight, the hard thighs he was straddling, the meeting of tongues and lips that left them both gasping. It was the touch, the heat, and the hunger he'd been imagining and so much more.
Nothing, he thought as a strong hand tightened in his hair, crushing their mouths together with even more delicious force, nothing this good could ever be a dream.
~~*~~
David pulled Hal closer until their chests and stomachs and hips were pressed tight. He put everything he had into that searing kiss: the nights spent lying right beside the other man; the days spent stealing touches and glances; the loneliness that never really bothered him until he met this man who cared so damn much that it seeped through the tiny cracks in the soldier's iron defenses. All of it hit him at the same time. Including his conscious.
It was David's turn to pull away. "Wait, Hal, you can't, I don't-"
"I will find a way to hurt you," the hacker all but snarled before grabbing his partner's face with both hands and crashing their mouths back together.
Dave stopped second guessing himself. He stopped rationalizing. He stopped worrying about what he did or didn't deserve. Hal, his Hal, knew everything and yet the man was still straddling his lap, clinging to him like he was the last stable thing left on the planet, kissing him breathless with incredible enthusiasm.
I sure as hell don't deserve this, but who am I to argue with a certified genius? he thought with a grin as he moved his hand down to squeeze the programmer's thigh. Encouraged by the soft sigh, David grabbed Hal's ass. The hacker buried his face in the other man's neck with a groan and started biting and sucking, earning an answering rumbling growl. The soldier slid his fingertips under the denim waistband and rubbed in slow circles as his throat was attacked.
Dave let the other man make hickeys for a couple minutes, then he stopped being passive by pulling Hal's hips roughly forwards. Another moan from the hacker, that sexy curve of his spine, and then they were staring into each other's smoldering eyes.
"David?"
"Mmm?"
"Do you have any more condoms?"
The question was asked with no faltering stammers, no embarrassed blushes, no nervous looking away. Hal's tone was up front, serious, and just the sound of it made Dave all the harder. He gave the hacker one last kiss, and then another, and another until finally he was able to urge Hal off his lap so he could get up and dump out his duffle bag. The expectant grin didn't leave his face until he realized, with no small degree of cursing, that he didn't have a single one left.
"Oh," came a disappointed sigh from the bed. Dave rummaged through his things one last time as Hal thought out loud. "I guess it's just as well since I don't think we don't have anything to help, um, smooth out the experience. What we used... um..." the soldier slowed in his search, remembering their first time, "well it's back at the old HQ. We don't have anything but shampoo and that's... bleh."
He's right, the soldier silently agreed as he stuffed his things back into the duffel, it is just as well. We don't need to make the same mistake of going too fast again. He dropped the back and turned back towards the bed. We can settle for-
Hal was lying on his stomach on the edge of the bed with one arm hanging down to brush the floor. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a muted green turtleneck, both of which actually fit him. Against the light bedspread the effect was to perfectly outline his shoulders, legs, and everything in between. He was the very picture of dejected, but when their eyes met it melted away to be replaced with a soft smile and an intense longing.
"I guess tomorrow?" Hal asked as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his arm. "Tonight we can just..."
He trailed off as David crossed the distance between them without a word, leaned down, and pressed their lips together. Before they broke apart the soldier had half crawled onto the bed, Hal's free hand was hooked into the front of Dave's waistband, and they were both out of breath.
"I saw a place..." It took an incredible amount of self-discipline to remove Hal's hand from his lower stomach, but Dave did it. "I saw a place when we were driving in." He leaned in for another quick kiss. "It's only a couple blocks away." And another. "I'll be right back." Another battle of will and David was across the room pulling on his shoes. "All right?" he asked, daring to look back at the bed.
Flushed cheeks, those warm gray eyes, a breathless smile... "I'll be right here."
~~*~~
After he heard the front door slam, Hal fell back against the bed grinning like a fool.
I am not going to hug the pillow and giggle like a teenage girl, I'm not going to do it, I'm just not...
He supposed that laughing without the pillow hugging wasn't that bad. He felt physically light with all the tension and worry gone, the absence of the weight leaving room for an expectant flutter in his stomach and the lower regions
Oh god, this is really happening. We're together. He got up and started pacing in the room in an effort to work off the energy that filled him to the brim. Maybe I should turn off the lights. But wait, I want to see Dave when he comes back, when we're... and I should take my glasses off or else they'll get knocked off and crushed and without them it's impossible to see in the dark. He flicked the lights on and off experimentally. What about my clothes? This shirt is tighter than I usually wear and I'll probably get all tangled up if I try taking it off when he's here making me all excited. But what if he wants to watch me strip, or wants to take it off himself? Ahhh, those strong hands tugging my jeans down...
