inthebiblicalsense | TLV IC Inbox

"Heh," he hums quietly at the kiss to his cheek and shakes his head in mild amusement. Florian was... well, Cain had grown fond of him quite quickly and it seemed the fondness was reciprocated, but he also just liked to speak to him. They had a kind shared experience he didn't find here often, even if it was between different worlds.

"I'm not keeping track of her, she'll do what she wants. Don't think you could talk her into slowing down if you tried." Good luck with that one. At least Cain's little project isn't particularly taxing and should be fun for her.

"But, uh. I did want to talk to you about something."

He leans over to the bedside table to put his cup down and then looks over to Abel. Though he knows very well that this is no one's business but his own in the end, it's still A Decision. One he decides to just come out with.

"I've been thinking... about starting using my name. My real one."

"I'm sure she will. I had to convince her to do fun things with her friends and not just be productive..." Which is weird because he knows he was doing that when he first got here before Fitz and Norton started to slowly break him down. Now he's got hobbies.

He settles when Cain changes the subject, pulling a leg up onto the bed and tucking his foot under his thigh, turning more to look at him in the way he wants to show he's paying attention. And what he does come out with is a little surprising to say the least.

"Yeah? Well, don't let me stop you, It's your decision." Though he is curious who actually does know his name. He's aware of Aerith, Blitz and Tendi because he'd accidentally let it slip, but from a small handful to the whole boat is a big change.

"What made you change your mind?"

"Wasn't expecting you to stop me. You're just the only person who's really gonna get how important it is."

Cain frowns a bit and looks away, finding a spot on the floor to focus on.

"A few people know it now. Either because I told 'em or they found out by accident." Well, that last one is mostly Tendi, but more people know his name than Abel is aware of. "And..."

He sighs out a sharp breath and his frown deepens.

"I've liked it. Being called that again, even if it was strange at first. 'Cain' is... something the Alliance gave me. And you know I wasn't there because I really wanted to be." Oh, there's a lot more to it than that; he's barely skimming the surface. "Didn't bother me before, but I'm starting to feel like it's a fucking weight around my neck."

He wouldn't imagine any world in which he would anyways, but he supposes he just wanted to clarify he wouldn't try. "I think some other people might, but...I understand." The hand at Cain's knee squeezes gently when he looks away, not to encourage eye contact but to just try and give him some support, remind him he's there and he's not going anywhere.

"It feels strange, doesn't it? Not being there any more. Sometimes I feel guilty, but the other part of me just feels relief. And I'm sure, even if this isn't where you ever wanted to be, it's nice that at the very least Bering and Cook are whole other dimensions away." Abel still wants to hold onto his code name, because it feels nice when he can feel safe enough to tell someone, to share the only thing he's managed to keep hold of, and know that who he gives it to won't hurt him with it.

His brow twitches when he hears Bering's name. Now that name is one he's only told to one other person. Bering is a whole other issue and not one he's even begun to look at too closely yet.

"I don't feel guilty. I'm pissed off that I'm here," Yes, still. "But that's nothing to do with this."

He rolls his shoulders and straightens up. Tries to look nonchalant. Fails entirely.

"Everything I did with that name stuck to me was just—" Awful. Most of it, to be honest. Restless, he gets up and takes a few steps away, rubbing a hand through the back of his hair. "And it's just something linking me to him. Fucking Bering. I'm not—"

He makes an aggravated noise, an almost-growl in the back of his throat and pushes his other hand up, linking both of them behind his head. Cain breathes in, then out, then turns around to walk back and sit on the bed again. He moves his hands to his lap.

"... I just wanna be myself again, Ethan. But I don't know if I even deserve to be that person."

He almost feels bad, bringing it up, but if they were talking about Cain, the Alliance, himself? it wasn't like he could just leave any of it out.

He watches as he fidgets, lips pressed tightly together so he'll listen and not interrupt. Active listening was something he was good at, but this isn't his problem to solve, and he's gotten better about that, especially after it helped with Fitz, to just let him choose his pace, decide he wasn't ready for that conversation.

Letting Cain vent, talk out his feelings and get riled up where he was safe, to someone he knew wouldn't hurt him, he wants him to feel like he can.

When he finally sits, clearly bothered, Abel keeps his hands to himself this time, considering the other man's face, the way he isn't sure whether or not he's allowed to be himself. It's familiar in some ways, just the beats are different. "You never were Cain, you just...played him well." Too well, but still. "I'm not going to be pointing any fingers at you questioning what you deserve...And I've learned over and over again, no one gets what they deserve, but denying yourself something you do, when the only person who can make that decision is you? Don't do that to yourself. It serves no purpose other than holding you back, right?"

He finally does shift forward a little, enough that his knee gently brushes his thigh, "I l-" The word catches in his throat before he clears it, "I like you, Alexei. A lot. And I think you deserve to be who you want to be, even if you don't."

