Chapter Text
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Those are the first words that Damen hears after Laurent picks up the comm, and they're delivered in a disbelieving tone with just a hint of acidity behind them. Damen can hear voices in the background, like Laurent’s at a bar or somewhere crowded, and he winces.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Well? What is it this time,” Laurent says, and over the commlink like this, without getting to see what Laurent's hands are doing, or his eyes, Damen finds it difficult to guess at if he’s really mad or just playing at it. “Did the ethernet cable on your viewscreen get unplugged? Maybe you need me to come change a lightbulb?”
So really mad, then. Damen refrains from wincing again.
“No, it’s just--there’s a gala tonight, on the upper deck. One of the super important higher-ups needed a banquet for something or other, I don't know.”
“You don't say.”
“Yes, and my--it’s so stupid. My closet won’t open.”
“Your closet.”
“And I have to be there, but I can’t very well go dressed like I am,” Damen says, gesturing at the towel he slung around his hips after getting out of the shower, like Laurent could somehow see the motion through their voice-only link. “And I wasn’t sure who else to call, so I was hoping--”
“Oh yes, I’m well aware of what you’re hoping. Hold on for a moment, and don’t speak to me.” There’s a slight pause from Laurent's end of the comm, and Damen lets his breath out in short, almost silent puffs of air, aware that he’s treading on very thin ice right now and something like breathing too loudly might break the fragile tension that’s keeping Laurent from hanging up on him.
“Auguste,” Laurent says, and he must be addressing someone else because his voice sounds almost fond, certainly more gentle than it had been just a moment ago. “I have to go, I’m so sorry. A work emergency.”
There’s a muffled response from this other person--this “Auguste” character--and Damen blames his current inner turmoil on the fact that Laurent had just categorized him as a “work emergency” and not because he had just found out there was someone out there who could make Laurent sound that soft, and that the someone who could do that wasn’t him. He should just cancel his appearance at the gala. Nikandros would kill him, but it would hardly matter. He could call up Ancel, get put on the work schedule for some interminable number of days from now, and just sulk around in his apartment naked until the tech came to help him.
A tech who wouldn’t be obstinate, mean, funny, charming, gorgeous Laurent. What would even be the point.
There’s a moment more of the mumbled conversation and then Laurent comes back on the line, still obviously talking to this Auguste person based on how polite he’s being, and he says, “I know. I love you too, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
And Damen can’t keep quiet anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you--and if you’re on a--”
“If you’re going to say you’re sorry you interrupted me saying goodbye to my brother, you can just keep it to yourself,” Laurent cuts in. “You never mean to do these things, do you? And I thought I told you to be quiet.”
“I thought Nicaise was your brother,” Damen says weakly, to cover for the fact that Laurent saying the word ‘brother’ feels like the moment when the artificial gravity comes back on after floating in space, boots clunking solidly down to the floor, the world right side up and understandable once again.
“Astonishingly, it’s possible to have more than one,” Laurent says. The background noise is quieter now, fading into the distance as Laurent makes his way towards Damen’s apartment, to either fix his closet or to skewer him, he’s not quite sure. Maybe both. “Just like it’s possible to continually have minor emergencies that require my immediate attention. Apparently.”
“I already apologized for--”
“Do they really let you fly our defense ships? I have to imagine that you’d be raked over the coals if you broke those as often as you break the coffee machine in your apartment.”
“The coffee machine only broke twice,” Damen says, frowning. “And actually, there was an incident with an asteroid last year--”
“I cannot believe you,” Laurent says, the incredulousness in his voice reaching alarming levels. “Just--shut up. I’m almost there. I’m hanging up.”
With a beep, the line goes dead.
And Damen begins to suspect that he may have made a mistake.
Because Laurent had always seemed more than willing to come over and help Damen with whatever he needed, and the grief that would be doled out in response to that was part of their game. At least--that’s what Damen had thought. But maybe Laurent didn’t look forward to Damen’s calls as much as Damen looked forward to calling him, and instead looked on those calls with trepidation, or with an ever growing amount of horror. Maybe he had just been trying to be nice and Damen had overextended, had asked too much of him, had misread their playful bantering and Laurent’s willingness to always stay a few more minutes, if asked.
