Chapter Text
“So what do you think about this? There’s is some pretty interesting stuff in this book. It’s blowing up all over the internet, the media, making huge waves.”
“Well, I read the abridged version when it came out about a year ago, and it sounded like a bunch of nonsense then. But now I’m not so sure. Attention was brought to the book through an article by Gary McGolden. He’s a known conspiracy theorist, and come on, if I have to hear about rocket fuel and steel beams one more time--”
“I do find the allegations interesting, though, given the recent resignation of former President, George Sears. The timing is a little… well…”
“Now, now, we shouldn’t speculate any further. To you viewers just tuning in, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth, by Nastasha Romanenko. I encourage everyone and anyone to pick this up and give it a read and come to your own conclusions.”
“I guess my thing is-- Solid Snake. Sounds like a comic book character, like a superhero, am I right? This guy? Pretty incredible.”
“Well, if any of this is actually true.”
“The White House has yet to make an official statement regarding the contents of this book, especially the allegations related to U.S. involvement in the development of a nuclear weapon called Metal Gear REX. As you can see here, the--”
Hal tunes out, around that point, the ancient CRT screen staticky in the next room. It’s the first TV they’ve had in ages, and he puts it on in the background just for some company, even if the news doesn’t do much to calm his anxiety.
Over the past few weeks, Nastasha’s uncensored book has all but flooded the market-- initially, popping up on the deep web, then permeating into P2P and torrent sites, picked up by the mainstream due to the online discussion, finally saturating news channels until it’s reached a fever pitch. The first time he’d heard the words ‘Solid Snake’ uttered on Fox News he’d just about fallen flat on his ass, and every recurrent time he hears those words, it just fades a little more into the background. New information, constantly being processed.
Truth be told, he’s a little more focused on Snake, Dave, the person, rather than the idea represented in the book. He’d read it over a year ago, when Nastasha had been shopping the thing around and Philanthropy had been little more than a pipe dream, and it had all seemed like a fairy tale. He’s aware he’s in the book, and technically it recounts the events accurately, but a book can’t capture the terror of Gray Fox staring him down or the way he felt watching Snake stand over Sniper Wolf’s body, SOCOM in hand, or the sinking feeling in his gut when telling Snake he was going to stay behind or--
Or how any of it felt, really. No one will ever know Dave the way he does, or Snake, or any of it. They’re just characters in a book. Legends. Not people, with names, with feelings.
He sighs, pushes up his glasses, leaning his head back in a stretch. He’s been sniffing around the Pentagon’s network for a few days now, and only making a bit of headway, their network protocols whipcord tight. At least they’ve been getting better funding lately, so they can afford to put together a half-decent server that gives him a little more juice to work with. Even if it makes the tiny spare bedroom designated an ‘office’ hotter than Satan’s balls.
It’s been weird this past month or so. Things had been a little hairy after their last op, and Nastasha’d tipped them off about McGolden-- they’d mutually agreed that it’d be best for Dave to return to Alaska (easier to get through the Canadian borders, a network of rental cars and skeezy motels like beacons lighting the way), solo, to chase him down before someone else did, and for Hal to remain in their current hovel in Seattle, digging for intel and filling out UN paperwork day in and day out.
He feels a bit like a hermit being alone and essentially trapped inside four walls by himself. He hasn’t been so alone in almost a year now, and he latently recognizes the returning of some old habits-- without Dave there to wrestle him into something resembling a regular schedule, it’s easy to forget to eat and subsist on coffee, to forgo a shower or two because he’s working on a really interesting script, or to dig himself a little hole of misery and angst about his problems.
Above all, it’s lonely. So lonely. He wonders if Dave is feeling as weird about being alone again as he is. Probably not-- legendary soldier, covert agent and all. He’s probably used to it. Maybe even craves some space.
Not to mention, they haven’t even really had time to actually talk through what happened that night. Duty calling, and all.
Hal’s fingers touch self-consciously at his throat, and he wishes again that the marks hadn’t faded so quickly. At the time, he’d looked at himself in the mirror with one hand covering the bruising on his neck, the other fisted around his cock. It had been the most time he’d spent looking in the mirror, ever. Every night, until the yellow had faded into his usual pale shade.
