Chapter Text
He is desert. He comes to you caked in dirt, in scratched armour and a dented helmet. It might as well be his skull, you touch your fingers to the edge of it where his chin might be. Skin could be underneath it, or nothing.
You hope for nothing, dream about neither and that is why you’re allowed to stay. You say nothing, your eyes are water-soft and staring at yourself in his muddy visor. He knows. Before it’s said, he knows he looks like the wrong side of a fist fight.
“Was it worth it?” you ask.
“It paid enough for fuel,” he replies, half-wishing his vision were more obstructed. Your stare is not deep or dense, something to get lost in. It’s big, vast, you look at him like he’s important to you, even as you tease him. Every time.
“So,” you start. The corner of your lip twitches, you talk low when you’re this close, the cold, dirty metal under your forehead is warming. “I’ll lose you tomorrow?”
It’s only phrased like a question to find out how long you have. Tonight or tomorrow, but he’ll go. Losing him is only a matter of when. Your hand moves from his chin to his cheek, leaving fingerprints in the dust. He nods.
“Tomorrow,” he confirms, “but I won’t be gone long.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” you smile at him, nudging your nose affectionately against metal. Your other hand moves to the unclaimed side of his face. You press your fingers to the dirt and start to push it away. “Can you see me?”
“I can,” he says, his hands finally rise. Leather gloved, they grip your wrists with a fond firmness. He pulls them away from his face.
“You look a sight,” you say.
“I was waiting for you to comment,” he replies.
“Come up with me,” you continue, “you never drink, anyway.”
And you’re right. The two of you exchange one-sided looks and loaded touches in the corner of a dimly-lit tavern, the revelry is enough to block out the rest of the world. Instinctively, he looks to the stairs. They lead to another world, he swears, a quiet one.
“I don’t,” he agrees.
“And you’ve already said you’ll stay the night,” even with your wrists —still held in his grip— firmly at your sides you manage to touch him. You dip your head, kissing where the idea of his mouth exists. Real or not under there, you aren’t one to mince your metaphors. “Spend it with me,”
It says a lot. You want to kiss him. You’d let him kiss you back. You’ve let him hold you, he remembers that. He releases your wrists. You don’t let him go far, your hand curls around his and finally he is given space.
You have dirt on your fingers, the palms of your hands. Your forhead, nose, lips. Wiping at your mouth with your forearm, you turn and breeze through the sea of bodies. All requests and words go ignored, the light at the top of the stairs glows like heaven.
He’s lead to it, you don’t look back at him although he can see you wanting. You tug him up the stairs, off the landing, down the narrow hallway. Whatever awful song’s being sung or instrument played, it can’t touch you up here.
Sometimes I know why you like to be alone, you said with your naked back to him. His flushed face found the inside of his mask unwelcome. Half the thoughts in my head aren’t mine. Too much noise, he guessed. Too much, too soon. Like this, like your hands on him. But he didn’t say that.
He talks. He does. But when he does, he remembers every word you say.
And the path to your room is not a path he walks alone. You’ve coaxed him here every time, with an upsetting lack of force. He wouldn’t let you use any, but his resolve’s weaker than he thought.
“Are you hungry?” you ask and he knows well enough that it’s sincerely meant.
“No,” he replies, his voice is flat.
“Good,” you continue, pushing the curtain aside and closing out that heaven-light. It’s dark where you sleep, but it’s just as easy to pretend it’s quiet.
You fasten each side in place so that nothing will be disturbed. That’s how you like it, what you do with him must go unobserved.
You turn to look at him and it’s without the searing sensation of trying to guess something. He can always tell when eyes are trying to find secrets. Yours only hold affection. Maybe love if he squints. He keeps his eyes open.
He doesn’t go any further into your room, though he knows the way to the bed. He stands there, stupid with unresolved emotion. Why wouldn’t someone want to see love in someone else? He’d rather not think about it.
Maybe because you move to hold his leather-bound hand again. And you don’t know that there’s a patch on the valley between the index finger and thumb where the blaster recoil burned him. You know he kills, sometimes, but the details are fuzzy. He argues plausible deniability.