It's complicated. Alexei feels like somebody he was, and Cain was somebody he was turned into. Could he just be 'Alexei' again, and have no questions asked about it? Identity could be a funny thing and he and Abel had had theirs meddled with in ways not many people would fully understand.

He looks up when Abel moves, his dark eyes darting up when he starts to speak and then cuts himself off. Cain feels his heart jump into his throat and he doesn't really notice the way he reaches over to find one of the other man's hands to curl his own around.

"I like you, too. A lot." It's more than that. It is, and he knows it, he's even said it out loud, but something holds him back here. "But you know—..."

His gaze slides away again. Finds a spot on the floor.

"You're allowed to be mad at me. I'm not gonna act like I didn't... like I wasn't in control of my own actions. I made some really... really shitty choices. The reason why doesn't matter." Cain pauses, chewing his lip for a moment.

Fuck it. It has to start somewhere.

"You didn't deserve what I did to you. And I'm sorry."

Abel is still, listening and watching his eyes shift, his words- god. He sucks in a sharp breath when he remembers that he needs to breathe.

That's the thing about waiting for something for months, and sitting there, and thinking about it every moment of the day in the way he does, the cycling thoughts carding through each little thing that was on his mind. And this never went away.

Abel swallows slowly, licking his lips just to wet them before taking in a shuddering breath. He has to say something, but it's difficult to put the words together when there are so many things he's thought about saying since he'd woken up from the crash before he'd even come on board.

"I was- I was terrified to bring it up- I" This was supposed to be about Cain, him talking and being frustrated, and while he feels like he should stop this, turn them around, he can't. He's already crying and he doesn't even know when he started. "Like...What if you didn't actually care? Or we never talked about it, and it just sat there forever? I-" He's kind of rambling, frozen in place, probably sweating through his fresh shirt all over again.

Wiping at one eye with the heel of his hand, he tries not to sniffle so loudly before he tries to put better words together. His hand, tightly gripping his pants, reaches out, catching Cain's, willing him to actually look at him. He wanted him to remember what this looks like, look him in the eye when he speaks, because it's important.

"It's...It's not okay, what happened, and what you did, but that doesn't mean I can't forgive you."

Cain hadn't meant to do this now. He'd wanted to ask how Fitz was, to make sure Abel could take whatever conversation came out of it, but instead he'd just meandered his way to it and the words had come out in as natural a way as they possibly could.

He can hear Abel's sniffing and crying and still can't look at him, and it makes the tips of his ears and tops of his cheeks burn red that he can't bring himself to lift his eyes up off the floor. It feels like he's locked there, listening to the other man talking - trying to talk - and wondering just how long he would have sat with it if Cain hadn't said something first.

And he's still not looking up when Abel says that, says he can still forgive him, because he can't, but he hears it.

"If I didn't care?" He says, and his free hand scratches agitatedly at his knee as he tries to find some kind of grounding sensation in the way he feels like everything else is oddly unreal. "Of course I fucking cared, I just didn't— Just saying I was sorry never felt like it was going to be enough."

Finally, he looks up and meets Abel's eyes.

"I hurt you, I manipulated you, I lied to you for over a year and threatened anyone who tried to warn you about me." None of that is news. "And the closer you got to figuring it all out, and the more I started to really like you, the more scared I got. Because I knew what the price of my failure would be."

It was either you, or me.

"You should hate me, and I'd deserve that." His breath catches in his throat and he drops his head, quickly rubbing at one eye with his free hand. "But I am sorry. I am, for all of it, and I should've... said something sooner."

He was scared too. Still is.

"I figured you did care, but...it hurt, that you could just let it sit there, for months," he admits quietly, "A-and it's hard, talking about it, any of this, because I don't want to hurt you either, bringing up your mistakes. I threw it all in your face when you got here...I didn't want to do that again." He knows he'd been angry, had swallowed it because it was too much, and left it at that.

He does look Cain in the eyes though, can understand that there are some things that make it so hard to say what you want, because fear is so much more powerful than want or need sometimes. He takes in a a breath, stuttered as it was with his tears, "I do have one question though...Before we say anything else, I- I couldn't stop thinking about it." Because it had meant so much to him, but when he'd found out what was really happening, it had just poisoned all of it, even if he still hoped sometimes that maybe that part had been real.

"I don't know if you even remember...but after we used the jump drive that first time, you told me you-" He closes his eyes, trying to gain some composure, lips pressed tightly together, "T-that you'd never wanted anyone more, and...I just need to know. Did you actually mean it when you said it then?" He doesn't ask him to be honest, because he believes him when he says that he won't lie to him again, but it's been eating a hole in him since that day on the observation deck. "I- I won't be upset if you didn't...I just want to stop questioning whether you did or not."