And now, he can’t help but visualize that moment, the way Dave had looked at him, and in their hellhole of an office, his dick fills out a little just thinking about it.
Hal groans, forces himself to re-focus on the screen, on the compiled code puking errors back at him. So much for genius engineer. He pokes around adding semicolons here and there, checks one of Philanthropy’s various email accounts for any new tips, free hand reaching for his lukewarm coffee, sucked back into his virtual world in mere moments.
He’s so deep he doesn’t hear the knocking until it’s repetitive enough to be a pattern, and Hal freezes for a moment before realizing that he knows the pattern. It’d been one they’d, again, mutually agreed on.
He quickly looks at the clock, and it’s the right time, if not a little early. Still, he picks up the M9 Dave had forced him to learn to use before they’d separated, holding it like something he doesn’t want to touch as he cautiously pads over to the door.
The door is old and rickety enough it doesn’t even have an eyehole, so he listens for a little longer before the knocking stops, then flips back the three deadbolts they’ve installed, leaving the chain. He opens it slowly while holding the gun just out of sight, peering through the crack. That familiar heady smoke filters in through the gap, and any suspicion flows out of him in an instant.
There, turned away, cigarette in hand, is his partner. His hair’s the wrong colour, too dark, blonde roots, and it’s barely a disguise but Hal can’t help but grin, closing the door to slide back the chain, depositing the gun on the table.
Dave is facing him when he pulls the door wide, and their eyes meet. There’s a pause, before he pulls the last bit of his smoke, drops it to the step and grinds it out with his heel. His lips curl up, and he peers at Hal through the thick fan of his lashes. “Hey.”
“Hey,” parrots Hal, vaguely aware that he’s a little sweaty, and he’s smiling this big stupid grin because he missed that face. He wants to kiss that face. It’s only through superhuman willpower that he doesn’t reach forward and grab him and put his mouth all over him.
Instead, he backs up and lets Dave into the apartment, door swinging shut and triple bolted behind him. He’s aware he’s standing a little too close, and he balls his hands in the sleeves of his sweater to keep himself in check. The duffel bag hits the floor, and Dave is shouldering out of his jacket, throwing it over the back of the shaky chair in the kitchen.
“So, I’m guessing everything went well given the media frenzy and everything. I don’t know if you heard about it but as soon as you told me the book hit that McGolden guy’s hands, everything just exploded, the whole scandal has blown open and--”
“Hal. Give me two fucking seconds to settle before you status report me.” Dave looks at him with a spark of humor in his eye, and Hal, nervous, shuts his mouth. “I just spent the last few weeks scaling fences, driving all the way to fucking Alaska, avoiding authorities and dealing with conspiracy theorist nutjobs. Lose me on the updates, for now. Relax.”
“Ah, sorry. I just figured you’d want--”
A hand settles on his shoulder, and Hal feels warm all over, Dave up close in his personal bubble. “What I want right now is a shower. The rest can wait.”
“Ah.”
Still, he doesn’t really move, and they end up standing in the kitchen for a few moments sort of just looking at each other, Dave’s hand slipping down to his bicep and staying there. Hal feels so self-conscious, and giddy, and weird, and it bubbles out of him before he can stop it.
“I’m really happy you’re here.”
Dave gives him this unreadable look, before asking, “You miss me or something?”
“Yeah,” Hal answers, honestly, unable to stop himself, before completely panicking at his candor. “Ah. I mean…”
“Glad to be back.” He smiles, one of those honest, addictive smiles and Hal soaks it all up, eager and aggressive. “Really, there was a void in my life without all the J-pop. I almost got my hearing back.”
“You’re such an asshole!” Hal ducks away, grinning uncontrollably as he tries to put some space between them, so he doesn’t overstep his bounds.
He’s not at all anticipating Dave throwing an arm around him and tugging him back into a half-hug. He smells like cigarettes and dried sweat, and it’s stifling, he can feel every hard edge of muscle where they’re pressed up together, but it’s not like Hal wants to breathe anyway. “Dave! What--”
“You’re too easy.” His voice, so close in his ear, the low, intimate tone making Hal look away, too self-aware.
