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“…I can’t take the blame for this Sawyer, I can’t. I know I’ve taken it before because my slate is semi-clean, but I cannot take the blame for this, you know how many people died.
It’s something they are not willing to look over, not if it were my mistake, Harley - it.. it’s safer this way, they would never fire you, it’s your project…”
“So you will happily sit and throw me under the bus, White!? And what will you do if I am fired? Hm?”
Beat.
Sawyer laughed, just to cut into the silence Bruno left. It meant Bruno wouldn’t do anything. He just didn’t want to say it aloud, “…I should not be surprised, I always knew you were a two-faced coward.”
The other looked up with the speed of someone who had touched an electric fence. White’s expression looked that shocked as well.
“Oh you can stop acting like you’re innocent.
You always ignore me, just to people please others. To act like you’re just as sorry, on the same page, the people’s man. You’re a shell of a human being who has no motives other than baseless amusement. Even in our work White, even in us, you are just a bored, sad man.
I’m not looking over it this time. You’ve made it obvious you are a simple-minded piece of scum. Do you really value me at all, White? I have half a mind to believe you were pleasing me just to tell others my weaknesses…”
Beat. Again.
“You knew I talked about you?”
Harley didn’t say anything, he just glared. So he did know.
“You… know its not like that though.” White continued, “I don’t mean it like that, it’s just a bit of fun you know I don’t actually dislike you. You can’t really think I dislike you…?
I would never tell anyone… I would never tell anyone your weaknesses; you think I would tell Pierre? I wouldn’t do that, why on earth would I? Leith wouldn’t even care! You know I…“
“…I should have never humoured you. Tell me now, that you do not trivialise my trust. That you do not squander being the only person I have ever kept in my life.”
His eyes scanned Bruno’s expression, trying to discern in each micro-expression if the man was being honest, or if he was feigning… or if he had his facade melded in place. He noticed the anxious self soothing motions of White’s hands on each other, and wryness of his worried brow, and the wet glint in Bruno’s otherwise dull black eyes. The words hinted at their connection, a twinge in White’s heart was betrayed in the colour of his skin, the heat by his neck. Eyes adverting from Sawyer’s, who was relentless in his furious stare.
“Sawyer.. you know me. You know me better than anyone, I promise you. I wouldn’t trivialise our trust.” The words broken by a harsh, dry swallow under the other man’s scrutiny. “If you had a problem, Sawyer, you should have told me sooner and I would have stopped because… look, none of that is serious. Not compared to… us?”
He let his previous words simmer before his voice let on a new strain, “It’s not… you’re right, it’s trivial! You know that! I don’t have anything against you…” Bruno made a desperate sort of whine, and continued with that thin infliction, “What did you hear? Did you hear me talking about you? I was only joking - did you see a note? It’s not… about you, not really - I just try and find something in this place, something that isn’t my …”
He swallowed. In a rush to get his words out but that sickness in his mind flared as he said it, skin paling.
“Um… catharsis.
Something that doesn’t take me apart piece by piece, something that keeps me sane.”
“I shouldn’t have had to tell you. I thought you would stop indulging in playground banter at my expense like all the other regressive, stupid somebodies here when you…
…knew I was giving you even ground to walk on. With me. Though clearly our work was too much for you, if you really needed that escape. I was under the impression the blood that you spilt was a welcome indulgence to your stupid, pathetic mind.”
“ I can apologise as much as you would like for my wrongdoings. But you’ve forgotten that this isn’t about… me.. It’s… about you-“
”You can’t even be bothered to reply to me! Deny it White!”
”…Deny… what part?”
”That you, Bruno, are living in a fantasy.”
“Ph- Well… apparently I’m the one of us who isn’t living in the fantasy! Since i’m not the ego-manic who can’t take the blame for their own ridiculous, unregulated actions and expects someone else to despite the fact it would be so consequential to their whole life!
It would make no sense for me, they would see right through me anyway, Sawyer… they know despite my jokes, that keep me feeling like a human being, that I AM loyal to you. That I would take blame for you, because i’ve done it before Sawyer.