He does remember how angry Abel had been back then - how could he not - and he wouldn't say that at least a small part of his hesitance in bringing it all up again had been that. It wasn't all of it, though, and nor was it an excuse for how long it had taken him to mention anything. Maybe, on some level, he had been hoping that it would all just blow over despite knowing damn well that it wasn't fair on either of them.

The question isn't one he expects to hear. Had Abel really held on to that moment for this long? Cain remembers it clearly. The elation as they'd exited their ship, the way he'd suddenly hugged the other man, knowing that it had worked and that everything was finally starting to come together.

And he remembers... wanting him, genuinely, for what might have been the first time. How damned attractive it was to watch him at the helm, to see how he made it all work, and how seamlessly they operated as a team.

His expression flickers.

"... Yeah." He replies quietly. "I remember."

He reaches out to clasp his hands over the other man's, squeezing them gently.

"And I meant it. I don't think I realised at the time, but..." Cain huffs out a soft breath, worries at his lower lip for a moment, then continues. "I did mean it. I think... that was probably the first time you saw the real me."

There is some ache that remains from the way he say it now, that he'd said it, but didn't realize that it was true, but it soothes some of the rest of it down into something manageable.

Looking down at their hands, the way Cain's are covering his, holding them despite how he's sure this is difficult for him, he sighs with a nod. "I was in trouble then. Because I could see that, and I wanted more of it...and nothing anyone said to me made me think I couldn't have it." That it wasn't already his. He'd been incredibly stupid to think so, but...he'd never had a connection like that before, and he was desperate for something other than what he'd had, other than war, and the simply fact that he was sure he would die in space with no one to remember him.

Cain sighs softly. He looks down at their linked hands as well, the contrast of their complexions as he strokes his thumbs across Abel's pale skin, and as much as his heart is racing he feels strangely calm as well.

He's not sure if that calm is a good thing when it seems like a fragile, shaking kind of calm that might shatter if it's looked at too closely.

"... I couldn't give you that, at the start. Not even if I thought I should have. I was..." His eyes fall closed for a moment. "What Bering said about me. He was right."

Cain was too rough, too brutish, the kind of feral animal that navigators were always told to expect fighters to be. That he'd been able to get Abel under his thumb was a miracle that surely wouldn't have happened had the other man not been so desperate to begin with.

"But you— god." He pauses to gasp out a soft laugh, moving one of his hands to rub at his eye again. "You were so fucking nice to me no matter what I did. Do you have any idea how long it had been since someone had—..."

A pause. A deep breath.

"Since—... someone had put a hand on me like that, and it wasn't..."

He puts both hands back on Abel's. Squeezes them.

"You were the first person to treat me like that in years, Ethan. ... I should have seen falling in love with you coming from a mile away."

"Why wouldn't I be nice? I mean, you were an ass, but I still had to work with you..." He says quietly, defending his own stance, knowing that it wasn't just because they were coworkers, that they were paired together. He'd always felt the way that they talked about the dynamic between fighters and navigators was off, in the same way he'd always fought with his father about talking down on martian citizens like they were something lesser.

He looks at their hands again, feels like perhaps if he keeps eye contact too much he'll spook Cain, but he's still listening, and his eyes come up when he's just about finished, breath catching in his throat.

He'd almost slipped earlier when they were talking, and here Alexei was, saying it first. God damnit. That wasn't fair. "I- I hope that's not the only reason...that I was nice to you. Everyone should treat you nicely, Alexei, it's not...You're a person, just like everyone else, and if they deserve that, so do you."

Oh, he could give a list of the reasons why Abel had every reason to not be nice, to not just put up with his behaviour, but they both know what he did and there's no point in going over it again.

Cain shakes his head a little.

"Wasn't the only reason, no." But it was a start. It was hard not to like him when he was always so kind. Even more so as time went on and he realised Abel was just... like that. Nothing he was doing was an act.

"Not everyone deserves kindness." Not everyone. "And I wasn't trying to be deserving of it. But then... you made me want to be. I liked it when you'd smile because of something I did. It was about more than just going home. I started to panic, because if you knew what was happening... I'd lose you too."

"Everyone to start does. Until proven otherwise," is his opinion, but he isn't going to argue it now. Not when he's sitting there trying to make sure he's not so teary and snotty, sniffling quietly as he tries to reign in the overwhelming feeling of just confronting what's been sitting between them for months. Talking about it.

They're talking about it. He isn't sure what to describe that feeling as, rather panicked and elated, relieved at the same time? It's a bit much.

"You did, for the moment." He understands a little bit of that feeling, panicking because he's been afraid of what comes after this for a few months himself, not just with Alexei, it's gotten complicated and unnavigable. "But the longer I was here? The more I spent time away from you the more I missed you. And I was able to think about what you did, and why... I'm sorry that you had to do that by yourself. I was right there, and you couldn't even tell me. It shouldn't have been like that...We're a team. Alliance or no. It's...I don't want you to feel too scared to tell me anything."