Hal flopped back onto the bed and this time he couldn't resist hugging the pillow as he laughed.
So much for not acting like a teenage girl, he thought as he fought to get it all under control. But I don't even care anymore because he wants me. And it's real.
~~*~~
All right, Snake, you've gone out to face your death dozens of times. This is easy.
The soldier chanted this in his head as he approached the counter, working up the nerve to simply clear his throat. When he did the overly pierced and tattooed girl looked up from the calculus she was working on. An eyebrow was raised, dyed bright blue like the rest of her hair, at his silence. Brave super soldier he might be, but he was finding it difficult to ask a girl less than half his age something like this.
"I, uh," just spit it out already! "I need some help... over here."
She almost kept the amusement off her face as she closed her textbook and followed him. "All right, sir, what exactly do you need help with?" She asked in a level tone as if she was helping him with socks and not the wall of lube.
"An old friend and I moved in together, and well..."
"All of a sudden you're more than just friends?" the girl finished for him, probably sensing that this exchange was going to take forever if she didn't help it along.
He nodded, thinking that his voice would surely crack under the embarrassment.
"Am I right in guessing this friend will be the first guy you've ever been with?"
He wondered if she'd been working at a sex shop for a long time or if she was just naturally that intuitive. Of course, her comment brought his thoughts back to Hal, waiting for him to get back with the necessary equipment so they could-
"Which kind will be best for..." he rushed, asking himself why does she have to be so damn young? while avoiding her eyes, "I mean, it's been a while, for him, and I don't want to..."
"Awwww!" Dave could almost swear he saw stars in her eyes and pledged to stop watching the exceptionally bizarre animes with Hal. "That is so sweet, and annoyingly rare, to see someone actually care about how their partner feels in the morning." She turned to the wall and plucked up a rather large tube. "This'll do the trick."
The soldier accepted it with both gratitude and embarrassment. "... Thanks."
She beamed at him. "I'll be right over there when you need to check out!" With that she darted back to her homework.
Why couldn't it have been a man? Or at least a grown woman? Why is this bothering me so damn much?
He shook his head, aggravated with himself for being so shook up, and forced himself over to the wall of condoms so he could get it over with. After a brief internal debate over what the most diplomatic number would be (and wondering why he was so damn jittery), he paid the still smiling girl and made his hasty exit, all but running the three blocks to their building. It was only on the third landing, halfway to their floor, that he slowed.
Am I making the same mistake all over again by going too fast? Dave lingered in the hallway with his hand on the doorknob. I... I don't want to screw this up. Not again. I can't take losing him again.
He took a deep breath and promised himself that he wasn't going to let his control break as soon as he saw his partner again. After taking the necessary precautions in securing the door and making sure no one was hiding in the linen closet, he pushed the bedroom door open.
The ceiling light had been turned off, leaving the single bedside lamp to cast its dim yellow glow on the room. Hal was lying on his stomach, shirt gone and head pillowed on his arms. At the soft creak of old hinges he looked up, eyes darting to the bag held at the soldier's side, and smiled with both affection and strong desire.
Stick with it! "Hal, look..."
The programmer's face instantly fell.
"No, don't look like that... it's just..." David sighed. "We shouldn't rush this."
Hal slowly turned onto his side and then studied his partner for a long minute. Though the man was never without something to say, even if it was something nonsensical about candy bars, it seemed as though he was having as much trouble finding the right words as the soldier.
"David," he said slowly, "I think we've waited long enough."
"Hal-"
"I don't want to lose any more time."
The house of cards toppled over onto the soldier's head with the weight of lead. Time. The gathering wrinkles. The gray at his temples. The way he can still get the job done but there's that little twinge that wasn't there a few years ago. He might resent his government betraying him but he never resented the fact that death was his companion on the battlefield, ally and enemy and cold observer at all times. But in that moment at Big Shell when he truly realized how short his time was... he actually internally raged about how unfair it was, and he wasn't thinking of himself.
When they first started working together the soldier scoffed at the offhand mutterings of his partner, but now he knew that it was the simple truth: everyone Hal cares about leaves in the end.