He disentangles himself, and Dave lets him go, still watching him with that weirdly fond look. Hal can’t meet his eyes. He clears his throat, points towards the bathroom. “So… you, uh, shower?”
“Yeah. Think you can handle food? I’m starving.” He’s already pulling off his shirt as he pads off to the bathroom, and Hal is just about certain he might fall over dead as his eyes follow the long lines of his back, the sinuous arch of his spine.
Food is frozen lasagne in the tiny oven that clicks obnoxiously while pre-heating. Hal even has beer for the occasion, sets them on the coffee table before checking the outside security camera feed on his secondary laptop. Setting up a perimeter of hidden cameras had been a little pet project of his, at the suggestion of Dave, and he’s relieved to see it work flawlessly. It’d helped with the paranoia of spending a few weeks alone.
He starts fixing automated processes and making little changes to the UI, and he’s already starting to get back into it when Dave vaults gracefully over the back of the sofa and lands next to him. Hal looks up, pushes his glasses up his nose, and immediately turns back to the screen. Would it kill him to put on a shirt? He’s still drying his hair with the towel draped over his broad shoulders, his sweatpants low on his hips, the band of his briefs visible and Hal has to force himself to focus.
“It’s fucking roasting in here. How can you deal with this?”
“Not all of us double in functionality as personal space heaters. This is cozy.”
“If you’re a middle-aged woman. But anyway. Fill me in,” Dave says, reaching forward to procure his beer from the table. He pops the cap off with his thumb, and Hal tries not to focus on just how strong his hands are. “So it’s hit the media?”
“Yeah. The Times already did a piece on it, the book’s at the number one spot on the bestseller list.” He grabs the dusty remote and turns up the volume on the TV, flicks through a few channels pilfered from their neighbour’s cable service. “Solid Snake is a celebrity. Kind of funny, nobody even knows what you look like, but I think you already have some kind of female fanbase. Heh.”
Dave stares at the TV for a moment, watches the feed roll through. Drinks his beer. “Jesus.”
“It’s all kind of surreal, right? That just-- everybody knows now. About Shadow Moses. The government cover-up. Everything. I mean, whether or not they actually believe it.”
“Hn.”
“At least the truth is out there, I guess. I’m sure this’ll put heat on us like crazy, but this is a good thing.” Hal moves his laptop back to the table, picks up his beer. “I’ve already seen an increase in our funding.”
Dave doesn’t respond, still glaring a hole in the screen, as the news report continues into the specifics of the book. Hal watches, wanting to understand, but he can only imagine what it must feel like to have your secret identity made public knowledge after an entire life existing on the outskirts of society. He, himself, had felt a little strange seeing REX’s blueprints onscreen, the baby pictures of his ill-advised engineering project.
His partner hunches lower in on the couch as the report drones on, puts his feet up on the coffee table like he’s preparing to kick it right at the TV. He wouldn’t blame him.
Hal’s finished his beer when he finally has the courage to ask. “So… what do you think?”
“Well,” Dave says, blandly, pushing his damp hair off his face, “Right now, I think I want to get really drunk.”
“Ah.” He considers for a moment, then stands. “I can help you with that.”
He walks back to the kitchen where it’s even hotter, now smelling vaguely like ground beef and marinara, and bequeaths an unopened bottle of whisky from the cupboard and two mismatched dollar store glasses. He’d bought it a few months back around the one year anniversary of Philanthropy’s creation, but with more work to do, it’d been mostly forgotten, even if he remembered to bring it with them whenever they moved. Dates and times blurred into meaninglessness, the importance of their mission always at the forefront of his mind.
By the time he’s turned around, Dave’s following his progression back to the living room with a curious look. Hal drops the glasses down on the coffee table, unscrews the top of the whisky. “Hal, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“What, you think I’m just gonna let you drink alone? I did go to college, you know.” He pours.
Dave snorts, accepts a glass when offered. “Yeah, when you were like fifteen.”
“Oh, shut up. Sixteen. Anyway.” He clears his throat, raises his glass. “This is a celebration. I mean, sort of.”
“Celebrating?”