Even if he's a little scared to tell him things back. But he can be patient. He can wait it out a little more.

Cain is quiet and still for a moment and then he gives a tiny shrug, one shoulder lifting up as his lips twitch in a smile.

"I'm scared to tell a lot of people a lot of things," he admits quietly. There's another pause before he lifts his hands away from Abel's and sit straighter on the bed, lacing his hands together in his lap instead.

Can't look too closely at that calm. He can feel it shivering like a glass hit with a tuning fork. That threatening panic.

"I wasn't even supposed to do this today. I was going to ask how Fitz was doing first. To see if you even... had space for this."

He doesn't like that he's pulling back, sort of folding in on himself. Perhaps it was a little much? Talking about all of it and talking candidly about feelings the way they were. It wasn't exactly an easy conversation to have.

Abel's fingers curl into a loose fist in his own lap, head tilting just so as Cain continues.

"I'm not so overloaded that I can't talk to you about things that are important, Alexei. I-" He takes in a steadying breath before continuing, "I love you, and just because Fitz is my best friend, and my responsibility, his crisis isn't something that I'm putting on hold or is being pushed aside so I can make space for you."

He's proud of himself in the way that his voice doesn't tremble. He sounds...not quiet confident, but definitely reassuring. "Don't go second guessing yourself now because it came out naturally in conversation. That's sometimes better than trying to make a plan, and...you're okay. You'll be okay, I know you will."

He lets his hand sit, palm up between them, "Can- can I hold your hand again? I feel like you're slowly moving away from me."

He doesn't really hear much after the 'I love you'. Abel's talking, he knows that, probably something reassuring and telling him it's fine that this is happening and Cain doesn't even need to be able to hear him to know it's that, because of course it is, Ethan's just like that.

Finally getting those words said to him should have been elating, and it's not that he isn't happy to have it said back, but even knowing that he said it first something in him tries to balk at the response.

He rubs the heel of his hand up against the corner of his eye and sniffs. His chest feels tight. The back of his throat and top of his jaw hurt with how he's suddenly trying very hard to keep it together.

Maybe a plan would have been better, but he's here now. No backing off from it.

He unclasps his hands from each other and gives one of them to Ethan again when he asks, but he doesn't look at him. For the moment everything just feels too intense.

He almost wonders if maybe he shouldn't have said anything, he can recognize this now for what it is, the tight set of his jaw, the way he can't look him in the eyes. He'll give him the time he needs, quiet as he takes Alexei's hand in his, thumb gently moving back and forth over the back of his hand.

For all that he wants to just scoop him up and hold him, just touching his face before when they'd been in the storage had gotten him jumpy. He won't make the same mistakes again as much as he wants to.

It takes him a couple of minutes to pull himself together in the silence between them. His breathing hitches and hiccups into his chest and the tops of his ears flush pink with the barely acknowledged embarrassment of being in such a mess again.

He shakes himself out of it carefully, giving Ethan's hand a little squeeze before he says anything. There's nothing to worry about here. Nothing bad is going to happen because he said something he shouldn't. He's not in danger.

"I'm okay. I'm... I'm here."

"But not where you should be," He says with the gentlest tease, giving his hand a gentle squeeze back. He shifts, leg half up and bent at the knee, his other still hanging down with his foot on the floor, gesturing him to come closer.

"Come here?" Because he knows how talking about things that are important and upsetting can be exhausting. Emotional labor had been the hardest thing he'd done on board, whether it was from stress or just therapy, he was always left bone tired.

He nods as if he's responding to the request but doesn't move at first, then he scoots himself over and flops himself against the other man's side with a sharp huff.

"I'm exactly where I should be."

Maybe not here on the Barge, but right here, in this moment, having said all of that? It feels like a 'should be' kind of place and he doesn't want it to be brushed aside as another thing that shouldn't have happened, even in jest.

He lets his head drop onto Ethan's shoulder.

"I love you."

"Well, now you are," he agrees, putting an arm around him so that he can hold him closer, easing himself back so that they can both lay down comfortably on Cain's bed.

It's catches him off guard, him repeating it, before Abel turns his head and presses a kiss to his forehead, whispering back in a practiced accent, "Я тоже тебя люблю."

Did he learn that just so he could whisper it to him when he finally plucked up the courage to say something? Of course he did.

Hearing it in Russian takes him off guard and he laughs slightly, turning his head so he can look up at Ethan under his eyelashes.

"How long have you been saving that one?"

The pronunciation was only a little off... but like hell he's going to say anything about it now. The fact he said it at all, that he must have learned it just so he could say it in this situation, is more than enough to make him all warm and fuzzy.

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