I'm not going to be any different. I'm going to leave him... if not by a bullet then by my body shutting down. He's going to watch me reach eighty in less than a decade. Before, when being with the hacker was nothing more than a dream, he could keep the regret at arm's length. Now, with the man half undressed and that damn bag bumping against his leg to remind him of how much more Hal was going to lose...
"David," he heard, bringing him out of his contemplative trance. His name never felt as real as when Hal said it. He never felt as real as when he was with the strange skinny nerd. "David, please... it hurts to not be with you."
I'm going to leave him whether I like it or not, the soldier thought with his eyes on the floor. But now, at least for a little while, I can make sure that he has the kind of lover he deserves.
"You're right," he said, forcing the cockiness into his tone as he swaggered towards the foot of the bed, "it would be hard to spend another night not touching you, holding you, making you scream..."
Hal's expression flashed back into one of expectant desire, his eyes darting once again to the bag in his partner's hand. Dave tossed it onto the bed and then quickly rid himself of shirt and shoes. Barefoot and naked to the waist, he eyed the hacker with a look that could only be described as predatory. Hal met his gaze with equal intensity, shifting to the center of the mattress without ever looking away from those piercing green eyes. He was leaning back on his arms with legs slightly splayed and falling apart a little more when David put his weight on the bed and started deliberately moving up the length of his partner's body.
One of the things that always bothered him about being with Meryl was the way her expectant eyes held a touch of fear that never faded. The knowledge that she was afraid of him, even in some unconscious way, was always nagging at him when they were together.
Hovering above Hal in the dim light, powerful and lithe, all he saw in those gray eyes was pressing need and desire, a softer and deeper affection, and a thrill that held no trace of fear. Sparking energy surged between them, as powerful as the shocks the soldier received in Alaska, all of the pleasant heat pooling in his lower belly.
Through it all, the silent war, the turbulent life, these past couple of months, Hal remained his tech, his friend, his lover, his partner in all senses of the word. This meeting of bodies wasn't predator and prey, the wolf bearing down on the helpless rabbit, but a joining of equals. That's what made Hal different. Special. It's why the soldier loved him so damn much.
"Hal..." he whispered, and for once the words came easily, "you're the only one who's ever made me feel this way."
It's a good thing he turned down the lights, David thought, gazing at the man lying beneath him, otherwise that smile might've blinded me.
~~*~~
Hal couldn't think of a response for that, so he grinned like a fool until he regained enough brain power to wrap his arms around his partner's neck. He pulled himself up to lick and suck at the marks he started earlier that night. Dave supported him by slipping a hand under his back and pulling the hacker up so that their bare chests were pressed together, still suspended off the bed by the soldier's free arm. Hal had always been amazed by the other man's physical prowess, and feeling the flex of hard muscles against his body almost made him lightheaded.
Doubt rose up, questioning what the solder really thought about this frail body held against him, and Hal sent it straight back to the depths of his subconscious. Ever since they became friends he knew that Dave valued his mind for more than mission support, and he saw how his partner looked him up and down-several times-when standing at the foot of the bed. I might not be able to think of myself as handsome even now... but it's obvious what Dave thinks, and who am I to argue with him?
Hal remembered his glasses when the angle of their grapple dug the pads into the bridge of his nose. He winced and let his arms go limp. David lowered him to the mattress and looked worried until Hal pulled the offending glasses off with a glare. As soon as they were safely on the nightstand the soldier descended upon his partner again.
This time was different from the kisses they shared before Dave went out on his errand; slower, sweeter, the lustful hunger dying down to an ache that still demanded fulfillment, but in a quieter throb. It gave them time to adjust, to remember all they'd learned in that messed up night and forgotten in the two weeks of crossed signals since. What spot on his neck makes him moan when it's kissed? What patch of his back makes him arch when it's rubbed? All those little things to be explored with a new lover until they become habit.
It wasn't until David lowered himself so that he was lying on Hal instead of hovering above him, his weight very present but not crushing, that Hal felt those old insecurities return with force. He stubbornly ignored them and focused on the hot mouth claiming his, the firm back under his hands, but it wasn't long before Dave lifted his head to look at the programmer quizzically.
"You're tense all of a sudden."
"It's nothing," he responded, hoping his smile didn't look fake. "Just keep doing what you're-"
"Hal," the soldier said firmly, "no more secrets."
Dave's right, the hacker thought, looking away. I'm still so ashamed about being with him... then again, it's not like it's any worse that what he already knows about my past love life...