Because he wants you to kiss him again. You wrap an arm around his waist and lift your hand again. You wipe away dirt, maybe a faint trace of blood. He rubs at your dusty forehead with his thumb. You smile at him, the corners of your big stare crinkling like this is a joke. Or a game.
Or something fun, he realizes. He likes it when you like it.
“I’ll get a cloth and clean you up,” you start, your arm loosens and something like panic surges. He doesn’t lunge, but his hand at your forehead wraps around your shoulders. It’s quick, like something serpentine. He grabs you and keeps you against him.
“Don’t,” he says, “stay,”
“Now you know how I feel,” you tease. Such lively reactions have to be handled with care. He, so soon, grows cold when he bares himself to you.
You kiss him. It’s a real kiss and he never doubts that you know that.
It’s so dark. Maybe the moon’s blown up, or gone out just to give the two of you some privacy. Maybe it’s flickered like a candle. It might come back.
The metal’s warm, now. So’s the glass under your lips. He’s clean enough to love, though your standards are lax. You let him grip you tight and turn you towards the bed.
“You want this?” he asks, he does every time. He waits for your slow sound of approval, he can’t see you nod in the dark. “How?”
You shiver, he doesn’t need to hear that. He feels it, you lean into him and whisper, “How you like it,” and you giggle. The sound of your laugh could rattle around, produce an echo in the lonely space between his ribs.
He exhales, it’s a low sound and the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed. You turn because you mean it. How he likes it. From behind.
There are hands at your hips. Rough and gentle, they ease you against his chest. His gloves start at your stomach, undoing beaded buttons and opening your vest. He presses his palm against your belly, pulling your shirt underneath from where it’s tucked into the hem of your skirt.
You’re too preoccupied with feeling him even to breathe. The slightest noise might startle him. You fear that, fear scaring his love back into hiding. His hand pushes under your shirt, finding your warm skin. He swears he can feel the heat searing his palm. He cups your breast, squeezing slowly.
And then, you couldn’t swallow a moan. It spills from you, a soft sound of appreciation that works on him like magic. He pushes his hips against your rear, wanting to feel that, too.
Maybe you stay like that for a week. Appreciating each other in barely-broken silence, pausing for hard-earned air and taking of the small amount of warmth you’ve found in cold space.
He palms your chest, you can feel the hard press of the edge of his helmet at your shoulder. He wraps himself firmly around you, you can feel the tent in his trousers against your backside. You turn and kiss his cheek like you’ve already met him. Like there is nothing else to know.
That’s the way he likes it, really. But he starts to undress you because it’s easier to explain.
Your vest slips off your shoulders when he moves away. He tugs your shirt over your head. He pauses to drag his thumb over your nipple, the caress is painfully indulgent. You moan again, but there’s a smile to it. He shivers.
But then his hand moves lower, back over your stomach and to the edge of your skirt. Your arm folds behind you, resting at the back of his head. You’re still kissing where you can reach.
He grunts, untying the cord that keeps your skirt closed at your hip. It unravels easily, he’s had practice. His hand pushes further still, against the front of your crotch. Then, when you’ve parted your legs enough, against the gusset of your underwear.
He thought you moaned before.
It’s an arching sound, domed like the sky. It bubbles, it could turn his skin to ash and he wants to hear it again. Destroy him. Make him rubble.
“That’s good,” you mumble, you widen your stance just a bit.
“You like it?” he asks, chasing the happy cross between a sigh and a yes that follows.
He pets the insides of your thighs, drags two, rough fingers over where it feels nice. You’ve reminded him that sex can be a recollection. He knew how to touch you when you found him.
“More,” you tell him, “yes,” you give him.
You give him more than that. Free rein over your body, handed to a fellow traveller. This is a gift, this kind of love. It will never leave him. It’s comfort.
He drags your underwear down to your thighs. You wriggle against him when you take them off. And then, you catch his hand again. You pull gently on the tips of his glove, tugging them from his hands.
“Because I want your fingers inside me,” you clarify. He gives no complaint. You can have a hand. It returns to where it’s needed, stroking and thumbing and palming at you while your knees turn to water.