“What, you mean you don’t think it’s at least a little exciting that there’s so much publicity? Think about what this could do, all of this information in its raw form, given to the public on a silver platter. The fact that it’s drummed up so much media attention, even if the government gave a half-decent story that usually the average American would buy without a second thought, and it’s already almost two years after the fact. I mean even on a technical level, how quickly this was passed around the net and published, wow-- isn’t the modern age of technology fascinating? I mean, not that I didn’t, uh, ‘inspire’ some sites to pick it up, or manipulate the numbers a little but an exposure this big, Dave, this is on the level of Watergate, it might even be bigger and--”
“Hal.”
“Oh, right! Well… we’re celebrating us!” He pauses, face heating. “Uh, I mean, Philanthropy.”
He offers the glass in hand. Dave gives him one of those looks that makes him feel like he’s being pulled apart under a microscope, before tipping his glass into the edge of Hal’s own with a cheery clink. “To Philanthropy.”
They both drink. It burns going down, warmth blossoming through his belly. Dave reaches for the bottle again.
The next few hours start to blur and fade, they’re tipsy enough to disregard the slightly charred edges of the lasagne, and they finish the rest of the beers in the fridge. It’s fun, weird, sort of like the experiences Hal mostly missed in college, buried in thesis statements and self-loathing.
Dave gets kind of animated when there’s alcohol in him, handsy, loses the filter of world-weariness that usually pervades every action. Starts asking personal questions, gets further into Hal’s space, and the world is a little fuzzy and warm but everything just feels so right.
“So who exactly did you get drunk with in college? Illegally.” He’s draped all over the sofa with his feet prodding into Hal’s thigh, and he’s drunk enough that it’s stopped being so overwhelming that Dave seems to close all the contact between them. He maybe even starts encouraging it a little. “You rebel, Hal.”
“Ah yes, underage drinking. Truly the peak of my depravity,” Hal responds, every word dripping with sarcasm. It comes easily, like all of their banter, and Hal’s never been a people person but Dave seems to knock down every other sword he’s chosen to fall on. “Honestly, you’re gonna think I’m such a huge nerd, well, you probably already do, but one of the guy’s in my comp-sci class used to throw LAN parties and we’d all drink there.”
“LAN party?”
“Ah, it’s like… where everyone gets together to game in one place. We’d all bring our towers and play together. I guess it pretty much equates with a house party, just… more mouth breathing I guess.”
He scowls, starting to dissect the memory.
“I was always the youngest one there, and man, they used to get so pissed off at me for always having the highest stats, the most gold and the best gear. I mean, I don’t think they ever figured it out, but come on, like it was that hard to write a script that let me farm the shit out of every resource available in-game while I was in class. Hah. Ultima was so early, it was easy back then and I wasn’t even that good at programming yet and… ah, I’m rambling now, I’ll stop.”
Dave prods him in the leg with his toe, and Hal realizes he’s been mostly staring off into space ranting, glass in hand, for the last few moments. He starts, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t have to stop. I was enjoying hearing all about how you cheated your classmates out of imaginary money.”
“It wasn’t cheating! Dave! If the code is flawed, and the tools are there, you’d be an idiot not to, ah, capitalize on it. It’s not my fault they weren’t as resourceful as I was.”
“Mhm. Sounds exactly like what a cheater would say. Your villain card is en route.”
Hal huffs. “Ah yes. There is no one alive as morally bankrupt as I.” After a moment he sits there, pondering, chin in hand. “But… I guess it was kind of… bad, huh.”
Dave sits up next to him, shuffles over so they’re shoulder to shoulder. Hal looks away. “Only you would agonize about the ethics of stealing fake money ten years after the fact. I’m just fucking with you, Hal.”
“And I’m just fucking with you,” Hal shoots back, turning on him with a sudden grin, “I can’t believe you actually fell for that. Hah! Oh wow.”
“You suck,” is what Dave comes back with, and Hal laughs again because the naked look on his face is literally priceless. “How did you of all people get to be an actually half-decent liar?”
“Guess I had a lot of practice when I was ruthlessly conning all of my peers out of their hard-earned gold,” he snarks. The actual reason is a far darker road that he doesn’t want to go down, not right now, so he forces the quick flash of images into the back of his mind. Still, it’s worth it to finally pull one over on Dave, who mercilessly exploits his own gullible nature more often than not. A softer kind of revenge. “Honestly, though, they kicked me out of their clan for being too good. So it was like… karma.”