"I just..." he forced himself to look back at his partner. "I just get a little... claustrophobic when there's nothing but the mattress and whoever's on top of me."
Without a word David moved, the two of them shifting so they were lying on their sides and facing each other.
"Sorry..." Hal murmured, his head tilted down and eyes on his partner's chest. He knew he was automatically drawing back inside his shell and that David hated it when he did that, but old habits die hard.
Those hands powerful enough to effortlessly crack bone gently stroked Hal's hair, shifting again so their legs were tangled together. He felt so warm and safe, wrapped up in his soldier's arms, but those bad memories still had a long reach.
"Do you..." David said slowly, "Is it okay if I ask you why?"
"Um, yeah," Hal gulped, reasoning with himself. Dave knowing about Julie didn't ruin their friendship, so knowing about him shouldn't do any more harm. "He was my first boyfriend. It was... it was almost like Shadow Moses, where I really should have figured out that I was being used and it was so obvious after it was thrown in my face... I caught him with another boy on our one year anniversary."
"... Oh." a kiss was pressed against the hacker's forehead. "How... how young were you?"
Hal snuggled in closer, curling up against his soldier. "Sixteen."
Once, Dave told him that there was only one civilian that he could kill in cold blood. From the way the other man's arms were tightening protectively around him, Hal could guess that the list just reached two.
"David..."
"Look, while we're... reminiscing," the soldier said softly, almost too low to be heard. "I just... I triggered it."
"What?" Hal asked in complete confusion.
"The nightmare you had. The really bad one." The words started coming out in a rush, "After that mission where I came back drugged. You were asleep and I was too out of it to figure out that I shouldn't kiss you and that triggered it..."
"... Oh."
The silence stretched on like the quiet tension of the past few weeks.
"Look, Dave..." he said, suppressing a shudder in remembering that dream and forcing logic back to the forefront. "Yes, you might have made it seem more real to my subconscious, but I had to have already been in the nightmare." He smiled, a small smile but it was genuine. "If I was having a nicer dream, one about you, then you'd've just made it better..."
"That's why," the soldier continued as if he hadn't heard that last part. "That's why I've been going out on Saturday nights."
Hal squirmed around so he could look his partner in the eyes.
"I was walking around the city a couple days after it happened. I was thinking about it, trying to find some way to keep it from happening again, and I thought that maybe if I worked out some of this frustration then I might..." A humorless laugh. "It all sounds so stupid now."
"David, look at me." Hal took the soldier's face in his hands but the other man still looked away. It was clear that Dave deeply regretted the whole situation. "Please look at me. Please." Green eyes slowly moved to meet gray. "It's okay. You don't have to apologize or explain-"
"Don't have to apologize?" he interjected, getting that look where he's mad at the hacker but actually angry at the people in his past that helped drag his self-worth through the mud. "How can you even think that I don't owe you an apology?"
It was Hal's turn to look away. He took a deep breath and answered quietly, "I know what it's like to be in a relationship you know you should stop but it just..." he shut his eyes as if it would make the ghosts go away, "it just goes on."
An impossibly long, agonizing moment passed, and then Dave's hand was on his cheek, gently urging Hal to turn his head back. We're just taking turns not looking at each other out of shame now, the hacker thought cynically as he complied. When David pulled him closer, ready to kiss it all better, Hal ducked his head once again.
"If there's anything else you need to say or ask... let's do it all now."
"I don't-"
"No secrets," Hal insisted desperately. "Please."
At those begging words the soldier stopped, resting his forehead against his partner's, and thought for a long while before finally asking, "Did you have sex with him?"
Hal bit his lip trying to keep the challenge out of his tone, and failed. "And if I did?"
Another unbearably long pause, and then calloused fingers lifted his chin.
"Then I'm just going to have to kiss you until neither of us remembers."
"I've already forgotten," Hal smiled, still sad but he knew he was approaching a bright dawn.
And then they were cheek to cheek and he could feel that smirk against his ear as hot breath whispered, "So have I."
Links to past chapters found on The Masterlist.
Title: Next Saturday
Chapter: 9/?.........Real
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Dave/Hal
Spoilers: MGS1 and MGS2
Summery: There's only so far two men can bend. What happens when they break?
Ever since that first hint of real attraction set in-loving the man instead of just the idea-Hal always thought that if it ever actually happened it would feel like a dream. Constant second guessing, wondering if it was real... never being able to fully give in because it would simply be too good to be true.