Maybe Laurent thought of him only as a klutz who couldn’t stop his oafish hands from breaking every single thing he touched.
Maybe Laurent was afraid that Damen would break him too, if given the chance.
A warning from Lykaois lets him know that he’s out of time to reconsider, as if he hadn’t already known that from the very instant he set eyes on Laurent.
He opens the door. Laurent is there, his blue eyes opening wide in surprise although Damen can’t rightly say why because every ounce of brainpower is currently directed at the figure standing in front of him. Laurent is dressed to the nines, with perfectly tailored trousers that accentuate his lean, muscled thighs. His fitted shirt stretches across the broad reach of his shoulders, the fabric a beautiful blue silk that sets off the color of his eyes perfectly and is tight enough to pull just slightly at the overabundance of little fussy buttons that run down the middle and would likely take a year and a day to undo. His jacket is thrown over his arm, and he’s already loosened the tie around his throat which hangs there in a perfectly messy knot that just begs to be pulled.
Damen gulps, and restrains himself.
“Wow,” he breathes.
Laurent looks him up and down once, twice, and then closes his eyes briefly.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he says again, only this time there’s a slight tinge of desperation to it, the smallest hint of hysteria to his words, although Damen can hardly understand what he's done to warrant that response this time.
He glances down at the towel he has still wrapped around his waist, under-dressed to the extreme even if Laurent hadn’t shown up looking like a million fucking dollars. Laurent doesn’t say anything, just barges past him and into the apartment, keeping a comically large distance between them, his eyes landing everywhere except on Damen.
“This was all I could find,” Damen says as an apology, closing the door behind him. “I told you, all my clothes are stuck in the closet, which won’t open.”
“And you don’t have a--a bathrobe, or anything?” Laurent hisses, throwing his jacket down on the couch with a little more force than either one of those objects deserved. “Maybe a sheet you could drape across that ridiculous chest of yours? Do they even make sheets big enough for that?"
“Look, Laurent, I’m really sorry to have bothered you tonight, you look fucking amazing, by the way, but--you didn’t have to come, you know. If you were busy.”
“Shut up,” Laurent snaps, his eyes flashing a warning Damen doesn’t quite understand. “Stay here. Do not follow me. I’m going to go fix this this stupid closet for you.”
And without another word he stomps down the hall and into Damen’s bedroom.
Laurent’s work only takes a few minutes; the sounds of him banging on something are punctuated by bouts of prolific cursing, and even though Damen can’t make out any specific words he somehow has the idea that they’re all directed at him. When Laurent finally emerges from the bedroom the only clue that he had been successful in his endeavor is the gaudy robe he’s holding in his hands, an item which Damen is pretty sure Nikandros had gotten him as a gag gift for his birthday a few years ago and which has lived in his closet ever since.
“Put this on,” he says, throwing it to Damen. Damen does, leaving the towel around his waist as well because the robe is just a little on the side of too short and barely covers his thighs. It's punishment, Damen has to imagine, that he's being made to stand here looking like a particularly sad stripper who just got out of the bath while Laurent looks ready for a photo shoot with a high end glamor magazine, but that's just the kind of luck he seems to be having tonight.
“And so?” Laurent asks, once Damen’s done tying the sash and arranging himself with as much dignity as he can muster under the circumstances. “Everything is fixed once again. How long are we going to do this, Damen?”
“Do what?” Damen asks, genuinely confused.
“Don’t play dumb,” Laurent admonishes him, setting his hands on his hips. He really is angry tonight, Damen thinks, but--no, that’s not quite right. His lips are pursed into a hard line, but he’s not got that little furrow above his brow that he gets when he’s really mad, and his gaze has the same quality as when Damen presents him with a broken object and he’s working out the best way to fix it.
“I promise you, I’m not playing at anything.” Laurent doesn’t look like he’s going to put him out of his misery any time soon, and so he says, “Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”
“This--this thing you’ve been doing,” Laurent says, still tracking him with wary eyes. “Calling me over here any time you have the most minor inconvenience. Bringing me flowers. Making me cookies. And then--” he closes his eyes briefly and shakes his head, as if trying to dislodge something that's stuck there. “Answering the door wearing only a towel, really, Damen?”