“Whatever you say.”
“What!” He spreads his hands in surrender. “Oh, God, you’re not worried I’m gonna lie to you or something?” He pauses, eyes going wide. “Dave, I was just messing around, I swear I would never--”
Dave snorts, jostles him with a shoulder where they’re pressed up together. “Easy, Hal, your checkered criminal past is safe with me. Besides, if you heard about half the idiotic shit I’ve ever done, you’d probably laugh right in my face. Or run screaming. Maybe both.”
Instantly, Hal is so curious he might actually die if he doesn’t find out. Sometimes it’s hard to picture Dave as anything less than a stone serious, fully-adult, decorated soldier, but an offered view into that reality is to tempting to ignore. So, he presses. “Well, now you have to tell me something.”
“Do I have to?” He rocks forward with a smirk, snatching his smokes off the table, before wandering over to the window in a mostly straight line. He cracks it, lights up, and Hal follows him over with the whisky bottle, significantly lighter now, not wanting too much space between them.
“Well you don’t have to.” He props himself up against the wall facing Dave on an angle, then takes a swig out of the bottle. He chokes a bit, covering his mouth, forcing himself to swallow. It burns. “But I’d, ah... like it if you did. Doesn’t have to be a big thing. Just… a story.”
Dave looks at him, considering, then takes another drag on his cigarette. He runs a hand through his hair, then sighs. “Why the fuck not.”
Hal leans in, listens, eager.
“Okay. So. When I first joined up with FOXHOUND, I’d already been to Iraq, so I wasn’t all that green. Didn’t stop me from being young, stupid and cocky, though. Anyway, first day on base, a bunch of the senior officers told the new recruits to go to supply for chemlight batteries and a box of grid squares.”
“Chemlight batteries?”
He smirks. “They don’t actually exist. Neither do grid squares. They were just doing it to fuck with us and make us look like idiots in front of Big Bo-- the CO.”
“Ah.”
He doesn’t mention the slip of the tongue.
“Anyway, all of these privates are going around base looking for fucking chemlight batteries and grid squares like total assholes, getting redirected elsewhere and given these bullshit tasks, and I just stayed put. Refused.”
“I can’t imagine that went over very well,” Hal replies, with a breathless laugh.
“You would be correct. Master didn’t like my insubordination too much. We both knew the task was bullshit, but it wasn’t about the task, it was about following orders. And I failed. So he wiped the floor with my ass in front of our CO and just about everyone else to knock me down a few pegs. Almost broke my goddamn arm. And I thought I was so smart. Had to work a hundred times as hard after that to impress him. Still not sure if I ever really did.”
“Master?”
Dave’s eyes crease, and he takes a long pull on his cigarette, smoke filtering out through his nose. “Master Miller. He was responsible for a good part of my special-ops training.”
“I see.”
“Also responsible for this scar here. Put me through a wall.” A healed, knotted scar on his right forearm. “This one too. Knife training.”
He slides a finger over a white line running astride his collarbone. Hal reaches out to touch, follows the path of Dave’s hand with his fingertips. His skin is very warm and dry. He realizes only after a moment that he’s staring at the scar with such intense fascination, and he forces his gaze to Dave’s face, where he’s regarding him with a piercing look.
Hal lets his hand droop down, knuckles brushing against Dave’s bare chest as it falls. “That must’ve hurt,” he murmurs, desperately wanting to explore and catalogue every single mark on that powerful body.
“It does,” Dave replies, eyes never leaving his face.
Hal doesn’t understand, for a moment, until it dawns on him that Miller is dead. Had been killed just prior to Shadow Moses, according to Nastasha’s book.
Basically anyone Dave had ever relied on or cared about is dead, gone or had betrayed him. Hal is the only one left.
He’s staring off into space again, agonizing, when the bottle leaves his hand, pulling his attention back to his partner. Dave drinks, Hal watching the movement of his throat as he swallows, how his thumb brushes his lips when he finishes. He puts out the cigarette with his fingertips and flicks it out the window, and there’s this silence permeating the air again and then Hal looks everywhere but him.
“What?” asks Dave, amused.
“Ah… I just really wish you’d put on a shirt.”
