The captain’s bed was nice… It was big, warm and softer than Mike’s own. An unexpected luxury that came at a high enough cost that the young slinger took advantage of its use to get his trouble’s worth. Not that the difficulties encroached here, not when he lay in the circle of Marco’s strong arms, and felt the man’s heat, his strong heartbeat against his cheek, and the sticky aftermath of their intimacy between his legs.
This moment, dragged out with determination on the end of a rope of patience that was so thin it may as well have been called a thread, but this moment made everything worth the pains. The rumble of Marco’s breath, not quite even, not as soft and drawn out as Mike’s was becoming. It was so much easier falling asleep in the captain’s bed than his own, so much more satisfying. Worlds apart, really.
He felt the touch of fingers against the edge of his ear, questing through the soft and messy mop of his blonde-tipped hair. The contact raised goose-flesh along his arms and sent a tingle through his body, kindling the flame of a flush across his cheeks that caught the tips of his ears. Marco was pretty good at doing that. He was pretty good at doing a lot of things to Mike that the slinger had never expected, but even more than that, Marco offered something now that Mike had always tried to grasp, but never came up with anything significant to apply any meaning to that selfsame need.
The disparity in their strengths and the differences in their levels of confidence shone brighter now than at times of active duty. Mike noticed it acutely and it put a wrinkle between his brows when he thought about how he never thought of himself as lacking gumption before, but there was so much on his plate, he felt the rug being pulled out from under his feet and he stumbled and fell hard. He kept falling, it hurt every time, but Marco was there… In that moment, Marco was there.
The wrinkle in Mike’s forehead smoothed, he shifted closer, draped against the captain’s side, and basked in the attention. The safety. He would have scoffed at that at one time, said something about not needing to be anyone’s bitch, but this was such a different feeling, and he had never experienced anything in his life up to that point that had lead him around in circles until he was completely lost. He had never lost anything significant, and had never been challenged so hard or for so long that his pride began to crumble around him.
What other than that did he have to offer, really? He was just some dumb kid, with a rotten core that didn’t feel like it was getting any clearer. But Marco made that go away, as much as Mike found it embarrassing to admit to himself, he wanted to feel the strength in those arms, and in the body beneath his, he wanted them to wipe away the difficulties, and he wanted to belong there badly enough that he put himself through hell for it.
It felt good in Marco’s bed, in Marco’s arms. In this moment, where dreams were half a shade away, he could set aside the proud brat he was inside, the hurt little child who hated his father for not giving him this strength and this warmth that he so desperately needed. He could forget the bravado, because it was just the two of them, no one else could see that weak and awkward young man who wanted to be at the centre of Marco’s attention.
Marco’s fingers were nice… Rough around the edges a bit, but that made the touch to the rim of his ear more palpable. He closed his eyes, expelling a long soft breath out of his nose. Marco tamed the fire burning in his gut, Mike didn’t know how the man did it, but it felt like he was floating now and nothing could touch him.
A smooth transition from overly excited energy, a descent out of hostility and frustration, shifting gears until Mike melted against the captain and forgot about his smart mouth, and the smart mouths of the crew. Mike forgot that there was a whole universe outside of the captain’s quarters, he forgot about his own cramped and lonely quarters, the work he had to do come morning shift, the anger he had inside… It all went away.
The black void of his subconscious was warm, but only at first. In the beginning, when he could still hear Marco’s heartbeat over the thick fog of his fatigue, he felt safe, but things turned so quickly in the darkness of his mind. The warmth faded. His security blanket of post-coital bliss was pulled off an inch at a time until his mind bled horrors into the dark.
Two mechanical points of light, skewed into nightmarish shape. A sinister grin, the line of exposed mandibles and demonic fangs, bathed in purple glow. A physical jolt overtook Mike’s sleeping form, jerking his limbs slightly. A bright flash, brighter than Nexus’ sun. Then pain. Red hot, like molten lava, crawling all over his leg like fire worms. No… Not his leg, his leg was gone, it was just blood, burnt flesh and pain. PAIN.
