homosexuals | [NEW TRAVELERS AU]

[NEW TRAVELERS AU]

NEW TRAVELERS

my sins are no longer secret - my flaws have never been more fatal.

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[ continued from here ]

[maybe there would have been more clarity once upon a time if he'd known the ghost of the closest thing he's ever had to a relationship would come knocking. maybe he wouldn't have let tim walk out with a broken heart and tears streaming down his face, carrying a small box of hastily packed mementos of every day leading up to the fateful moment hawk's resolve had hardened to a point of no return. the pain in his face, the pleading from those big brown eyes behind the glasses that had fogged up - those are the things he saw like tim was still standing in front of him when he closed his eyes at night and prayed for dreamless sleep. and that usually wasn't his reward - instead, vivid replays of losing tim over and over again, some a straight recollection of how that day went, others more brutal and begging the question what he'd do if he really lost tim for good. it's not that it got easier day by day, just that the pain dulled like grief usually does from the spiking stab of pain to a more rounded edge, a tolerable ache. one that was a little more manageable to overlook and plaster on pretend smiles.

until the day he walked into ash's office. until months later when he saw the shy look tim exchanged with him walking out of a meeting. until a year into it and he'd seen them together at fucking lyonesse. there were plenty of drinks flowing that night for hawk - the kind that made him bitter and reckless a few nights later, when he'd called drunk and badgered tim about whether or not he'd be getting presented as ash's new squeeze in a formal media conference or a press release to major publications. a deliberate misunderstand what tim had asked for, conflating it instead with having to hide and never give him what he wanted publicly instead of just opening himself and giving what he could. but that kind of love? it only ever lead to heartache. people getting hurt, or worse. he'd locked that door, thrown away the key, and done tim a favor by kicking him out to the curb the way he had, even if he didn't understand it.

all that weight carried within, and then to have hawk swoop in like the big damn hero and carry him out of the night from hell? it'd be disorienting at best, downright bewildering and maybe even infuriating the more he thinks about it. suddenly it's not all that unfathomable that he's added to tim's stress intentionally or otherwise by making himself a suddenly near-permanent presence. there's been no real resolution to that massive period in between, the cracked foundation he'd pried open and left like a gaping wound to keep picking at in moments of weakness. christ, no wonder he can't sleep and he's dreaming about what would have happened in these moments. worrying about being alone, because up until the moment he burst through the door?

tim probably thought no one was coming, or if they did - it'd be anyone but hawk and too little too late.

that's the part that keeps hawk up at night, but he won't vocalize it now when tim practically wraps his entire body around his torso and clings like there's no tomorrow. his arm wraps around that trim waist, encouraging him to plaster himself against hawk like the last safe haven in town. tonight he is - and however long after that he's allowed to be here for tim. he's not expecting the romance to rekindle right away, and christ knows he's got a lot of explaining to do, but for now? this is the part he's always been good at. his broad palm cradles the back of tim's skull, fingers roving through the soft hair mussed in the back and squeezing gently with affection as he buries himself against tim's damp neck with muffled exhale.]

That's right. It's just us, and no one's getting through me.

[but it makes sense that would be his concern - and hawk suspects it's not just about that they got to tim. tim is the kind of selfless that would be concerned for ash's well-being, or embry's safety in a case like this. the gears turning in his mind are practically audible to hawk - it started with tim, but who's next?]

Should have killed those bastards when I had the chance.

[as it is, hawk probably put a handful of them into a fucking icu, but that doesn't seem like enough by a longshot, and it's not what tim's going to want to hear. not when he's trembling in his arms, no tears - but fragile enough that hawk can hear the exhaustion in every syllable. it tugs at his own chest, tearing open the dull ache into an acute sharpness of regret and sympathy all at once. that's what tim needed to get out, not just the fear of that night. it's everything all rolled into one, and hawk is at the root of it. his throat feels stuck suddenly on a hard lump, difficult to swallow and eyes wet even where they're squeezed shut.

but he owes it to tim to look him in the eyes - pulling back just enough that the hand at his nape can slide around to cup his cheek even while their bodies are still twined together with no distinct end or beginning.]

It's not fair, honey. None of it was.

It fucks with your head - like everything was never quite so safe or simple in the first place. Like you're treading water, barely keeping it out of your mouth to breathe and keep going.

[speaking from his own experience, anyway. only bits and pieces of which he'd ever revealed to tim.]

I know it's hard right now. But it won't be that way forever. You've got the best doctors and therapists. You've got the goddamn President of the United States in your corner.