He was glad, happy, elated, that it wasn't the case.
"Mph, wait," the hacker leaned back and looked at his partner seriously. "What I was going to say, um..."
Dave just grinned that sexy, cocky grin, ran his hand down the other man's arm, and replied, "I think I get the picture."
And then it was the stubble scraping against his face, the strong arms holding him tight, the hard thighs he was straddling, the meeting of tongues and lips that left them both gasping. It was the touch, the heat, and the hunger he'd been imagining and so much more.
Nothing, he thought as a strong hand tightened in his hair, crushing their mouths together with even more delicious force, nothing this good could ever be a dream.
~~*~~
David pulled Hal closer until their chests and stomachs and hips were pressed tight. He put everything he had into that searing kiss: the nights spent lying right beside the other man; the days spent stealing touches and glances; the loneliness that never really bothered him until he met this man who cared so damn much that it seeped through the tiny cracks in the soldier's iron defenses. All of it hit him at the same time. Including his conscious.
It was David's turn to pull away. "Wait, Hal, you can't, I don't-"
"I will find a way to hurt you," the hacker all but snarled before grabbing his partner's face with both hands and crashing their mouths back together.
Dave stopped second guessing himself. He stopped rationalizing. He stopped worrying about what he did or didn't deserve. Hal, his Hal, knew everything and yet the man was still straddling his lap, clinging to him like he was the last stable thing left on the planet, kissing him breathless with incredible enthusiasm.
I sure as hell don't deserve this, but who am I to argue with a certified genius? he thought with a grin as he moved his hand down to squeeze the programmer's thigh. Encouraged by the soft sigh, David grabbed Hal's ass. The hacker buried his face in the other man's neck with a groan and started biting and sucking, earning an answering rumbling growl. The soldier slid his fingertips under the denim waistband and rubbed in slow circles as his throat was attacked.
Dave let the other man make hickeys for a couple minutes, then he stopped being passive by pulling Hal's hips roughly forwards. Another moan from the hacker, that sexy curve of his spine, and then they were staring into each other's smoldering eyes.
"David?"
"Mmm?"
"Do you have any more condoms?"
The question was asked with no faltering stammers, no embarrassed blushes, no nervous looking away. Hal's tone was up front, serious, and just the sound of it made Dave all the harder. He gave the hacker one last kiss, and then another, and another until finally he was able to urge Hal off his lap so he could get up and dump out his duffle bag. The expectant grin didn't leave his face until he realized, with no small degree of cursing, that he didn't have a single one left.
"Oh," came a disappointed sigh from the bed. Dave rummaged through his things one last time as Hal thought out loud. "I guess it's just as well since I don't think we don't have anything to help, um, smooth out the experience. What we used... um..." the soldier slowed in his search, remembering their first time, "well it's back at the old HQ. We don't have anything but shampoo and that's... bleh."
He's right, the soldier silently agreed as he stuffed his things back into the duffel, it is just as well. We don't need to make the same mistake of going too fast again. He dropped the back and turned back towards the bed. We can settle for-
Hal was lying on his stomach on the edge of the bed with one arm hanging down to brush the floor. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a muted green turtleneck, both of which actually fit him. Against the light bedspread the effect was to perfectly outline his shoulders, legs, and everything in between. He was the very picture of dejected, but when their eyes met it melted away to be replaced with a soft smile and an intense longing.
"I guess tomorrow?" Hal asked as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his arm. "Tonight we can just..."
He trailed off as David crossed the distance between them without a word, leaned down, and pressed their lips together. Before they broke apart the soldier had half crawled onto the bed, Hal's free hand was hooked into the front of Dave's waistband, and they were both out of breath.
"I saw a place..." It took an incredible amount of self-discipline to remove Hal's hand from his lower stomach, but Dave did it. "I saw a place when we were driving in." He leaned in for another quick kiss. "It's only a couple blocks away." And another. "I'll be right back." Another battle of will and David was across the room pulling on his shoes. "All right?" he asked, daring to look back at the bed.
Flushed cheeks, those warm gray eyes, a breathless smile... "I'll be right here."
~~*~~
After he heard the front door slam, Hal fell back against the bed grinning like a fool.
I am not going to hug the pillow and giggle like a teenage girl, I'm not going to do it, I'm just not...