Mike jerked awake with a strangled noise, blinking blearily in the dark. Startled awake, he thought he saw the face from his nightmares standing over him in the dark, lurching him into a sitting position. No… Not a face, just a wall panel opposite, with blinking purple lights. He breathed out the panicked sob in his chest, then hissed into his hands, biting back the cry stuck in his throat as pain tore through his thigh, sizzling around the prosthetic’s contacts and driving deeply into the knots of muscle seizing in his thigh.
Cold sweat left a moist sheen across his back and dripped off his chin when he bent over his aching limb, grasping at the points of pain with shaking hands. Waves, higher than he was tall, waves that crashed against him and made him stumble, made him grasp for some sort of grounding wire. He couldn’t find his way back to calm, to work the pain away like he’d been taught, it just hurt. It hurt, it hurt. Mike’s body shook, the lump in his throat shifted, the sobbing was low and hissed, but it bubbled out unchecked.
In the force, he'd slept like a log. The sleep of the just was heavy, and deep. It had been a long time since Marco had savoured that particular variety of sleep. These nights, like every night stretching back to a time before 'Rob' was a person rather than just a charge, his was a thinner, more delicate flavour of slumber.
It was hard, getting used to sharing a bed again. Not because of who it was in his space; Mike was warm, and curled against him, seemingly able to get comfortable in any number of complex and spine-bending poses. Simply because it had become so unfamiliar.
The kid was still drawing deep, even breaths when his eyes levered open a slit, grey in the darkness. He'd shifted, bumping against Marco gently, but often that was enough.
He lay still in the quiet, taking the measure of the room.
Dark, quiet, filled with the soft sound of their breathing.
And a creeping tension that made Mike twitch against him.
Suddenly he jerked like a rabbit at the end of a snare, twisting himself into verticality. Marco's breath was the soft feathering of a groan as he lifted a hand to the curve of the slinger's back.
Mike did not turn, did not lie back down.
He bent, hissing over his leg, until Marco levered himself into a sitting position. Marvel of engineering it might have been, but this wasn't the first time he'd caught the kid gritting his teeth over the pain it caused. "Leg again?"
It was the first time however he'd heard such a plaintive, wet sob from him. "Hey," his whisper was hoarse, sleep thick and heavy as two marble blocks grinding against one another. Poor Mike. "Hey, c'mere.... breathe. Just breathe."
The captain's hands were like most of him, large and hard and warm as they spread across the clenched muscles. "Long ones in through your mouth, then slow out through your nose. Quite a snarl in those lines." He pushed gently, fingers following the length of a muscle to where it bunched painfully. "Keep breathing... "
Something cut through the crashing tide that robbed him of his breath and made everything burn. A touch, sliding onto his back, warming his chilled limbs. Mike heard the words through his confusion and pain, saw the silver hook of his grounding wire, shining so brightly in the smoke of everything else and he reached out to grasp the end of it desperately. It connected.
Breathe. A breath shuddered into his lungs and hitched awkwardly in his throat, sticking like a lump of rice, until Marco’s chest was at his back, his fingers finding the edge of Mike’s pain. The slinger turned his head into the crook of the man’s neck and shoulder. Men don’t cry… It was the kind of thing his father would have pumped into his head at one time, Rob’s thoughts of hyper masculinity that had done much more damage than they had done good, but in that desperate fraction of time, Mike’s tears met the captain’s skin unchecked.
Gentle and warm instructions followed, rumbling through Marco’s chest, along the column of his neck against Mike’s cheek and the slinger listened with desperation. It hurt more for a moment when Marco’s fingers dug in and found the problem areas, where muscles stiffened into stubborn over-stimulated knots, but he clung to that grounding wire with everything he had.
The shaking evened with every shuddering breath Mike took and expelled, the twitching of his thigh responded to the captain’s kneading, the intense zings of pressure eventually smoothing into tingles when Marco worked the knots loose. Exhausted by the ordeal, Mike let himself just lean back against Marco, blinking back the rest of the wetness in his eyes when the worst was over.