[there's a pause.]

And if it still matters - if it means anything, you've got me, Skippy. I'll come every day if I have to, tuck you in and check under the bed for monsters. Hold you till you can sleep soundly through a night.

I'm here. I promise.

[there's an audible exhale, hawk cupping his cheek with a soft flex of his fingers as his voice refuses to lift beyond a shaky whisper.]

I'm sorry, Tim.

You're right. It... it does feel like that.

[ hawk feels like an indestructible, immovable wall. even timothy laughlin can't seem to keep him away, can't keep him from prying at the loose, broken bars of his heart. he's beyond tired. weeks of recovering from his injuries, and more to recover from the stress of work, the stress of all of this. hawk wanting to care for him, wanting to protect him, be there for him.

if there was a way to diagnose mental whiplash, tim might see the white house medic just to get that treated in and of itself. tim breathes hawk in, settles into the warmth of him and closes his eyes. it's easier to deep breathe and try to calm the frantic pattering of his heart while hawk is talking, so as not to give way to the fact that everything in him still feels wired-tight and ready to snap. hawk knows what he's talking about, of course - he assumes a man like hawkins fuller would have some traumatic experiences himself, but he's never shared them with tim.

nothing outside of the scar on his back. ]

But they got through you already, once.

[ the words aren't meant to be unkind, but it's true. the dinner, the party, all the people, and hawk's eyes on someone or something else. tim laughlin had been reminded that night just how unimportant he could seem in a crowd, how easily he blended into nothing. proof that he can be useful and useless all at the same time. how convenient. ]

They don't care that you're standing in the way. They waited for everyone to forget I was there, and eventually, you'll do that again, too. That's how this always works.

[ the push and pull, the give and take, tim waiting at the foot of hawk's stoop, box of mementos in hand, quietly waiting for him to say the word and change it all. to throw him scraps, but no. instead he got two years of military service, cold yet professional handshakes and glances, drunken phone calls, and the utter look of disgust given to a cup of coffee to stave off a hangover.

but hawk touches his face, makes their eyes meet, and it crushes him for how sincere the man sounds now. always hot and cold, his hawk. (but he's not his. not anymore). ]

It's not the monsters under my bed that I'm worried about.

[ it's his mind, tricking him with shadows. it's the strength of the locks on the doors. it's the sharp eyes of the security detail outside. it's his heart, fragile and beating frantically, on the verge of breaking. ]

[no, he hadn't told tim any of what he went through back then. just the gist of how he got the scar - the carpathian separatists, the massive fucking calibers tearing through bone and sinew. but everything that followed he'd kept locked away tight, afraid somehow that by spilling the secret of his vulnerability he'd be bringing that onto tim - opening up to the danger that came to those who cared for hawkins fuller. kenny, lenny, senator smith - all of them gone now. smith's suicide had been buried deep enough that no one knew besides hawk and the immediate family, and that was last thing he'd ever had to keep his cleans for - the final task from a loyal soldier to a man who was there for him more than his own father. the door had been closed on tim mere days later without a word other than moments of weakness and all-consuming loneliness. none of it was fair.

but he's always assumed tim managed to move past it. because he's no fool - he knows a sweet catholic boy like timothy laughlin with ambition and dreams of doing something with his time in this pool of snake oil deserves better than a man like hawkins fuller. someone that generous with his body and soul and fucking incredible in bed behind the way he's deceptively shrinking himself into the crevices around powerful men and biding his time. what he should get is someone willing to elevate that - to pull him out, not to shine a light on him - but simply to let the innate light from within be free to embrace everyone else and impart upon them how fucking lucky they are to be in his presence. they don't get it now, but someday everyone who's ever known him, barked an order at him, or brushed over him will regret it.

hawk should regret opening the door to him in the first place. he should regret letting himself get so enamored from one look only to tear his heart out and stomp on it without looking back. it's a wound he can't see - but he knows it lies buried there.

so maybe this conversation is a long time coming. maybe he knows immediately that tim's fears aren't just rooted in being dragged away by bad men and pried for information. it's the other part that lances straight through hawk, guilt oozing out as he tenses lightly while squeezing impossibly tighter in understanding and wordless recognition.

i'm sorry, i'm sorry - if i could take it back i would, is what he should say, but it'd be no less empty than the way tim feels locked inside these four walls eaten up by fear and so fucking fragile, heart brittle even as he still tentatively places it in hawk's hands.

hawk's worse than the monsters under his bed. he's it.

his voice is thick with emotion, swallowing around a lump and letting his gaze fall from tim's for a few moments with all the pain at how badly he's damaged his former lover sear into his expression. none of it is an act.]