He supposed that laughing without the pillow hugging wasn't that bad. He felt physically light with all the tension and worry gone, the absence of the weight leaving room for an expectant flutter in his stomach and the lower regions
Oh god, this is really happening. We're together. He got up and started pacing in the room in an effort to work off the energy that filled him to the brim. Maybe I should turn off the lights. But wait, I want to see Dave when he comes back, when we're... and I should take my glasses off or else they'll get knocked off and crushed and without them it's impossible to see in the dark. He flicked the lights on and off experimentally. What about my clothes? This shirt is tighter than I usually wear and I'll probably get all tangled up if I try taking it off when he's here making me all excited. But what if he wants to watch me strip, or wants to take it off himself? Ahhh, those strong hands tugging my jeans down...
Hal flopped back onto the bed and this time he couldn't resist hugging the pillow as he laughed.
So much for not acting like a teenage girl, he thought as he fought to get it all under control. But I don't even care anymore because he wants me. And it's real.
~~*~~
All right, Snake, you've gone out to face your death dozens of times. This is easy.
The soldier chanted this in his head as he approached the counter, working up the nerve to simply clear his throat. When he did the overly pierced and tattooed girl looked up from the calculus she was working on. An eyebrow was raised, dyed bright blue like the rest of her hair, at his silence. Brave super soldier he might be, but he was finding it difficult to ask a girl less than half his age something like this.
"I, uh," just spit it out already! "I need some help... over here."
She almost kept the amusement off her face as she closed her textbook and followed him. "All right, sir, what exactly do you need help with?" She asked in a level tone as if she was helping him with socks and not the wall of lube.
"An old friend and I moved in together, and well..."
"All of a sudden you're more than just friends?" the girl finished for him, probably sensing that this exchange was going to take forever if she didn't help it along.
He nodded, thinking that his voice would surely crack under the embarrassment.
"Am I right in guessing this friend will be the first guy you've ever been with?"
He wondered if she'd been working at a sex shop for a long time or if she was just naturally that intuitive. Of course, her comment brought his thoughts back to Hal, waiting for him to get back with the necessary equipment so they could-
"Which kind will be best for..." he rushed, asking himself why does she have to be so damn young? while avoiding her eyes, "I mean, it's been a while, for him, and I don't want to..."
"Awwww!" Dave could almost swear he saw stars in her eyes and pledged to stop watching the exceptionally bizarre animes with Hal. "That is so sweet, and annoyingly rare, to see someone actually care about how their partner feels in the morning." She turned to the wall and plucked up a rather large tube. "This'll do the trick."
The soldier accepted it with both gratitude and embarrassment. "... Thanks."
She beamed at him. "I'll be right over there when you need to check out!" With that she darted back to her homework.
Why couldn't it have been a man? Or at least a grown woman? Why is this bothering me so damn much?
He shook his head, aggravated with himself for being so shook up, and forced himself over to the wall of condoms so he could get it over with. After a brief internal debate over what the most diplomatic number would be (and wondering why he was so damn jittery), he paid the still smiling girl and made his hasty exit, all but running the three blocks to their building. It was only on the third landing, halfway to their floor, that he slowed.
Am I making the same mistake all over again by going too fast? Dave lingered in the hallway with his hand on the doorknob. I... I don't want to screw this up. Not again. I can't take losing him again.
He took a deep breath and promised himself that he wasn't going to let his control break as soon as he saw his partner again. After taking the necessary precautions in securing the door and making sure no one was hiding in the linen closet, he pushed the bedroom door open.
The ceiling light had been turned off, leaving the single bedside lamp to cast its dim yellow glow on the room. Hal was lying on his stomach, shirt gone and head pillowed on his arms. At the soft creak of old hinges he looked up, eyes darting to the bag held at the soldier's side, and smiled with both affection and strong desire.
Stick with it! "Hal, look..."
The programmer's face instantly fell.
"No, don't look like that... it's just..." David sighed. "We shouldn't rush this."
Hal slowly turned onto his side and then studied his partner for a long minute. Though the man was never without something to say, even if it was something nonsensical about candy bars, it seemed as though he was having as much trouble finding the right words as the soldier.
"David," he said slowly, "I think we've waited long enough."
"Hal-"
"I don't want to lose any more time."
The house of cards toppled over onto the soldier's head with the weight of lead. Time. The gathering wrinkles. The gray at his temples. The way he can still get the job done but there's that little twinge that wasn't there a few years ago. He might resent his government betraying him but he never resented the fact that death was his companion on the battlefield, ally and enemy and cold observer at all times. But in that moment at Big Shell when he truly realized how short his time was... he actually internally raged about how unfair it was, and he wasn't thinking of himself.