Dave raises his free hand to the swell of his bicep, squeezes, then lets it travel over his pec and down his sternum. Hal tries not to watch, not to notice the dusting of chest hair, the tight peaks of his nipples, and mostly fails. “Why?”
“N-no reason. Nevermind. Say, you want to watch a movie or something?” Hal flees back to the sofa, uncoordinated and loose. He trips over the arm, falls flat on his face on the seat.
Dave is close behind him, grabbing his arm to help him upright. “Hal?”
He boosts his laptop off the table, saves it from tipping off onto the floor. He’s a lot more drunk than he’d felt over by the window. Maybe it’s the nerves. “I was thinking a classic, like Star Wars or something?”
Luckily, Dave concedes, drops the issue, follows the trail that Hal is leaving for him. “Not really my thing.”
“What, you don’t like Star Wars?”
“Never seen it.”
“Dave! What! How?” Hal pulls up his movie library and starts typing. “I can’t believe you, it’s a cultural artifact! It defined a generation.”
“It’s not like I don’t know what happens in it. It just never appealed to me much.”
It occurs to him, only then, that the reason Dave doesn’t like the trilogy much is probably that it hits a little close to home. Luke, I am your father, and all that. Still. How could he not see Star Wars? It’s pretty much required viewing. But still, he’s not as cruel to put Dave through that purely for his own sake.
He opens his mouth up to suggest something else, when Dave crashes down next to him, almost knocking his laptop off where it’s perched on his legs, bottle landing on the table with a thud. “Okay. If it matters to you that much.”
“We don’t have to watch it. It was just--”
“Hal. Relax.” He jerks his chin forward, crosses his arms. “It’s important to you. I want to understand why you like it.”
Hal’s mouth goes a little dry.
He starts up A New Hope without a word, sets the laptop on the table, settles back. Dave puts his arm around the back of the sofa behind him. He attempts not to notice, even if ever so slowly, he leans into his partner’s side, the skin of his bare chest so warm against the back of Hal’s arm.
The movie starts, and Hal starts commentating, because it’s what he does best when he’s nervous. He pulls his knees up, and it’s easy to pretend that he’s not entirely pressed up against Dave, who mostly hums in acknowledgement as he overshares his knowledge about a movie he knows back and forth four times over.
“Ah, this scene. I love this scene. The pacing is just tremendous. Y’know, it was a debate for years whether Han or Greedo shot first. I’ve fought with enough idiots in forums that think Greedo shot first, but you can tell that it’s Han because… ah…”
He’s aware he’s borderline ranting, and Dave’s stopped replying to him for the last few minutes and he’s really not sure if he’s maybe bored or falling asleep. Curious, he turns to the side to peer at his partner’s face.
Dave’s staring back at him, watching him, intense, predatory, and Hal immediately shuts up. He waits for a moment, follows the line of Dave’s eyes, where he’s entirely focused on Hal’s mouth and... oh.
Hal doesn’t react. Doesn’t know what to do.
Ever so slowly, Dave leans into him, until their foreheads are touching, breath mingling. Hal closes his eyes as Dave’s nose nudges against his own, and he can feel his blood thundering in his ears. He smells like booze and cigarettes, underneath, that pure, masculine scent that Hal can’t handle so close to him, not like this, not when--
Hal moves before his brain can kick in and tell him no. Closes the space between them, their lips meeting for the first time, Dave’s warm and dry against his because it’s so chaste, so fleeting, and he pulls away before the moment even has time to begin. He’s aware what this means, what this could do to them, and he just wants him so badly. He can’t trust himself with this.
He’s retreated before Dave even has time to react, and suddenly he’s staring back at that searing expression, horrified at himself for pushing those boundaries. “Oh God. I’m sorr--”
The words are devoured out of his mouth, Dave surging forward to bridge the gap between them, his fingers carding through and fisting the hair at the base of Hal’s skull, holding him in place, possessive. His other hand slides up his neck, tugs at the collar of his shirt, urging him closer until Hal’s facing him, on his knees, and Hal lets him, lets his tongue fuck into his mouth, breathless and scorching. It’s dominating, filthy, yet so pure, a culmination of so much tension between them all in one single kiss and Hal lets him take and take until he feels hollowed out, raw.