“My closet was broken.” After the words come out of his mouth he’s aware of how much it sounds like a lame excuse, even though it was only the truth, and he winces.
Laurent catches the movement, and a small laugh escapes his lips. “Yes, your closet was broken. And your coffeemaker. And your oven. And your viewscreen. And your commlink. I wonder if I should get a team in here to measure whether or not you radiate some sort of electrical field that makes appliances prone to malfunction. But I don’t think they’d find anything, would they?”
“And why wouldn’t they?” Damen asks, barely daring to breathe.
Laurent rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to lie, Damen. I know you’ve been breaking these things on purpose just to have a poor excuse to spend time with me. And how long are you going to go on with it? Are we going to keep playing this game until the heat death of the universe? Because I can fix a lot of things, but I don’t think even I can fix that .”
“I didn’t–”
I didn’t break anything , Damen almost says, before a rare moment of foresight stops his tongue. Because then Laurent would say, So you were just using me for free maintenance, then, and Damen would say Maintenance of ship property is always free, but you always show up so much faster than the usual maintenance guys, and then Laurent would understandably get angry--like really, actually angry, furrowed brow and all--because under those circumstances it did sound like he was using Laurent only for his technical prowess.
When in reality--
In reality, the truth is that Damen likes spending time with Laurent. A lot. And his broken electronics had given him a lot of reasons to see him more often than he would have otherwise, had given him a reason to call and find excuses that didn’t--in his mind--sound desperate or clingy. And while he hadn’t broken anything on purpose, he couldn’t quite say that the thought never crossed his mind every time it had been more than a few days without a cracked screen--and therefore Laurent--in sight.
“You didn’t what?” Laurent asks. He’s guarded now, that same kind of tension he gets when he rewires something and then plugs it in for the first time, unsure of whether or not it will work perfectly or throw up sparks in protest.
And so Damen smiles warmly at him, pouring all of his charm into that one expression until he can see just the hint of a blush on Laurent's cheek.
“I didn’t think you’d notice,” Damen says.
Laurent lets out a small huff of amusement. “Of course I noticed. You’re about as subtle as a Vaskian at a coupling fire.”
“I do tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. I’ve been told it’s charming.”
This earns him another snort. “I’m sure. Well? Go ahead and ask, then.”
“Ask--”
“--me out on a date, yes. Go on,” Laurent says, sounding almost bored as he goes over to pick up his jacket. He throws it over his arm and then turns towards Damen, waiting with an expectant air.
“You want to go out with me?” Damen asks incredulously. Because--well. Damen had never allowed himself to think that far into the future, had never thought beyond the immediate need to come up with a reason to see Laurent, to have an excuse to spend time with him and then, once Laurent was there, find ways to convince him to stay.
He hadn’t considered dating. Hadn’t considered giving in to the obvious want that seems stupidly obvious now that Laurent’s planted the idea in his brain.
But Laurent thankfully doesn’t seem to pick up on the incredulousness of Damen’s tone, only takes it as a basic question that requires a basic answer.
“Fine,” he says, waving a hand flippantly, as if he hadn’t just answered in the affirmative to the most important question Damen’s ever not-quite-asked him. “I’m free on Friday. Pick me up at seven.”
“On Friday--but I don’t even know where you live,” Damen says, half dazed. He wonders if Nicaise really did turn off the oxygen to his room at some point, sending him into an oxygen deprived euphoria, and the way Laurent is looking at him right now is doing nothing to convince him otherwise.
But Laurent overtakes the hurdle regarding his address as easily as any other and fiddles with his comm for a moment before calling out, “Lykaois?”
“I have received Laurent’s address, Damen,” comes the prompt reply.
“There you go,” Laurent says, hand on the door, and Damen’s debating if physically smashing the door panel would get Laurent to stay longer or just make him angry when he realizes who’ll be asked to fix it. “I guess I’ll see you Friday, then. Don’t be late. Oh, and Damen?”
“Yeah?”
Laurent smiles at him then, and it feels like looking at the sun, or a supernova, knowing that your eyes will never be the same and you'll always have that image etched into your retinas--and not caring even in the slightest that that’s the case.
“Try not to break anything in the next few days, okay?” he says, lips quirked in a half smile, and then--he’s gone.