He doesn’t put his hand to your back, push you onto all fours on the bed until you’re wetter than water. He still doesn’t know how that’s possible. But it is. You slump over, picking up your knees and crawling over the quilt until you’re comfortable.
Hands, knees, how he likes it. He grips your hips, the skin of his bared palm burns like the hot sun. It’s good to have it free, it makes opening his fly a little easier. It makes the sensation of skin on skin sweeter when he reaches forward to give your breast another squeeze.
He hears your breath hitch.
“You want me to say it?” you ask, there’s a smile in your voice.
“Yes,” he says. Even through his helmet, he sounds rough. Rougher, choking on desire. You listen to him clear his throat.
“I want this,” you start.
“What?” he asks. You scoff. You were getting there.
“You,” you say, “fucking me,”
He hums, he can’t catch it before it’s out there. His hands follow the curve of your back to your hips. You push your knees open, lowering your front to the bed. You turn your head, but he knows you can’t see him like this.
“Don’t drag your feet,” you continue. His gloved hand leaves your hip. It’s a purposeful choice.
He feels the front of his trousers, the growing tent before reaching into his unzipped fly. He’s hard, twitching in his palm. He pushes his knees against the edge of the bed, tugging your hip back until you’re close enough.
Close enough to feel the hot, slick head of him press against you. His gloved hand covers one side of your rear, pulling you back as he moves forward. But the other, the one that’s only skin moves between your legs.
You make a sound like music. He moves into you and traces lazy circles over your clit. Your breathing comes shaky, you don’t feel any pain. He’s big, thick. But he fits into you. You moan from somewhere deep in your chest as his hips press flush against the backs of your thighs.
He’s doing good. He reminds himself of that as he rolls his middle finger over a bud of nerves. As he thrusts, shallow. Hot skin on hot skin, making nerves sing like instruments. The helmet muffles his soft sounds, but they catch in your ears.
You can barely call it fucking. He’s not moving, scared to hurt you if he doesn’t go slow. He never gets to go slow, you grant him the mercy of long intimacy. Coupling is allowed to meander. You moan like he’s pushing into you hard. It occurs to him you might like it better this way.
Soft. Tender. He does start to move with a little more body eventually. He takes a handful of your hip and helps you take him a little deeper. If you knew his name, you’d whisper it. So everything else is shouts.
It shatters the quiet in a way he actually likes. Let them roar downstairs. Only you can truly disturb the peace. You’re the only one he’d let do it.
“More,” comes from you like a chorus. It’s greedy. People have been greedy for parts of him. But he’s a whole body behind you, a tangle of nerves in armour shaped like a man. You beg him to move. Push. Take.
You want this, you remind him. Even this you want. Pull, fuck, have. Give, you’re giving yourself. He’s allowed to want it, too. He presses his fingers to your clit and his hips buck, fast and involuntary.
You’re pushed forward, knees catching on the quilt. Your moan is strangled, happy. Finally, finally. More. Yes. I need it.
Need. He’s been a want. Not a need. He snaps his hips again and it sends him reeling this time.
It feels good, he knows why you tell him so. Because it’s worth mentioning, he could tell you that you feel perfect. He follows a rhythm after two, indulgent thrusts. It’s still not hard, you could still beg for more. But you can feel him in you. He puts his palm to your lower back to steady himself.
He goes until he feels you flutter, clench. You bear down around him, a thousand muscles moving as one. You’re tight, so tight then it’s all as it was. But you’re a puddle with bones, staying where you are only so he might finish off.
In his mind, he can picture you slumped over and twitching. Overcome. He can do that. He moves faster because he wants to see it. His chest tightens when he hears you move your hair out of your eyes. You offer one, half-glance over your bear shoulder. You seek a gaze you don’t find.
But you hear him. He’s in you when he finishes. It’s allowed, he’ll exploit that. His hand grips you tight, his middle finger still strokes you in sensitive circles. You hear a noise rise above metal, above restraint.
Your name. He says your name with a rumble in his throat. And then he goes still. He steps back so he can hear you flop down on the bed. You’ll want him to join. He won’t deny you that.
“Was it good for you?” he manages. He doesn’t know why he asks, but he’s short of breath.
“Oh, yes,” you laugh. Now, that’s heaven. Even in the dark.