That's what I wanted you to think. I wanted to keep giving you reasons to move on and forget about me.

[his fingers stroke lightly against tim's face again, and much as he wants to crush him to his chest once more and bury against his neck, he owes him this face to face.]

The truth is, I could never forget you. That's why I kept reaching out. Pushing and pulling. And none of it was fair, and I know that.

[there's a quiet laugh of self-derision, hawk shaking his head a little and glancing off to the side.]

You have every right to be worried. To think I'm gonna turn around and do it again.

So it's not gonna mean shit when I promise you that I won't.

[his fingers slide down, along tim's shoulder and his bicep, sliding to lace their fingers together gently, tentatively if he's allowed.]

It's for good this time, Skippy. However you'll let me. I didn't deserve it then and I sure as hell don't now - but I'm here, for better or for worse.

I keep wondering what will happen next time. If those people...

[ his voice hitches for a moment and even though he's being made to look at hawk, for a moment it's clear that his mind is elsewhere as he looks down at hawk's chest instead, trying to steady his breath and thinking. for the briefest moments his eyes go glassy, but it doesn't take long for him to reel it back in.

he's just so tired. his fingers still shake, his heart patters faster in his chest than it should, even with the warm weight of hawk beneath him. ]

If they come back and you don't come looking for me, then what? Or if I call you and you don't answer, or when you do it's too late for anything to be done.

[ the reality he faced when he sat in that carpathian hell hole was exactly that - who will come for me - because he knew it couldn't be ash. it could never be ash even if he wanted to. he hadn't expected it to be hawkins fuller or embry moore. never.

and here he is, with hawk promising him so many things - for good - and for the first time in all of his life he can't just take the man before him on his word. he has, so many times before, and here laid bare now with him? there's no more room to bend, no more open doors or spaces for hawkins fuller to fill. he's already there, after all. tim just doesn't know what to do with it.

he doesn't look up at hawk, even with the fingers on his cheeks, the ones that slide down to tangle with his. he lets him, loosely curling his around hawk's and then giving up and settling his head back against hawk's shoulder, like even sitting upright is too much energy. ]

It wasn't fair, any of it. What you did. From the library all the way to the front step of your home. I wonder sometimes if there's a way to fix me - make it so that looking at you or talking to you or even sitting here with you doesn't hurt. But it does.

[ he huffs and closes his eyes, feeling a whole new wave of exhaustion. ]

I want to believe you, Hawk, but I can't. Maybe you think I don't know you, because I guess I really don't. Not the facts, but I know everything else. I know how scared you can be, even if you don't say it. How defensive you can get. Like a cat, spooked, even if you don't show it.

[ he leans a little heavier into the man's chest, fingers flexing around hawk's. ]

I just don't believe you can shake some of that. I don't know what war you're fighting right now, but I don't think it ever left. Like those men and me and that stupid room. I don't know.

Hey - no. That's the entire point, there won't be a next time. Because I'm not leaving you alone. I'm not abandoning you again, and I'm not gonna pretend I've forgotten everything that matters.

[but it's all just words again, isn't it? he's got no one to blame but himself for the shell he sees in front of him, the way tim can't stop thinking about all the what-ifs. christ, it probably felt like hours in that safehouse - thinking no one was coming, that ash would find him broken at best or dead, and that hawk wouldn't think a goddamn thing about it. he doesn't know the way hawk's heart dropped the moment he'd heard the words - that he'd leapt into action and set the rescue plan into motion with an insistence he could carry this out on his own. embry coming along was a mere formality. sure, he could tell him all that. but that's not the root of this problem, is it? it's not about the kidnapping or the trauma, though that's bad enough.

it's about the state hawk left him in years ago, kicked out onto his doorstep like last night's trash without a word. his fingers disentangle from tim's when he slumps back against him, both arms wrapping tight round his shoulders again.]

I know. I'm all out of excuses, Skippy. I've got no leg to stand on - no smooth words to let this blow over. It's not so simple anymore, not when it got you here. All of this - it's my fault.

[and he means it, the sincerity evident in the rough edges of his voice, buried against tim's neck and murmured near the shell of his ear. and still tim reads him like it was just yesterday - knows him better than anyone else in this whole world does, even his own fucking mother. it's not that he's trying to play martyr and get tim to absolve him, not at all. none of this would have ever fucking happened if he hadn't run scared, if he hadn't convinced himself what he was doing was the right thing to protect tim. he denied himself love after watching it tear down the men in his life and get them killed - and it still wasn't enough. tim almost fucking died tonight because he wasn't there.

but how the fuck does he explain all that?

it's not the right time.]