He should have felt devastated, embarrassed and ashamed. If this was a moment experienced with Rob, he might have felt all these things, and then some. No, he definitely would have. There would have been so much unrecoverable stoicism, it would have choked him. A part of him still wanted to be reliable, unstoppable and full of bluster to impress Marco, but he couldn’t find any of that now.
Breathing through the last aches, Mike felt knocked down and dragged out, but Marco was a comforting presence at his back, curled around him and making the pain go away for once, and he was so stupidly grateful it threatened to invite more tears. He was oddly quiet, closing his swollen eyes and just soaking himself in the heat of Marco’s concern.
A thought bubbled up in his mind, unusually selfless, though perhaps being laid bare and made vulnerable in front of a man that commanded his respect brought with it a touch of humility to Mike’s conscience. His own hands were more steady when he ran them slowly over Marco’s arms, opening his eyes again to the graying gloom, just able to make out their silhouettes in the darkness.
“Woke you… S-sorry.” He breathed out, and was momentarily shocked by the wobbly emotion coming through in his voice.
He had never spoken like that before, nor felt like he needed to cry before. Things weren’t fair right now, but he had gone through unfairness before and just slogged through, this wasn’t that bad, it shouldn’t have felt that bad. Mike’s fingers tightened around Marco’s arms and he felt the lump in his throat getting bigger again, his eyes heating up. Someone was there for him this time.
The force of the emotion was so strong, he couldn’t trust himself to say anything more, curling into Marco for more of his comfort, not realising how bad the void inside of him was that thirsted for an emotional anchor. He was being such a kid, but for once… For once it felt okay to feel overwhelmed, to feel like he didn’t have his shit together, to feel like he could cry. It was okay. Marco was there, everything would be okay.
It wasn't hard to tell when the worst of the knots released; the tension fled Mike like rats jumping ship, leaving him sagging bonelessly against the captain's chest. Marco rubbed briskly at his thigh, using friction to warm the now slack muscles that they'd be less likely to lock again. Hair straggled across his mouth, and he dipped his head to press a warm little kiss onto the shoulder beneath those honeyed tangles. "Don't think I've slept through a night in the last thirty years," a dismissive little huff, humour and weariness and concern.
"That was worse than usual. You okay?"
He could hear the soft smile in Marco's voice, then the warmth of his concern washed over Mike, quenching the thirst he hadn't realised he was suffering from. He trusted himself enough to wrap an arm over the man's shoulder, half turning into him until he felt the muscles of his throat relax. There wasn't anything he could do about his tone, so he didn't bother to pretend that he had it under control.
"... Everything's a bit... Fucked right now," Mike admitted softly, cooling his hot cheek against Marco's shoulder, "Like I can't get my head above water."
It wasn't easy, being low dog on the totem pole. Marco hadn't fooled himself into thinking any part of this relationship would be easy on Mike. Circumstance had tailor made it to be easy on him, and that injustice chaffed in moments like these. Mike swivelled, one arm looping around his shoulder, clinging and Marco felt his heart lurch awkwardly. The kid deserved for something to be simple, for something to go smoothly. When it came to manhandling the cosmos into cutting one particular individual some slack, rank wasn't much use. Instead, the captain wrapped the slack, sweat-damp body in a tight hug. "You been treading water a while now... you need a break, you just say so."
Mike didn’t know fancy words to describe the feelings Marco’s hug invoked, but there among everything else was such a cosmic measure of relief. Marco’s offer was tempting in all of what it promised. A break, some time away, just to get it all sorted in his mind, but it would be absolutely wasted, absolutely useless. Mike realised this now with more clarity than he would have at any other point in time.
It was his turn to smile an invisible smile that he touched to Marco’s skin. “I’m useless on my own,” he whispered to Marco, a touch of his chagrin leaking through with the admission. “It’s better for me where I’m near you. Least… Least, I can have this, even if everything else is goin’ to hell.”
