inbox;

[stressors]

● "Hey, it's Shiro." ●

"Sorry you missed me. Leave me one and I'll call you right back. Thanks."

☏ call. ✉ text. ⌨ video. ☄ action.

code over at pagans

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[impulsors]

[ . . . ??????????? ]

Okay?

[ coincidentally, the nightstand's by shiro's shoulder, so that he has to lean forward and past to set it down with a little clink. ]

What?

[stressors]

[ it's not nearly as sudden as the kiss had been.

but keith's close enough to warrant little warning: there's just his arm that he drapes across his back, the slower pull that brings him closer. all movements that are easily shrugged off or avoided, if keith doesn't let them happen.

as far as hugs go, this one's pretty slow-going. ]

[impulsors]

[ zero to sixty. it takes a little time to reel him in at first, and he leans into it stiff and slow, unsure of his ground -- but the idea twinges some muscle memory in him, and then he's pressing into it after all, hands flattening against a shoulderblade as his forehead bows against a shoulder. ]

. . . what're you doing.

[ on the other hand: that's not quite sentiment. ]

[stressors]

[ the hesitance is different, not the same headlong trust that pushed keith's smile against the shape of his shoulder, or the careless way keith slid close enough to fall asleep inside of his arms, mindless and unworried if only for a night.

but within seconds, it's like they're in the desert again, and keith folds into him easy. he tethers to the points of contact, feels the reorientation until they're the centers of his gravity: keith's head pressed against him, and his hand braced along his back. it isn't quite the same feeling as the kiss, not at the point of breaking the earth's atmosphere, not the startling rush of being pinned after a good spar, but this is - ]

Remembering, I think.

Sorry. [ it's offered a little wryly, his smile crooking and obvious in his tone. but he's still keeping keith close. his next breath stirs along a damp curl of his hair. ] I lied about forgetting my dream last night.

[impulsors]

[ it says something terrible that even i lied doesn't get keith to move away in full: his head comes up a little, his exhale all gusty frustration -- but he doesn't shift. ]

Why?

[stressors]

. . . it was a dream.

[ it's a little guilty because it rings a bit more like an excuse than a clear-cut reason: it was a dream, it wasn't worth sharing or it was a dream, and nothing more. but more importantly. ]

You told me that you saw me studying to go to space. Whatever happened last night was just a dream, but . . . it would've happened after I went on that mission.

I don't think it went well.

[impulsors]

. . . couldn't be that bad if you still came back.

[ but he's pulling back all the same, considering shiro with a dark little furrow between his brows, all his tension charging, charging again by degrees. ]

If we're gonna figure out how we're connected -- you can't hide it when you remember something.

[stressors]

[ impossible not to feel it.

he's careful regardless of the proximity that keith's allowed between them. after all, here, there aren't years between them -- no nostalgia, no felt reunion, no misplaced sentiment that could allow him the opportunity to reach out and ruffle keith's hair. here, he can only wait until he unwinds on his own.

but he's smiling, at least, in the face of keith's slight glowering. ]

I don't know if it counts as a memory.

After all, we slept together.

[ . . .

give him a second to realize how it sounds. ]

[impulsors]

[ they literally just kissed, how is that not shiro's first thought!! the flush of the thought snags along his cheekbones before he's quite parsed it, red along the very tips of his ears as his shoulders scrunch. ]

Well, I know we didn't do that here. It's something new. So I'd say it counts.

[stressors]

[ . . . oh, that's a cute color. but he's not sure what he did to deserve it???

and to be fair, he might've just fixated on how nice it feels to have keith in his arms. ]

We almost did, back when you stayed the night.

[ ???? they argued about who would take the bed and everything. ]

[impulsors]

Almost doesn't make it the same. The dream was different.

[ scrubbing at his hair: always a helpful tactic to avoid looking at a companyman's dumb face. ]

You felt it, right?

[stressors]

[ it's not the best timing for it, with keith's tension and his wary eyes. he's probably not asking the question he thinks he's asking.

but in the end, it doesn't really matter. he's lifting a hand to frame keith's face, rubbing his thumb along his cheek and thinking, yeah, this doesn't feel like a dream. ]

Right.

[impulsors]

[ at once he lifts his head. the flush's still lingering at the edges, skimming color along the line of a cheekbone, threading heat beneath the slide of shiro's thumb. ]

. . . I just don't see how any of this adds up.

