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White parks his brother’s bike next to Sean’s and looks over at him cautiously.
The inside of Tawi’s facility didn’t feel like the real world, and White’s confession had probably been overwhelming to Sean before that – this is a return to reality, and maybe he wants to second-guess things? When Sean puts his helmet down and looks over at White, he can see his own nerves reflected back.
Sean turns vulnerability into bravado, though, and says, “You promised you would tell them – you can’t go back on it.”
“Who’s going back?” White grumbles.
“You’re sure?”
Maybe that was supposed to come off as Sean checking that White’s not scared, but all he can see is Sean’s own fear. He feels his own anxiety drift away in the face of it.
Rounding the bike and lifting a hand to Sean’s cheek, he says, “Mm. I’m sure,” and feels Sean lean into his hand.
They’ll go into the abandoned building soon.
“You have to be sure,” Sean says again.
White finally gives into the urge and takes one more step into Sean’s space. Wrapping his arms around Sean, he feels Sean do the same back – at first it’s a loose hold, but soon Sean’s hands are gripping his sides, wrapped all the way around until White’s completely encompassed.
He rests his forehead on Sean’s chest and feels its warmth through his shirt, making no effort to escape as he reminds him, “We need to go inside and talk to the others.”
Sean squeezes him tighter.
He doesn’t know who the man in the suit is; not at first.
They’re out on strict probation (illegally strict, Gram had hotly pointed out – they haven’t been convicted of any crimes yet, how can their movements be restricted to this degree – he hadn’t appreciated Black’s response of “but we did commit several”, but Sean has to admit it was funny) and they’re all sitting, as a group, in the garage for the first time in… Well, ever, if he considers the twins are both here.
The girls too, Nuch having nominated herself the person in charge of stopping them from admitting to further crimes aloud, and Eugene and Namo apparently just being here to make out.
Gram looks kind of sad about it, but that’s not Sean’s business.
Anyway, that’s the situation when the man appears – Black and Gram bickering over nothing, Yok and Gumpa demonstrating the crocodile dentist approach to making decisions in front of an unimpressed Nuch, and the two couples… doing as couples do.
Well, that sounds bad, Sean and White aren’t being excessive or anything, it’s just that White’s sitting half on the chair and half in Sean’s lap, and Sean’s stroking White’s hair and thinking about how close his room is and how obvious it would be if they tried to escape.
Then the man clears his throat, and the cozy atmosphere freezes and vanishes.
Sean’s first thought is that it’s someone here to ask them for interviews, which he knows White would want to do but which their probation forbids, and he’s prepared for White to be wistful about that but not for him to freeze the way he does. He’s only confused for as long as it takes Black to open his mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Black wouldn’t speak like that to a journalist of unknown political leaning, so it’s not a surprise when he answers, “I’d like to speak to both of you.”
Both – both of the twins. It’s got to be their dad.
Sean lets his hand fall from White’s head down onto his shoulder, gives him a squeeze that he hopes comes off as the support it’s supposed to be, and watches as the twins have a silent conversation across the table. It’s not surprising that White, with a pat to Sean’s hand, gets up, and the twins lead the man away.
They don’t go all the way out of sight, though, and Sean and the others don’t even pretend not to be staring.
White wears his emotions on his face, has as long as any of them has known him, so it’s White’s face he watches for clues about what’s happening – not that he’d be looking at the other ones either way, but at least the thing he was already going to do is useful. His boyfriend’s face is unusually blank as the suited man – as his dad talks to him. He talks for a while before he’s interrupted.
“Huh,” says Yok when that happens, “I would’ve thought Black would be the one to yell first.”
There’s a murmur of agreement, but Sean thinks they’re being fucking stupid. Black does everything with a purpose, he’s not going to try to convince the dad he’s sure is lost to corruption; White’s the one who never stops talking.
He can’t even stretch his muscles quietly, it makes sense that he’s raising his voice – huh.
Black’s hand is on White’s shoulder, like he’s trying to calm him down, and Sean takes a moment to process the cognitive dissonance of Black trying to stop someone, anyone, but especially White from losing their temper.
Their dad is talking again, shaking his head slowly, before something changes again; Sean wishes he could hear what the dad had said to make the twins react the way they did.