Dave is just trying to figure him out as their tongues twine, and Hal whines, low in his throat, finally lets his hands touch, gaining purchase on Dave’s tight shoulders, massaging, sliding up into his thick hair to tug him closer still. Their teeth click, and Hal adjusts, tilts his head, parts his mouth wider, Dave taking that as an invitation to deepen the kiss, sucking his lower lip into his mouth, biting down with the barest of pressure.
His dick is already rock hard, and they’ve been coming up on this for months now, pushing this tension between them away, down, and as much as he wants this and as much as Dave is pulling up long-dormant feelings from him that he’s been dying to feel, he can’t, because this is too much, and this is a bad idea, and Dave makes this low, hungry noise that he answers by crawling into his lap, straddling him.
He’s higher up now, and Dave has to tilt his head back against the sofa, and Hal pulls his hair, grinds his hips down because he needs to relieve that pressure, even just a little. Finally, he breaks through the haze of arousal, feels the hard line of Dave’s cock underneath his ass, and it’s just too real, but he can’t stop kissing him, even if they’re both breathing too hard, slow stuttering kisses punctuated with nips and licks, until Dave is holding his jaw, prying him open, taking again and Hal lets it happen until he can’t anymore.
Finally, he forces himself to turn away, mouth wet, because this is a bad idea, and they can’t just do this, can’t let this happen, because there’s too much resting on his shoulders, on the shoulders of Philanthropy, too much for Hal and Dave to be carried away by something as pedantic as sexual tension. It’s just sexual tension. It’s not--
Still, Dave noses at his cheek, presses curiously gentle kisses to his jaw, and Hal clenches his eyes shut, panting, lets his hips roll just one more time, that delicious contact sending heat up his spine. His fingers tense where they’re braced on Dave’s neck, before Hal forces himself to stop.
He waits.
Dave catches up to him, nuzzles his face into the hollow of Hal’s throat. They breathe there, together, tension building again, the heat between them too oppressive to bear.
“Fuck.”
Hal doesn’t respond, can’t help but smile a little to himself at that punched-out word, blush rising up his chest and neck. Pride swells in his chest, because he did that to him. He didn’t know he could evoke that reaction out of someone, especially not Dave.
Dave sits back, hands sliding down to Hal’s hips, fingers slotting into his belt loops. He pulls him down, grinding his hips up to meet him. That pressure for one hot second, until Dave noisily exhales, looks up at him with glassy eyes and slick lips.
“We need to talk about this,” he says, although he doesn’t sound too convinced, hands squeezing and groping at Hal’s ass, sliding down to cup the underside of his thighs. “Fuck. Hal.”
“Y-yeah,” Hal responds. “Ah. We should talk about this.”
He’s not really ready for Dave to stop touching him, doesn’t want to move, but they can’t just let this happen.
Dave presses one last kiss against his pulse. It’s not enough.
They pull apart with some difficulty. Hal retreats, slips off of Dave’s strong thighs, back onto his hands to scramble upright. Puts a bit of space between them, because he knows if they’re still touching, he really won’t be able to control himself. He rights his glasses on his nose, views the world through smudges and refracted light.
Dave leans back, legs spread, hands covering his face. He makes a quiet, frustrated noise, fingers sliding up into his hair, until he drapes them over the back of the sofa again, crossing his ankle over his knee. A deep breath. Then, “Okay. So. Catch me up.”
“Well. We just made out.”
His eyes crinkle with amusement. “I’m aware, Hal. I meant on the movie.”
Oh. Hal turns back to where the movie’s been playing the entire time, oblivious to their actions, to just how much has changed between them, all over again. In the part of his brain that isn’t numbed out by alcohol or Dave’s kisses, he recognizes that this is a conversation for when they aren’t both horny and drinking. For when talking wouldn’t automatically lead to touching, to more, even if it’s all that he wants right now, maybe all that Dave wants, too.
He slouches down into the cushions, aching to be touched again, forcing himself to speak. They need a distraction. “Uh, well, Alderaan was destroyed by Tarkin, on order of the Death Star’s commanding officer. And--”
They barely watch the rest of the movie, inches between them, both entirely aware of the tension. By the time the credits are rolling, their knees are touching again, and it’s the only contact they can afford because Hal’s not too sure what’s about to happen now, the night stretching long and inviting before them.
