inthebiblicalsense | TLV IC Inbox

"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.

It was one of those things that he'd been curious about, before he'd even started to learn from Pyotr, or learn himself. And as Cain looks up at him through his dark lashes, he can feel his face heating up, the tips of his ears getting pink.

"S-since August?" He hadn't intended on telling him the actual truth, but he remembers the first time he knew he was truly in trouble when it came to the other man, the second time they'd slept together on board, and all that resolve had just fallen apart. It was days after he'd arrived, and god is it embarrassing to admit, but they were being honest, right?

There's a pause, then he snorts.

"August... Wow."

So he'd been holding on to this, or at least the possibility of it, for that long? Alexei's not sure how to feel about that but again, it isn't something he really wants to think too hard about just now. There's a lot he doesn't really want to think too hard about now.

"That's cute."

That'll do for a reaction for the moment.

"... I guess I've been trying to figure this out for a while, as well. Every time I got close to it I just..."

He makes a gesture. Ethan's well aware of what happens when he starts pushing himself too hard to think about things he's not ready to face.

"H-hey...don't laugh." He doesn't prod him though, leaning them both back so he can stare up at the ceiling, run his nails up and down Cain's arm.

"And...I figured If I waited long enough you'd say something. I just didn't want to until you did. No...no rush."

He's not sure how he feels about the fact that Abel was waiting. Cain closes his eyes and takes a few breaths, still trying to shake off that feeling that his insides are about to rattle apart, and he curls his fingers into the soft fabric of the bedsheets for something to focus on.

"Hm," is all he says to that, in the end.

"I'm fucking exhausted."

Nearly having another panic attack can sure do that to a guy.

"I figured you would be." He knows what that feels like now himself, and it was physically draining.

"Well, were in your bed, I'm not going to stop you from taking a nap." He glances down at him again with a little smile, squeezing his arm, "you want me to tuck you in Alexei?"

"I'm not five."

So, no, but what he will do is roll over so he can wrap himself around Ethan like the man is a body pillow, and shove his face firmly against the other man's neck.

"You can stay here, though."

Abel bites back a laugh, pretty sure that was the sort of response he was going to get, but doesn't protest when he's suddenly a pillow, "can I? I think I'd have a hard time leaving anyways."

Though that might be for more reasons than being wrapped up in his arms.

"I would protest loudly if you tried to," Cain grumbles against his shoulder, softly gripping against his shirt and curling into him comfortably.

"But I don't think I can fall asleep yet, so you can ask me some of those things you always want me to talk about if you want."

You know, like how was his day, who has he been hanging out with... the stuff he's always forgetting to mention.

"I thought you said you weren't five?" He returns though let's him adjust as he wants, he is just a pillow at the moment after all.

Rubbing his face to get rid of the last of his tears, he makes note that he's going to need to wash it later, but that's later.

"I guess I'll use my allotted time wisely. Aside from Blitz and Florian, have any other good friends? Anyone I should be aware of that might ask me invasive questions about what my intentions are, or is that just Blitz?"

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