As Black grabs his dad’s shoulder and forcibly marches him out of sight and out of the garage, White turns and – is he storming away? Fleeing? Sean can’t put a name to how he runs – he goes to the ladder which leads to Sean’s (their) room and climbs it quickly.
With a glance at Gumpa, Sean follows him up.
His heart’s in his throat as he goes, because White had looked angry, but what if it’s at something his dad had told him about, something that means he’d need to leave? He hasn’t talked to his dad in months, maybe there’s something in particular that brought him here, fuck, what if this is how he loses White.
When he slides the door open, he’s half expecting to see that White’s gathering his stuff into a bag, but the sight that greets him is far more upsetting.
His boyfriend, sitting on the bed with his back to the wall, clutching a pillow to his chest and staring straight ahead with wet eyes.
“White?”
He watches as White takes a long, shuddering breath, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Then White looks up and says, “Sean,” quiet and questioning, and Sean does the only thing he can do and comes to his call. Climbing onto his bed, he has to crawl a little to get to White’s side and pull him into his arms.
White abandons the pillow.
As Sean strokes his hand over White’s back, he realises that he feels a lot more tense than he’d looked from the door, that his eyes are red but not really damp, that he doesn’t seem upset exactly… More angry.
“White?” he asks again.
Letting out a long, controlled breath, White drops his forehead onto Sean’s shoulder, loops his arms around his chest, and says, “How can I be this angry and still miss him?”
It’s not something that Sean has an answer for, so he just holds on tighter and hopes that “missing” doesn’t turn into action.
“For fuck’s sake,” Sean hisses.
It’s a fair response, White thinks deliriously, because this keeps happening.
Sean’s, to put it delicately, currently inside him, and it’s wonderful etc etc. But White’s phone, abandoned somewhere across the room in the pocket of his jeans, is ringing with the tone assigned specifically to Black; it’s always him calling.
White nudges Sean’s face with his own and tells him, “You have to get it.”
“Do I?”
He shakes his arms slightly in response, drawing Sean’s attention to the ropes, and says, “You know he’ll keep trying.”
The memory of what happened the time Sean turned the phone off is visible on his face, and he sighs, long and drawn out, before pulling out-and-off, wandering across the room. White lets his eyes close.
It’s like he’s doing it on purpose.
“Yeah, whatever,” Sean’s saying into the phone, coming back to the bed with a final, “I’m handing you to him,” and putting the phone by White’s head.
“You good?” Black asks, sounding… amused.
White makes eye contact with Sean and admits to himself the thing he hadn’t wanted to be true. Sean might not be there yet, or he might not want it to be true either…
“Fuck you,” he answers, “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“I just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out later-“
“-You don’t call to ask that. Please tell me you can’t feel it when Sean and I…”
Black is silent, and Sean looks some measure of horrified and delighted, so White scowls at him.
“Probably not always,” Black offers in the end.
“That’s good,” White says faintly. “Bye, phi.”
He hears Black hang up, mission objective complete – White’s not sure he’s ever having sex again.
“Don’t laugh,” he warns Sean, who is now shaking.
Sean collapses onto the bed next to him and says, “I should untie you,” while starting to do just that.
When he’s out, White puts his hands over his eyes and says, “We’re going to have to figure out what sets off the bond when it’s not danger of death.”
“Okay,” Sean soothes, and White feels the bed shift as Sean gets up – he moves his fingers apart to see Sean sort of leaning over him.
When they make eye contact, Sean lets his weight drop onto White’s chest, prompting an, “Oof.”
White puts one arm over his back and tries to picture anything but-
Fucking hell.
Black.
“-counts of arson, we find the defendants not guilty.”
It takes a second to sink into Sean’s skin.
There were charges they couldn’t avoid getting found guilty for, but they were minor and the fines have already been handed down; this trial was to determine the big ones. Black’s assault charges from the hospital got dismissed last week, and he’s still complaining about how obviously that judge was bribed by his weird ex, but Sean had been sure the rest of them would get jail time.
“Did he just-“
They’re not supposed to be too rowdy in the dock, but Yok’s slapping him on the shoulder and Gram’s whooping – White’s quiet, though.
When Sean looks, he’s got a closed-lip smile stretching across his face and tears dripping down it, and Sean’s chest goes melted-chocolate warm and soft at the sight. He nudges White, and White sways towards him like he always does, like he can’t not.