And Damen waits five, ten, fifteen seconds, enough time for Laurent to have gotten sufficiently far enough away, before celebrating loudly enough for Lykaois to warn him about noise levels and possible complaints from his neighbors, and he collapses on the couch in joy.
On Friday, three hours before Damen is set to pick up Laurent for their date, his water heater breaks. And it was nothing he had done, surely, since he was just taking a shower like he had done thousands of times before being plunged into icy water right in the middle of it--but still, he can’t help but feel that maybe Laurent was right, and he does have some sort of electromagnetic field around him that breaks everything he touches.
He can’t call Laurent. That is painfully clear to him at least, and he bounces along to the hold music on the regular maintenance line in a futile attempt to warm himself up, hoping it won’t take too long for someone to answer him. He wouldn’t risk leaving late for his date, of course, but it would be nice to get on the schedule as soon as possible, lest he take cold showers for a week.
Which, under the circumstances, might not be the worst thing. He thinks about this date tonight, how he’s going to take Laurent out to dinner at a new burger joint that had just opened that he had mentioned wanting to try when he was over fixing Damen’s blender last week, and then afterwards, how Damen had reserved the viewing dome that the pilots use to watch the ships come in, and he thinks about how they could gaze out into the stars together, and then how later he’d put his arm around Laurent’s shoulders, maybe reach in and kiss him, if the mood was right--
Damen shakes his head. Yeah. A few cold showers wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.
“Hi, this is maintenance. Whaddya want,” comes a bored voice from over the commlink.
“Oh, hello. Is this Ancel?”
“Yeah,” Ancel says, boredom making way for hostile suspicion. “Is this Gerrault? Because I told you to stop calling me, you old freaky pervert. I will report you to security, I am not joking. They already told me they’d help me blast you out of the airlock.”
“No, no,” Damen says quickly. “This is--you know what, I don’t think security would actually blast someone out of the airlock.”
“Well I do know that they would, so there.”
“Right. Anyway, listen. This is Damen, I called about my a/c a few weeks ago, remember?”
There’s a silence on the other end for a moment, and then a big sigh.
“Oh, yeah. How could I forget someone I spent literally six hours talking to? Man, I kind of wish it was Gerrault now. What do you want this time?”
“Wow, you make it sound like you actually helped me last time, when in reality you did nothing of the sort.”
“Off to a splendid start, I see. Got another dinner party you need me to save?”
“You know you didn’t actually do--okay, okay, let’s try again. Hello, Ancel, this is Damen, unit 1746, Blue Deck. I need to report that my water heater is broken.”
“Fine,” Ancel says, almost sounding disappointed that Damen isn’t willing to continue their sniping. “Let me get my schedule up. Okay, I’ve got a spot open--wait, wait a second. No way. There’s a flag on your account.”
Damen frowns. “A flag? What do you mean, a flag?”
“Oh!” Ancel exclaims, sounding more excited than Damen has ever heard him before. “Look at this. I’ve never seen anything like it. Sorry, I’m not going to be able to help you. I’m going to have to send this up the chain.”
“Wait--what? What’s the issue here?” Damen asks. “I know I was annoying last time, but you guys didn’t even send anyone out!”
“Sorry sweetheart, my hands are tied, and not in the fun way. According to this I’m under strict orders to send this straight up to Mr. de Vere.”
“Mr. de Vere--you mean Laurent?” Damen asks, a little dumbstruck.
“I do not mean Laurent, I mean Mr. de Vere,” Ancel hisses. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I called him by his first name.”
“Okay, stop. Don’t send anything up a flag pole or up any chain, just--can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Your account has been flagged by Mr. de Vere,” Ancel says slowly and loudly, as if Damen is deaf as well as dumb. “It says that any activity regarding this account--as in, your account specifically, Damen Akielos Blue Deck 1746--needs to be run by him, no exceptions. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you right now. I don’t know what you did to piss him off but trust me, he’s not the kind of person you want on your bad side. Did you murder one of his brothers, or something?”
“No, I didn’t--look, Ancel, I really don’t understand what the big deal is. Laurent has been helping me out--”
“He doesn’t ‘help people out’, are you serious right now--”
“--but I really can’t let him know about this problem, for personal reasons. Can’t you just, I don’t know, ignore it? Just this once?”