He squeezed the captain in a hug of his own, until his limbs shook slightly with the effort. It was a big confession, not so much to Marco, more to himself, declaring how much he was relying on the captain’s presence to beat his problems down and find something to help him work through the challenges. He wondered briefly if Marco thought less of him now that it was clear that he was just as likely to fall apart as the next person under enough stress.
“That’s… Okay, right?” he asked uncertainly.
There it was again, that burnt out little receptor that left a dark hole hidden in Rob's son, under all the bravado and bluster. Marco, with the vestiges of sleep still pulled in around him like a worn blanket, cinched his arms even tighter, and kissed the curve of his ear where it breeched the waves of his hair. "Ships need a lot of moving parts to stay afloat, and none of 'em are of much use without the rest. I never much liked being on my own either. Ship's nice that way... you can be alone if you need to, but you're never on your own. Not completely."
There was a reactionary little squeeze in response, and Marco breathed in slow and steady, chest expanding like a bellows warmed through by the feeling of being needed. "It's all gonna wash, don't worry. Always does."
Mike felt the pull of exhaustion tugging on him, slowing his reactions, distracting him with minute details. The way Marco’s body was warm, his deep and resonating words, the way Mike’s chest tingled to be held in the captain’s embrace, the warmth in his leg where Marco had helped to loosen him up and how he had taken the pain away. Marco’s reassurance was the right key, delivered at just the right time, unlocking Mike’s inner turmoil until he softened further against the captain’s hold.
“I’m glad…” A short pause, pregnant with consideration as Mike wavered back and forth about admitting his feelings, but the slinger managed to artfully side-step around the potential emotional blockade. “I’m real glad I met you.”
If Marco supplied any remark or reply following Mike’s admission, the slinger didn’t hear it. Sleep folded around him like a sun-warmed quilt in the sanctuary of Marco’s presence, and Mike didn’t have the capacity to ward off its advance, even if fear of nightmares fizzled at the edge of his consciousness. However, when he sank into oblivion this time there were no bad dreams, nor figments of unpleasant memories to wake him, just a peaceful, long and satisfying slumber.
Thanks so much to @thewormwood for collaborating with me on this backstory/char development piece I wanted to write for Mike! Marco belongs to her and she lent the IC input here!
He took a long draw on the sleek cigarette. The sigh of air through his augmented throat as it soughed down into his lungs filled the empty room for a moment. The grandfather clock’s tick-tocking was musically out of place amidst the metallic gleam of its surroundings. Dragomir closed his vitalus-drenched eyes, trapping the vapour in his chest, before breathing out through his nose. One of the few pleasures left to him that simulated some sense of flavour, but he smoked now not for the mere pleasure of it, but for the calming comfort nicotine would bring.
Little good it did. Turning the elegantly crafted e-cig in his long fingers, Dragomir’s gaze latched onto it and its glowing light indicator, a perfectly matching shade to his royal blue eyes. The flavouring he used this time had been purposefully purchased, on a whim at first, or perhaps he was trying to convince himself of that fact. It might be more than a mere whim at this point.
It didn’t smell exactly like him, but there was a hint of it there in the cardamom fragrance that washed over him familiarly until he felt himself growing restless. He took another languid drag on the cigarette, then clucked his tongue and sank lower against the leather sofa. His hair was still damp from the shower, hanging in limp tendrils around his shoulders and face. Surprising how fast it had grown, really.
Holding one end of it, the medic’s eyes travelled the purple length, first up and then back down. That had cost a good amount to get done, but it was worth it, he disliked the ash grey tone of it otherwise. Forsaking the single lock, Dragomir threaded his unoccupied fingers up through the damp mop and shook some of the strands out. So long since he had grown it, because it was a vanity he had forsaken, given that there was no one left for him to impress, and yet...
And yet. He grit his pointed teeth, sucking in another good puff of nicotine and cardamom laced vapour, then rolled onto his side, staring into the middle distance beyond the copper pipe and glass coffee table. One incident following the next, one wall after the next, everything crumbled around him until he was left uncertain, in that horrifying limbo he had assumed would never repeat itself.