He reaches forward and closes his laptop, a little too rough to be natural, stays forward, hands on his knees. The world is a little spinny, and the bottle’s a lot more empty, and they only have one bed in this place, the spare room currently overtaken by an array of machinery.
“So…”
“You take it,” says Dave, reading his mind.
Hal runs a finger over the logo on the lid, watches the movement. “Or we could share.”
Dave retrieves the mostly empty pack of smokes from the table. Pulls one out and flips it in his fingers. “Probably not a good idea.”
“Probably not.” Hal sets his palm down on his laptop, warm to the touch. “But--”
“I know. Me too.”
“Ah.” He wants so badly to be careless enough to just reach out, to ignore the truth, but Hal refuses to be that person anymore. “I’ll just--”
“Yeah.”
He tilts forward onto his feet, catching himself on the table before he falls. Hal picks up his laptop, clutching it to his chest like a shield. He suddenly feels awkward, not really sure what to say aside from, ‘Come with me,’ which they’ve already established is a terrible idea. And yet, the words form on his tongue.
Dave taps the cigarette on the table, Hal watching his fingers. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Um. Yeah. Night.”
“Goodnight.”
He can’t bring himself to close the bedroom door behind him, as he stands in the frame. Against his better judgment, he turns back to face Dave, who’s still regarding him from the sofa, teasing the cigarette in his fingers, bringing it up to place it between his lips. The action’s not lost on Hal, eyes pinpointing to the way his mouth shapes around the cigarette, the shine of his lips, the hint of tongue.
“Hal,” he says, out of the side of his mouth, “You really need to close that door before I change my mind.”
“Y-yeah.” He forces a hissed out breath between his teeth, clutches his laptop tighter to his chest. “Okay. Fuck. Okay, night.”
The door clicks shut behind him and he slumps back against it, head thudding back on the wood as he sighs. His mind starts racing, and he’s so tempted to just go back out there, cover Dave’s body on the sofa with his own, the meeting of their hips and mouths would be so very welcome.
Still. Hal behaves himself, because he’s a man of science, understands probability, understands logic. Dave is right. They need to talk about this. The odds of this ruining them is not insignificant. Even if his cock is hard and heavy between his legs, and he wants more than anything just to kiss him again. Just one kiss. It would be enough.
The laptop finds purchase on the side table, the stem of his glasses pinned underneath, and he mostly collapses into the bed, face-down, kicking off his pants with some difficulty. He didn’t even bother to turn on the lights, crawling under the covers, pressing his face into the pillow to bite down, because he wants to fuck so badly, his hips rocking down to press his cock into the mattress to relieve a bit of the pressure.
Sleep comes. His dreams are kind, producing images of him fucking Dave, or being fucked by Dave, Dave’s head between his thighs, fingers disappearing under his balls, mouth wet and red around his cock. Waking up next to him. Slow kisses, deep and searching.
Hal feels more rested than he has in weeks.
Still, the morning brings a headache and a dry mouth, and he’s not quite brave enough to exit the bedroom, even if he has to piss something awful. Sober, now, his chest feels tight, because he’s gone and leapt over boundaries, knocked right through them, regardless of the consequences. His eager, stupid heart, just when he was ready to loosen the chain.
He’s a little horrified over the prospect of a talk, because he’s never been great about talking about his feelings, or whatever the hell transpired between them the previous night. He doesn’t know what Dave is going to say to him, because even though Dave had helped him instigate, he might be the only person Hal knows that’s usually more closed off than himself.
He slides on his glasses, picks up his laptop, opens it, in need of a creature comfort before the inevitable anxiety attack. He starts looking at the inbox that receives anonymous tips, like he does every morning, because they’ve been pouring in with more frequency now than ever before.
Hal’s hand pauses over the trackpad as he comes across a new submission. No. No. He swallows down the wave of nausea that threatens as his brain struggles to make sense of what his eyes are taking in, the memories being dragged back up from the screaming depths of him. Could it be? He knows that name. No one else should.
E.E.
A name. Two vowels. All it takes to change everything all over again.