I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go, they would tear me apart, disgrace me - Pierre is that bitter! I wouldn’t be able to stay here, I would have no job, and everything that has happened at my hands would mean nothing! So damn you if you think I should take the blame for this! It’s not like they would ever believe my story, so what’s the point?
They would never fire you, I’m sorry if you’re demoted, but I don’t have that kind of worth to Pierre. I’m self aware enough to know I’m replaceable.
And I’m sorry, but what you did was… it was fucking stupid of yourself!”
“…Fuck you White. To hell.
I thought you understood me.”
“I can tell you’re angry Sawyer, I understand that, but I can’t help you-“
“-You know NOTHING of me!
I hope they do fire me, kick me out, kill my legacy, end my career because you have crossed me for the last time.
I hope I am never to see you again, even if it costs me my position in this field. You are a pest. You are weak. You are so easily entertained by petty melodrama, and by worthless acts of affection that make you feel special like some kind of needy child. You don’t even dare to look inside and realise there is nothing there, not even a breath of true motivation, or personality.
I meant it White. You are nothing to me. And I am glad to be rid of you. I don’t have the patience to be betrayed like this, not by a two-faced bastard, not by anyone.”
“Please don’t Sawyer- please… don’t say that, I never.. I just need to be frank with you, you have been frank with me. I.. you know what I - that I can’t let this go, that I -“
“…That you what?
That you what, exactly, Bruno?”
“…Do you …
want me to…?
I can’t..”
“…No.
I don’t want you to say it. Because I will say it, I will say it to Leith, I will tell both of them what you are and they will not be pleased about what we have had. If they are taking me, they will take you too and I will glad of it.
Since you have broken your loyalty, I will break mine, if I haven’t already made that clear.”
Was Harley really saying he would out the both of them, their stolen moments, their unusual connection, just to disgrace White? He would face the consequences too, or was he on a self-sacrificial rampage, to screw up everything because he made a mistake at the hands of his own arrogance and couldn’t face the consequences. How could Bruno really feel such things for such an irritating man, one he had learnt not to reason with when he was in such a mood.
“Why would you do that to yourself!”
White stepped forward, Sawyer counteracted it, his foot pulling back, with a quirk of a smile by the sides of his mouth. Snark. A scowl. Then he jabbed a finger toward Bruno. Harley knew he was breaking White and their fragile ‘relationship’.
“To get even. To show you there is not an inch of me that cares for you anymore, not that I ever cared. I can pay the price for that. You were just useful, and I was glad to have someone who was of an understanding with me. Because not many care about the nuances.”
“You don’t mean that…” Bruno’s lips were dry, he wet them, he tried to say something more.
“…I can’t take the blame for this.”
“But you will pay.”
“For… not sacrificing my career for you?”
“…you don’t even realise what this is about.
I see through you White. You are translucent, you have no content, you are nothing, you feel nothing, you are loyal to nobody. Today has made me see that so much clearer.”
Bruno heaved a breath. Trying to think. To find the thing that would end this, to let him keep Sawyer, to let him keep his dignity, his job. It wasn’t his fault.
“I love you.” It was his last plea. To say it aloud.
The words he had always suppressed, always called by another name. Obsession, fascination, a need to study Sawyer, to appreciate Sawyer and to be there for him when the time is right… because nobody else was there for him… nobody else had known him for as long as Bruno had.
Sawyer stepped close. Close to his personal space, so much so it reminded him of that first time. And, like that first time, Bruno hoped… despite the despair of the moment, that he would feel Sawyer’s lips again.
But Harley Sawyer laughed. He laughed in White’s face and shook his head with a break of a smirk that read pure and heartless apathy.
Then he stepped back.
“…you should have said that a long time ago.”
The man’s back turned on White, whose facade had died. Along with whoever White had been with Sawyer.
Bruno kicked his office chair in such a violent outburst.
If Sawyer didn’t love him. He did not love Sawyer.
If only White had a way of proving Sawyer meant nothing to him in turn. The final goodbye. The last show of how little he cared.
How little he valued the person that was Harley Sawyer.
He had a meeting with Ritterman and Pierre in half an hour, presumably to discuss the Theatre Incident. Bruno had to pull himself together.