There’s a profound silence on the other end of the comm, and for a moment Damen thinks that it’s entirely possible Ancel has just vanished in a puff of offended smoke.
“Listen,” Ancel says finally. “You--you have no idea who Mr. de Vere is, do you?”
I'm starting to, Damen doesn’t say. I know that he's a menace and the most gorgeous person I’ve ever met, and that I can talk to him for hours and never get tired of hearing his voice. He’s smart and mean and he’s capable and very handy, and he doesn’t seem to mind that I’m always two steps behind him.
“Why don’t you enlighten me,” he says instead.
“He’s like--oh my god, I can’t believe you, do you live under a rock? So, okay. The most important person on this ship is the captain, right?”
“I don’t know about most important,” Damen says. “Everyone’s job is necessary to the successful functioning of the ship--”
“Stop,” Ancel whines. “Just like, stop. You know what I mean, right? As far as hierarchy goes, the captain is most important. Number one on the list. Right?”
“Fine, yes,” Damen accedes.
“And after her it’s the guy whose job it is not to fly us into any black holes,” Ancel says.
“The navigator,” Damen says.
“Yeah, thanks,” Ancel says sarcastically. “Not totally clueless, are you? Anyway, after the navigator the next most important person on this ship is de Vere. He is in charge of, like, making sure the ship doesn’t blow up or whatever. He monitors the oxygen production, the engine catalysts, the water--he like, freaking invented half the systems we use on this ship, they even had a big party for him to celebrate his achievements the other day--and you said he’s been helping you?”
“Well, I mean--”
Ancel lets out a horrified gasp. “Do not tell me that you somehow conspired to get him to fix your air conditioner. Oh my god, you did, didn’t you. You are a very brave man, I'll give you that.”
“There’s nothing brave about--Laurent is a good person,” Damen says, a little hotly. “He’s kind and he’s brilliant and he’s--he’s really funny and so, so smart. You don’t even know him if you’re saying those kind of things about him.”
There’s a second of silence, and then Ancel lets out a burst of giggles that crackles like static over the commlink.
“You like him!” he crows, making some sort of noise like he’s clapping, or hitting something. “I can’t believe it. You actually like him. Well well well. It sounds like the ice king might be finally starting to melt.”
“Are we in the fourth grade? Can you not, right now?”
“Are you going to ask him out? Have you already asked him out? Do you want to hear what happened to the last guy who asked him out?"
“No, I don’t want to hear it. I’m actually kind of on a deadline right now–”
"He had to transfer to a completely new ship," Ancel continues, despite Damen's insistence not to. "Laurent embarrassed him so badly not even the food service robots could look him in the eye, and they're programmed to do that! Oooh, ooh, or did you hear about the guy who slapped Laurent’s ass because he thought he was a secretary, that one time? I hear he’s getting out of the hospital soon.”
“What happened to calling him ‘Mr. de Vere’?” Damen grumbles.
“Listen, I can put you on the schedule if you like, but de Vere like, wrote the program we use for scheduling, he’ll definitely find out about it–”
“No, don’t,” Damen says quickly. “Don’t do anything, all right? Pretend I never called. No no, actually--wait. Can you answer something?”
“Not if I’m pretending you never called, no.”
Damen ignores him. “What day did Laurent put the flag on my account? Can you see something like that?”
Suddenly it’s the most important thing in the world to know this. It’s entirely possible that Laurent just put the flag on his account a few days ago, maybe to ensure that he wasn’t still breaking things, maybe just to keep tabs on the person who apparently broke more appliances at a higher frequency than anyone else on the ship.
But it’s also possible there’s another explanation entirely. Damen finds that he’s holding his breath, waiting for Ancel to answer him.
“Uh, okay. I had to deploy some of my excellent detective skills, but I got there. This flag was put on your account…oh, about three weeks ago. It wasn’t here last time you called, I would have definitely noticed something like that, so--oh yeah, I see it now. Yeah, it was put on here the day after you called, that first time we spent nearly the whole day on the phone together.”
The day after he had the dinner party with Kastor and Jokaste. Before Laurent had begun to suspect him of purposely sabotaging electronics, before they had even spent enough time together for Laurent to notice any sort of pattern to their interactions. Well before Damen had almost-not-quite asked him out, hell--it was even before Damen had gone down into those service tunnels, to both gift him and bribe him into coming back over, that second time.