But there he was, pining again, perhaps worse than he had ever done before. Why? WHY! It was infuriating. His chron lay on the table, lighting up and buzzing often, but he made no move to retrieve it. Susan, most likely. But… What if it wasn’t her? What if it was someone else? Dragomir’s eyes swivelled towards the communication device, staring at the electronics’ golden casing instead. What if it was him?
Hesitating. He never hesitated, not for a moment, not now, not after all his emotions and behaviours had evolved since leaving Grismara. Ah but there’s the rub. They had not evolved as much as he pretended, if at all. The merest hint of contact, the slightest touch of attention, a soft murmur in the dark—whether supplied negatively or positively—and he prostrated himself before those old bonds once more. Happy, tail wagging, until he was alone.
It suited you better long.
One small phrase, carelessly spoken, or perhaps spoken with artful design behind it, and suddenly Dragomir drew out every justification for following the subtle instruction. He grew his hair out again, but declared it was merely that he felt like a change when questioned on it. Lies, upon lies, upon lies. Some he told himself as well. Mostly told himself. Biggest lie and chief of them all was his favourite.
I do not love him still.
Oh, but he did. He ached with it. The weight of that obsession was threatening to crush him and this time there was no Evgeny for him to mitigate the fallout. He cried, wept stupid tears over the man now tormenting him. Dagny enjoyed it, the bastard enjoyed watching Dragomir dig his heels in, only so that he could melt that defiant refusal, more so because Dagny knew it was a front. Or perhaps it rekindled some familiarity with their past. That game of fox and hound they played all those many many years gone.
Enough years that he should have forgotten how it felt when he heard the man’s laugh, or the touch of his hands on his person. Enough years that he shouldn’t have felt the yearning that he did. Enough years that hatred should have been the dominant emotion, anger should have been the likeliest recourse, but he had knelt, he had knelt repeatedly at Dagny’s feet. Knelt and enjoyed the bitterness of kneeling.
But they were merely scraps. Those few morsels of affection Dagny deigned to toss in his direction, came at a high cost to no one else but the medic. That he accepted them grudgingly was moot, all that mattered was that he had begun to anticipate the next incident that would bring them together again. It was Dagny’s purposefully crafted net, because he knew everything about him at that point, his weaknesses most of all, and Dragomir knew that the engineer was aware.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
Reaching for the chron, Dragomir raised the communicator up, sliding the casing open to reveal the screen. Seventeen messages from Susan, one from Marco, some minor spam… He hadn’t really expected to find anything there from him, just as well, because there were no notifications from Dagny, even so, Dragomir’s heart did a somersault at the callous brush-off.
I hate him. I hate what he’s doing to me.
He found the engineer’s number among various other contacts, and spent the better part of a minute staring at the screen, sliding his thumb back and forth over the name to keep it from going into saver mode. An ache blossomed in Dragomir’s chest the longer he stared at the name. It wasn’t what he wanted, it wasn’t what he needed, it was a terrible terrible idea… His thumb grazed the name, and as if transfixed by the accidental tap, Dragomir watched as his chron dialed Dagny’s number for him.
The answering tone ended abruptly after several rings, the mild background hiss of a silent acknowledgement followed, “...?”
Air froze in Dragomir’s lungs for a split second, but he put the chron to his ear and heard himself speak the words, “Are you free?”
Hide n’ seek with a druid is basically playing on difficulty level expert. Cortege has limited talents, but tackling people is probably number two, right behind peeing on trees.
For Niko! 12) Name a physical trait your character really likes in others.
Cleanliness. Considering the Contagion and the Mordesh and their jacked up immune systems and all of that, he has a very heightened awareness of cleanliness. On top of the fact that he’s vain as all getout and fastidious himself.
If we’re not considering that a physical trait, then probably height/weight disparities between he and potential partners. He’s huge... he likes being able to put people where he wants them.