When they first started working together the soldier scoffed at the offhand mutterings of his partner, but now he knew that it was the simple truth: everyone Hal cares about leaves in the end.
I'm not going to be any different. I'm going to leave him... if not by a bullet then by my body shutting down. He's going to watch me reach eighty in less than a decade. Before, when being with the hacker was nothing more than a dream, he could keep the regret at arm's length. Now, with the man half undressed and that damn bag bumping against his leg to remind him of how much more Hal was going to lose...
"David," he heard, bringing him out of his contemplative trance. His name never felt as real as when Hal said it. He never felt as real as when he was with the strange skinny nerd. "David, please... it hurts to not be with you."
I'm going to leave him whether I like it or not, the soldier thought with his eyes on the floor. But now, at least for a little while, I can make sure that he has the kind of lover he deserves.
"You're right," he said, forcing the cockiness into his tone as he swaggered towards the foot of the bed, "it would be hard to spend another night not touching you, holding you, making you scream..."
Hal's expression flashed back into one of expectant desire, his eyes darting once again to the bag in his partner's hand. Dave tossed it onto the bed and then quickly rid himself of shirt and shoes. Barefoot and naked to the waist, he eyed the hacker with a look that could only be described as predatory. Hal met his gaze with equal intensity, shifting to the center of the mattress without ever looking away from those piercing green eyes. He was leaning back on his arms with legs slightly splayed and falling apart a little more when David put his weight on the bed and started deliberately moving up the length of his partner's body.
One of the things that always bothered him about being with Meryl was the way her expectant eyes held a touch of fear that never faded. The knowledge that she was afraid of him, even in some unconscious way, was always nagging at him when they were together.
Hovering above Hal in the dim light, powerful and lithe, all he saw in those gray eyes was pressing need and desire, a softer and deeper affection, and a thrill that held no trace of fear. Sparking energy surged between them, as powerful as the shocks the soldier received in Alaska, all of the pleasant heat pooling in his lower belly.
Through it all, the silent war, the turbulent life, these past couple of months, Hal remained his tech, his friend, his lover, his partner in all senses of the word. This meeting of bodies wasn't predator and prey, the wolf bearing down on the helpless rabbit, but a joining of equals. That's what made Hal different. Special. It's why the soldier loved him so damn much.
"Hal..." he whispered, and for once the words came easily, "you're the only one who's ever made me feel this way."
It's a good thing he turned down the lights, David thought, gazing at the man lying beneath him, otherwise that smile might've blinded me.
~~*~~
Hal couldn't think of a response for that, so he grinned like a fool until he regained enough brain power to wrap his arms around his partner's neck. He pulled himself up to lick and suck at the marks he started earlier that night. Dave supported him by slipping a hand under his back and pulling the hacker up so that their bare chests were pressed together, still suspended off the bed by the soldier's free arm. Hal had always been amazed by the other man's physical prowess, and feeling the flex of hard muscles against his body almost made him lightheaded.
Doubt rose up, questioning what the solder really thought about this frail body held against him, and Hal sent it straight back to the depths of his subconscious. Ever since they became friends he knew that Dave valued his mind for more than mission support, and he saw how his partner looked him up and down-several times-when standing at the foot of the bed. I might not be able to think of myself as handsome even now... but it's obvious what Dave thinks, and who am I to argue with him?
Hal remembered his glasses when the angle of their grapple dug the pads into the bridge of his nose. He winced and let his arms go limp. David lowered him to the mattress and looked worried until Hal pulled the offending glasses off with a glare. As soon as they were safely on the nightstand the soldier descended upon his partner again.
This time was different from the kisses they shared before Dave went out on his errand; slower, sweeter, the lustful hunger dying down to an ache that still demanded fulfillment, but in a quieter throb. It gave them time to adjust, to remember all they'd learned in that messed up night and forgotten in the two weeks of crossed signals since. What spot on his neck makes him moan when it's kissed? What patch of his back makes him arch when it's rubbed? All those little things to be explored with a new lover until they become habit.
It wasn't until David lowered himself so that he was lying on Hal instead of hovering above him, his weight very present but not crushing, that Hal felt those old insecurities return with force. He stubbornly ignored them and focused on the hot mouth claiming his, the firm back under his hands, but it wasn't long before Dave lifted his head to look at the programmer quizzically.