And there was only one reason why Laurent would have done something like that.
He looks around frantically for his shoes, his ID card.
“Thanks, Ancel, I owe you one, seriously. But I gotta go. Remember, I never called.” He realizes that he still hasn’t put on a shirt and does that immediately, lest he be accused of breaking his closet intentionally for the second time.
“What--wait a second! You sound kind of crazy right now. What difference does the date make?”
“It makes all the difference,” Damen says. “You don’t even--it means everything .”
“I don’t see how it can mean--”
And Damen ends the call, slamming the door behind him as he runs out of his apartment and goes to find Laurent.
It doesn’t take him long to find his way to Laurent’s apartment. He lives only a few decks above Damen’s, just a short turbo lift ride away, but every second it takes to get there feels like a minute, and the few minutes it takes before he’s standing in front of Laurent’s door feel like hours. He knocks, panting slightly from his hurried pace, and waits for Laurent to open the door.
Which he does, after a moment, staring at Damen with a wary, curious expression.
“I know I said not to be late, but if you’re here to pick me up now you’re a few hours early--”
“You like me,” Damen blurts out.
In hindsight, he probably could have picked a better way to open. Laurent doesn’t shut the door in his face and that’s something, at least, but his eyes narrow and Damen can tell that this epiphany of his has not been received with the sort of enthusiasm he had been hoping for.
“I am going out with you tonight,” Laurent says, his voice icier than the antifreeze they use to protect the ships from the vast coldness of space. “I thought the fact that I was willing to put up with you for more than a few minutes was enough indication that I don’t think that you’re completely terrible.”
Damen doesn’t say anything, only smiles, which causes Laurent to blush the most amazing rosy color, which--in reality, looks quite strange against the hard look he’s directing at Damen right now. And so Damen says again, softer this time, “You like me.”
“Never mind. I take it back. You are completely terrible.”
“But you still want to go out with me,” Damen says, unable to keep what he knows is a dopey grin off his face. “Because you like me so much.”
“You’re the one who kept turning up at my workplace, haunting me with flowers and incessant phone calls,” Laurent says, his tone accusing, but Damen notices that he’s nearly inside of Laurent’s apartment now, and he doesn’t really understand how that happened except that he’s almost certain Laurent’s been gently guiding him that way. “And you’re the one who asked me out.”
“I did,” Damen says, and he’s far enough inside now that he could probably close the door and give them some privacy, but he doesn’t, because he can’t be bothered to divert his attention away from the more immediate danger in front of him. “I did all those things because I like you too. I don’t have a problem admitting it.”
“As if you even needed to admit it,” Laurent scoffs. “It’s practically written all over your face.”
“All over my face?” Damen repeats, all faux surprise. “My whole face? I don’t believe it’s that obvious. Show me where it’s written, then.”
And Damen closes his eyes, tilting his face toward Laurent. He can hear Laurent huff, and after a moment he peeks an eye open to find Laurent looking at him with a considering gaze, all frostiness gone, with only something that looks like amusement left.
“Here,” Laurent says, and Damen squeezes his eyes shut as Laurent plonks a finger right between his eyebrows. “Whenever I leave your apartment, after I’m done ‘fixing’ something for you--” this said with heavy sarcasm, air quotes obvious enough even to Damen with both of his eyes scrunched shut, “--your brow furrows right here, like you’re totally confused about the prospect of me leaving you.”
The pressure against his brow relents, and Damen opens one eye, and then the other once he deems it safe. He makes a show of considering the accusation, and then says, “I don’t know if that’s an obvious sign. I might just be a confused person in general.”
“Well I can see that’s certainly the case. Here, then,” Laurent says, putting a finger against Damen’s dimple, a light touch, and Damen doesn’t close his eyes this time. “Your ridiculous dimples come out whenever you see me, like you can’t stop yourself from smiling like an idiot.”
“My dimples are hardly something I bring out only for you, although they do seem to be out more than usual when you're around,” Damen concedes, smiling. “The dimples themselves are just an unfortunate consequence of the way my face is set up, is all.”