[ as he stares back, breaths slivering shallow - ]

Have you heard about anything weird at the Company?

1/2

[stressors]

[ it's a sobering topic to talk about, enough to force the blink. he just doesn't drop his arm the way he thinks he should, caught still in the overlayed moment, expecting keith to tilt into his palm the way he did in a dream once.

but this feels just as right, somehow.

it's a little disconcerting, to even think that it's something the company's influenced. ]

. . . no.

After my demotion, I've been given very little in the way of information. Even with most of the higher ranking Enforcers, things have always been on a need-to-know basis.

I don't think any of us expected the Accords to fall, for example.

[stressors]

[ . . . and maybe his hand falls, just a little, soft where it curls along keith's shoulder. ]

I don't know if this is the fault of the Company.

But if they had the capacity to affect our memories, I don't think they'd be so kind as to use it like this.

[impulsors]

I know.

[ there's an answer to that -- i didn't mean i thought they were messing with us, his tongue half-curled for the correction already. but shiro's still touching him, a current of living warmth, and beneath the black cold morning, it's something to lean into, reflexive beneath the storm, his eyes all clear studying. ]

. . . when'd you get demoted?

[ with another question tensing beneath it: the company isn't, after all, known for its kindness to dissatisfactory workers. ]

[stressors]

It's been a few years.

[ and maybe it doesn't deserve the embarrassed smile, or the way he's​ still holding onto keith like there's more to test than this: the press of his thumb along his pulse point, or the way he's smoothing his thumb along his jaw. ]

I was charged to fly some inmates to a holding facility in Westerley. I guess I didn't think they deserved that, so I took them out of bounds until the Company blew out my engine remotely.

. . . it's been a wild ride since then.

[impulsors]

[ silence.

absurdly, it coaxes a smile out of him -- mouth crooking, helplessly skewed with the grazing touch, the way shiro's still looking at him, the weight of memory and new warmth lazy between them. ]

. . . I thought you were just a driver.

[stressors]

[ a laugh, simply because keith has a smile that he's coming to find is pretty infectious.

none of their little touches spark any memories. but he's still sick on his fluttering heartbeat, compensating for the reality of waking up by keeping them connected, at least in the smaller ways. ]

I was.

I just had higher clearance back then.

[impulsors]

. . . I wasn't talking about your job.

Most people just do the work. Even at the RAC. They wanna rank up, get paid, go home, and that's it. No one thinks about the warrants they get. Even the ones who want to make a difference figure that what we do's better than anything the Company does, because at least we get to choose our warrants.

[ it isn't a thought that he's chased much, and it shows. the matter of moral superiority's an ingrained thing: better a job as a rac agent, however disagreeable the intragency politics, than as one in a herd of companymen, choosing deliberate blindness, nothing better to do but to bow their heads and yield to the nine's heavy hand and driving politics. but the sourness of that remark must be a little undercut by the way he isn't shifting away at all, chin still tipped up with the idle press of shiro's fingertips on his skin, his eyes clear and fixed, the leap of his pulse palpable beneath his skin. ]

I guess you're just -- not what I expected.

[ a little lower - ]

You're not like anything I expected.

[stressors]

. . . no, you're not wrong to think that of me.

[ the thing is, he has no real excuse to keep up this proximity.

nothing but the fact that keith lets it happen -- anything to keep them anchored in the moment, in this strange state of suspension that doesn't quite feel like the reunion that he dreamt about last night.

and yet. ]

I've done a lot of things under the name of the Company, some things I can never forgive myself for. Back then, I thought I was doing all of it to keep as many people safe . . . but they're not kidding when they talk about good intentions.

[impulsors]

. . . did they get away?

[stressors]

[ . . . as his hand eventually falls away. ]

That's -- still a work in progress.

[impulsors]

[ reflex: the little flicker of his hand drifting after -- before he remembers himself, too, and pulls back. ]

What do you mean still?

[stressors]

The Company doesn't take to its deserters well.

[ it's an uneasy smile -- but at least he's trying. ]

We boarded Arcturus to avoid getting lost in space on a burning ship. I did everything I could, but in the end, they were recaptured.

But as long as I keep up my end of the arrangement . . . I can only hope that the Company will do the same, and stay any order of execution.