"You're tense all of a sudden."
"It's nothing," he responded, hoping his smile didn't look fake. "Just keep doing what you're-"
"Hal," the soldier said firmly, "no more secrets."
Dave's right, the hacker thought, looking away. I'm still so ashamed about being with him... then again, it's not like it's any worse that what he already knows about my past love life...
"I just..." he forced himself to look back at his partner. "I just get a little... claustrophobic when there's nothing but the mattress and whoever's on top of me."
Without a word David moved, the two of them shifting so they were lying on their sides and facing each other.
"Sorry..." Hal murmured, his head tilted down and eyes on his partner's chest. He knew he was automatically drawing back inside his shell and that David hated it when he did that, but old habits die hard.
Those hands powerful enough to effortlessly crack bone gently stroked Hal's hair, shifting again so their legs were tangled together. He felt so warm and safe, wrapped up in his soldier's arms, but those bad memories still had a long reach.
"Do you..." David said slowly, "Is it okay if I ask you why?"
"Um, yeah," Hal gulped, reasoning with himself. Dave knowing about Julie didn't ruin their friendship, so knowing about him shouldn't do any more harm. "He was my first boyfriend. It was... it was almost like Shadow Moses, where I really should have figured out that I was being used and it was so obvious after it was thrown in my face... I caught him with another boy on our one year anniversary."
"... Oh." a kiss was pressed against the hacker's forehead. "How... how young were you?"
Hal snuggled in closer, curling up against his soldier. "Sixteen."
Once, Dave told him that there was only one civilian that he could kill in cold blood. From the way the other man's arms were tightening protectively around him, Hal could guess that the list just reached two.
"David..."
"Look, while we're... reminiscing," the soldier said softly, almost too low to be heard. "I just... I triggered it."
"What?" Hal asked in complete confusion.
"The nightmare you had. The really bad one." The words started coming out in a rush, "After that mission where I came back drugged. You were asleep and I was too out of it to figure out that I shouldn't kiss you and that triggered it..."
"... Oh."
The silence stretched on like the quiet tension of the past few weeks.
"Look, Dave..." he said, suppressing a shudder in remembering that dream and forcing logic back to the forefront. "Yes, you might have made it seem more real to my subconscious, but I had to have already been in the nightmare." He smiled, a small smile but it was genuine. "If I was having a nicer dream, one about you, then you'd've just made it better..."
"That's why," the soldier continued as if he hadn't heard that last part. "That's why I've been going out on Saturday nights."
Hal squirmed around so he could look his partner in the eyes.
"I was walking around the city a couple days after it happened. I was thinking about it, trying to find some way to keep it from happening again, and I thought that maybe if I worked out some of this frustration then I might..." A humorless laugh. "It all sounds so stupid now."
"David, look at me." Hal took the soldier's face in his hands but the other man still looked away. It was clear that Dave deeply regretted the whole situation. "Please look at me. Please." Green eyes slowly moved to meet gray. "It's okay. You don't have to apologize or explain-"
"Don't have to apologize?" he interjected, getting that look where he's mad at the hacker but actually angry at the people in his past that helped drag his self-worth through the mud. "How can you even think that I don't owe you an apology?"
It was Hal's turn to look away. He took a deep breath and answered quietly, "I know what it's like to be in a relationship you know you should stop but it just..." he shut his eyes as if it would make the ghosts go away, "it just goes on."
An impossibly long, agonizing moment passed, and then Dave's hand was on his cheek, gently urging Hal to turn his head back. We're just taking turns not looking at each other out of shame now, the hacker thought cynically as he complied. When David pulled him closer, ready to kiss it all better, Hal ducked his head once again.
"If there's anything else you need to say or ask... let's do it all now."
"I don't-"
"No secrets," Hal insisted desperately. "Please."
At those begging words the soldier stopped, resting his forehead against his partner's, and thought for a long while before finally asking, "Did you have sex with him?"
Hal bit his lip trying to keep the challenge out of his tone, and failed. "And if I did?"
Another unbearably long pause, and then calloused fingers lifted his chin.
"Then I'm just going to have to kiss you until neither of us remembers."
"I've already forgotten," Hal smiled, still sad but he knew he was approaching a bright dawn.
And then they were cheek to cheek and he could feel that smirk against his ear as hot breath whispered, "So have I."