“Unfortunate, yes,” Laurent murmurs, his tone wry. He considers him for another moment before saying, "Here, then," and reaches up to run the backs of his fingers along Damen's jaw, and they're close enough now that Damen has to only lift his hands, just slightly, to rest them on Laurent's waist, and Laurent doesn't reprimand him for it, or call him out, only leans in to the touch. "The way your jaw clenches whenever I call you out for staring at my ass for too long."
"I'll own up to that one," Damen says. "You have a very nice ass. And I do dislike when you make me stop staring at it. What else?"
"Your lips," Laurent says, no hesitation this time, and he runs the pads of his fingers across Damen's lips. Damen has to physically stop himself from shivering, from taking Laurent’s fingers inside of his mouth and sucking on them like he wants to do more than anything right now. “They always look just like this right before you’re about to kiss me. Written plain as day for anyone to see.”
"That one is definitely the most obvious, I think," Damen murmurs, and then closes what's left of the distance between them and kisses him.
And in this there can be no deception, no lying or prevaricating, and it’s impossible to misinterpret the obvious impatience that both of them seem to share--even Damen understands it, he who had already missed so much. Laurent kisses him eagerly, hungrily, with all the finesse that could be expected from someone who could take apart every wire in a viewscreen and, painstakingly, reattach every single thing that had come unplugged.
Damen is, undoubtedly, in trouble. If Laurent asked he would open himself up, let Laurent see everything that makes him tick, and he wouldn’t even care if Laurent could put him back together again or not.
“Oh,” Damen says, when they pull apart. “I guess I was that obvious, after all.”
“You’re not subtle, no,” Laurent says, teasing his bottom lip, red and wet from where Damen had just been kissing him seconds before, and if all goes well will be kissing him again in another few seconds. “What do you say we call off the date tonight and just stay in?”
“But I already made plans to take you down to that new burger place, the one you said you wanted to try, and then we were going to--” Damen watches Laurent’s eyebrows climb higher and higher in disbelief with every word that comes out of his mouth until he’s afraid they’ll shoot right off his head. “--Actually, you know what, you’re right. Staying in is a much better idea. You’ve always been the smart one. If we get hungry we can always get delivery.”
“Delivery sounds good. I have a feeling we’ll be working up quite the appetite,” Laurent says, kicking the door shut with a decisive slam. Damen had forgotten that it was still open. Or that he was still inside Laurent’s apartment, or even inside of a ship. His entire universe right now is just Laurent, standing in front of him with his wicked blue eyes and his lips red from kissing.
“I think I might be in love with you,” Damen says, half dazed and trying to stay upright as he kicks off his shoes.
“Well obviously ,” is all Laurent says as he takes Damen’s hand and leads him to bed.
Later, after bed and then dinner and then bed again, Laurent’s head is pillowed against Damen’s chest, their limbs sweaty and tangled in each other.
“Hey,” Damen says, lightly brushing Laurent’s hair away from his face. “I feel like--after all this, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“And what’s that,” Laurent murmurs, relaxed and leaning into Damen’s touch. Suddenly Laurent tenses, every muscle in his body going rigid, and he pushes himself up on the bed.
Damen ignores the tension, speaking as easily as if Laurent was still sleepy and sated, nestled into his side.
“I just wanted to say--”
“Don’t you dare,” Laurent hisses, and there’s murder in his eyes as he slaps a hand over Damen’s mouth, stifling the words that are threatening to escape there. For a second they wrestle with each other, Laurent’s not insignificant amount of muscle pitted against Damen’s, but Damen is ultimately stronger and he uses that strength to bring Laurent closer until he’s nearly close enough to kiss, if only his hand wasn’t in the way. After a moment’s hesitation Laurent removes the offending hand and Damen closes the gap between them, kissing him gently, and Laurent sighs, and quiets, the tension seeping out from him with every second that passes.
By the time they break away Laurent is nearly boneless, breathless--and vulnerable to attack.
“--thanks,” Damen finishes. “For…you know.”
“Fuck,” Laurent says, releasing a long suffering sigh, and flops back onto the bed.
“Exactly,” Damen says, and even though the gaze directed at him now is potent enough to turn a man into stone, when he opens his arms in an obvious invitation, Laurent goes, willingly.