Yeah, you're right. You do know me - more than anyone else does. You know I left even if you don't know why. And I owe it to you to tell you. I want to tell you sometime, but not tonight.

All I can say tonight is that I'm sorry.

[he sucks in a breath, squeezing his arms tighter around him.]

The only thing I've got to fight right now is myself and almost losing the one fucking thing I cared about most.

Almost losing you.

[his voice cracks slightly, eyes slipping shut to hide the tears pricking in the corners. what if tim doesn't believe him? what if it's too late to fix all this?]

I want to be here. I want to protect you, and make it up to you - I want to prove I can change, Tim. Maybe not all of it, but the things that matter.

[one hand strokes lightly up and down his back, trying to soothe them both as his voice comes out in a whisper.]

Please - just give me a chance.

[ i want to tell you hawk says and already tim knows that he won't. hawk speaks and something in his chest sinks, feels cold and brittle. no, he'll never be told why hawk did what he did. why, when tim's heart had just started to open up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, he found his person, the door slammed in his face. even now, sitting wrapped up in hawk, he wonders why he isn't enough.

he's not strong enough. he's not smart enough. not wise enough. not discreet enough. he doesn't have political prowess like the other men he works with, and something tells him he'll always be seen as green around the ears. the bright-eyed newbie, naive and fresh-faced, chasing the president's coattails like an overeager golden retriever.

not tonight.

there it is. tim's ears fill with noise and the what-ifs of that shady carpathian rooms are eclipsed by everything else. what had happened - had tim looked at him the wrong way? fallen too fast and too deep? had he misunderstood? was all of it supposed to be casual and light? what words did he miss, what script did he fail to memorize? he moved within the political world quietly, turned down dates with a quiet excuse - oh, church, oh, God, oh there's no one - and snuck to hawk's place only in the bustle of traffic or the dark of evening.

tim goes quiet, running through every scenario, and when hawk's hand pulls from his own and those arms fall around his shoulders, he feels as though whatever gentle thing they'd built has crumbled. he feels he has to comfort hawk now, for his hurting, but he doesn't have the energy. ]

I can't keep up with you.

[ tim's voice is hoarse, and he almost sounds shell-shocked as he speaks. he pushes back against hawk's arms then, leaning back enough to look him in the eye and make room between their chests, so that hawk cannot feel the furious pounding of his heart. ]

Why can't you tell me? What did I do, Hawk? If I'm the only one that knows you, the only one you say you cared about then why can't you just say it?

[ he pushes again and this time it's to pull away altogether, to create distance between their bodies even though he's utterly exhausted and wants nothing more than to sink back into the broad warmth of him. ]

It was never simple before. Your smooth words, your excuses. I let it go and I never should have, because I wanted to be loved by you more than I cared about getting hurt. I wanted you to want me, and I can see now how stupid that was. Naive, childish, green, right?

[ his eyes burn, but don't spill over. he just stares across at hawk, hurt and shocked and looking like he might throw up. ]

So what, you want me to just wait again? Wait on you and hope you'll give me some scraps of whatever all that was? I can't even say it was our life, can I? We didn't even get a chance at one. A year isn't enough for that. I - [ he shakes his head, scrubs his hands over his face, and realizes then that he's shaking. he hasn't eaten anything, really, in almost two days. he's not slept. he's exhausted. he's furious. no doubt he looks sick, as well - pale, with dark, angry circles under his eyes. ]

I let you hurt me over and over again, thinking that one day you could change. One day things would be different, even if I didn't understand. But this time, when you get jealous or mad or upset and you stop taking my calls or you shut me out, something worse could happen. I could get fucking taken. Just like then.

[ he doesn't have the energy to get up, to climb back into his sweaty, damp bed. ]

I want to give you a chance, Hawk, and I guess you're taking it now whether I've given it to you or not. I can't say no to you. I can't stop thinking about you, but I know things will go back to how they were, when I'm better. When you don't feel threatened anymore. I can't do it. I can't work in that office and feel alone like I have. Ash helped, but I don't even have that anymore. I don't have anything. Don't you understand that? What else are you going to take, Hawk? I don't have anything else. I don't.

➤ 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡

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➤ 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑖 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒?

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➤ 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔

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