With the cameras on them and the judge looking impatient, Sean puts an arm around White’s waist and holds him steady.
They’re told they can leave the court, and all the cheering from outside as well as within might make Sean happy, but the way his heart flutters is all about White and the way he’s tucked into Sean’s side, glasses just slightly askew.
“We won,” White mumbles.
Sean’s pretty sure he won the most.
Yok looks relieved when he sees White, and White waves at him.
It’s kind of weird that the next thing Yok does is turn to Sean and say, “I need to talk to you alone really quickly, okay?”
White’s just got back to the garage – another job interview he doesn’t really expect to hear back from, followed by him accompanying Black through a medical appointment he would have refused to attend otherwise, it’s been a long few hours since he’s seen Sean. Yok and Sean, though, have been here all day, because they still work here and Sean still lives here.
Why would Yok need to wait until White was here to talk to Sean alone? A couple of possibilities arrives in White’s mind, and he bites his lip… He hopes he’s wrong.
Just in case, he puts his stuff down and perches on the arm of the sofa.
It means when they come back into view, he’ll be immediately visible to Sean, but if Sean needs to sit down… he can.
White’s got to be overthinking. There’s no way Yok would-
Something clatters, and White’s stomach drops as he watches Yok leaving with a single apologetic glance towards the sofa.
“Sean?”
He comes into view several long moments after Yok’s departure, and he’s not moving anything like as quickly. The look on Sean’s face is conflicted, really conflicted, like he’s angry and sad and confused-
It reminds White of the factory.
Before he can get to his feet, Sean speeds up – intent as he ever is, he strides to the sofa next to White and stands there for an awkward moment. White looks at him, doesn’t know what to say, and gives him a half smile.
In one second, he goes from standing to sitting, grabbing White’s waist with still-oily hands and pulling him onto Sean’s lap; it’s kind of graceful, except for the way he nearly sobs. White puts his own hand on Sean’s neck, the other one going to his elbow, and he twists until they’re more comfortable.
Sean’s still breathing fast, like he’s having another nightmare, and White knows for sure, now, what Yok had needed to say.
“He’s taking him back?”
Turning his face into White’s hand, nuzzling it almost, Sean says, “He says they’re just talking,” in a voice that isn’t quite as bitter as White expected – but he sounds so confused.
He wishes, suddenly and fiercely, that he could crawl into Sean’s skin and get closer that way. It’s not possible, so he leans in as close as he can and tries to hate someone for this; he can’t be mad at Yok, and he even finds it hard to think too poorly of Dan, but – Sean’s face. It shouldn’t look like that.
(+1)
“I’ll miss the garage,” mumbles White from Sean’s chest, which Sean is squeezing him into.
With a hum, Sean answers, “We’ll still hang out there,” but he knows what White means – the new apartment is kind of shitty, while still having much more amenities than the garage (the apartment building has actual laundry facilities, which is insane) but it’s not the garage.
Sean first met White in the garage, shit.
The first bed they shared, the first place they talked, it’s most of where they fell in love, and that’s leaving out all the ways it’s important to Sean in particular.
On the other hand, “None of the furniture here has bullet holes.”
“I bet hia won’t tear gas us here.”
“Sturdy headboard too-“
“Sean.”
As he’s smirking, the door swings open and Gram pokes his head through.
“In the bedroom,” Gram says to someone else, and then Yok pushes past him through the door.
With a cheerful smile he says, “Stop making White be antisocial when we’re helping you move in,” and grabs White’s hand, trying to pull him out of Sean’s grip.
“Oi,” he warns half-seriously, “You’ve brought all our shit in, you can leave now.”
Yok abandons his attempt to remove White from Sean’s arms, huffing, and gets behind them to shove them both out of the room. It’s better – this way they stay hugging.
As they’re entering the little kitchen-slash-living-area, Yok yells, “They were being gross,” to the others.
“We’re just hugging,” White protests, “That’s not gross.”
“If it’s not gross then you can let go,” Yok suggests.
Sean’s confused – “How is that relevant?”
At the same time, White has a suggestion for Yok – “Fuck off.”
“Yeah,” Sean agrees, “Do that.”