Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sampo Koski is an addict.

In his brash, younger days, this fact was an issue. It left him with nothing at all to his name other than a Mask; obsessively chasing his next thrill until it landed him on one of the farthest, most forgotten reaches of the world.

Sampo finds it a little embarrassing to remember now. How little he cared for anyone — even himself — in the face of Elation at his fingertips. A brush with some very temporary, ephemeral piece of joy that always slipped away too quickly. Leaving nothing but a cavernous hole in his chest that he then had to fill right back up again.

Nowadays, he finds that version of himself almost hard to understand.

Emphasis on almost.

Maybe aging is simply mellowing him out like he always used to mock the stories for, because when he's stood among Belobog's winter landscape, Sampo finds (in a possible bout of insanity) that he might be an addict for the mundane now.

The way Natasha smiles indulgently when he visits her, like she might almost enjoy his company. The way Seele grins something fierce when he goadingly proclaims he can take out more automatons than her. How Hook smiles something similar when she spots him in Boulder Town's square, wanting for his theatrical inclusion in her games.

And Gepard-

Well, that might be the worst example of all, because Sampo lays in Gepard's (his boyfriend's) bed before he sleeps, and gets to see his face slumbering peacefully in the darkness of night. He softly brushes blond hair from skin in a bout of overwhelming adoration and presses a kiss where his fingers have lingered.

Somehow this tender, domestic indulgence when Gepard sleeps is somewhat thrilling to him now. A secret he keeps only for himself in these in-between moments that Gepard can't see.

Younger him used to think he would never care for such things, but Sampo reluctantly admits in the unseen sanctuary of his thoughts that this is because he has a bad habit for one thing in particular:

Keeping the unentertaining parts of reality (the unfunny, boring, realistic things like loneliness and a fear of intimacy) far at bay.

So maybe he has grown to like the simple things — the things here in Belobog that have begun to stitch together the hole in his chest always aching for more, more, more — but please rest assured that Sampo won't let himself become too simple.

The thrill will always live under his skin, begging to be itched. That's never going to change no matter how old he continues to get, because reality is unamusing and he prefers to be Foolishly distracted by excitement, even if it has tilted with his old age.

From throwing his life recklessly out into the wind to see where he will blow (because he never used to figure life had any meaning anyway); into pushing boundaries with things he knows he definitely shouldn't.

(Theatre dates and late night messages. A craving for how Gepard had blushed and how he had given in without Sampo even having to push that hard. Knowing he should have pulled back more, but too much of an addict to stop when Gepard had actually smiled at him. When Gepard had said can we kiss again? and we'll go every week just like Sampo had been silently, pleadingly, desperately wishing for.)

(He still finds he wants to run away. To stop the opening of his heart that is dangerous in a way he doesn't know how to be anything but paranoid about.

Gepard holds his hand, however, and Sampo also finds himself distracted from his own fear by his addiction for the soft tangle of their fingers.

Life would be boring if he didn't give in to it's chaos now and then, wouldn't it?)

"Over there!" a voice from behind him exclaims. Frustration at every syllable, calling out at Sampo's fast retreating back.

His laugh is ecstatic as he vaults over the stairway ledge and lands with a heavy thump against the cobbled floor at the bottom. A rush, whirring through his legs as they quickly stand him straight again and push to bolt down the street.

He hasn't had a good post-scam escape in a while.

The open plaza of the administrative district is close by. He knows if he gets there, at least, it's essentially free runnings to a station leading underground, even with the Silvermanes stationed at every post. Hence, he turns right instead of continuing straight ahead; into the open plaza and away from back-alley streets.

Every guard on duty in the area witnesses how Sampo Koski unabashedly runs by them in broad daylight, feet fast on the stone and hair caught in the wind.

There's a head of blond hair standing by the edge of the main stairs, not yet looking over in Sampo's direction. The expression of his face could be neutral (in the way his plain, resting neutral appears like looking like I'd rather be anywhere else from the outside), but it is smothered by an uncomfortably taught, upright posture that Gepard has had too far ingrained into him. Hands folded behind his back and head held high.

Sampo cuts a hard left toward the stairs. It turns him resolutely away from those passages underground he had mentioned before.

Sampo Koski is a liar as well as an addict, you see. So you really shouldn't take anything he says to heart (even if it is simple internal reasonings on turning one corner over another) because a good storyteller never gives his all to the captured listener.

Though… Sampo supposes he could let you in on one little secret:

Right now the thrill he's chasing is making the static line of Gepard unravel.

It may have started with a scam and a calling for his arrest, but Sampo knows Gepard's insanely predictable schedule like the back of his own hand, and the promise of even his theoretical chase is enough to make Sampo clammy at the palms in excitement. So, left he turns!

Gepard's expression widens in shock when he finally spots Sampo. Faltering in the rigidity of his shoulders and looking like he isn't sure whether to move or to stay right where he is…

It's nothing but a taste for Sampo's cravings right now.

There's a building cacophony of movement around him; of guards from all directions clamouring to each other at his mad dash across the square. Manoeuvring around civilians and running straight for Gepard, who is still routed firmly in place, eyes darting from left to right.

"Oi!"

"That's Koski!"

"He's heading for the Captain!"

Sampo can't help his bubbling laughter, feet stuttering at his speed when he finally pulls close enough to Gepard to have to slow down.

"Sampo!" Gepard basically hisses, eyes wide and jaw working a bit uselessly, "What in Qlipoth's name are you-"

"Catch me if you can," he teases breathlessly, an unfaltering grin splitting his cheeks. Gepard's face is wonderfully stunned, and Sampo cannot physically stop himself from giving his cheek a hearty, affectionate pat before he starts running again.

There's nothing. Just for a moment. Then…

"Sampo!" Gepard's voice shouts, slipping into that commanding Captain role of his in a way that makes Sampo cackle giddily.

Aha, he's having a lot of fun right now.

The rush of his running — his weaving and jumping between people and boxes and buildings — is even better when he peeks over his shoulder to see Gepard dutifully on his tail, with a few other guards following closely behind him. It's very reminiscent of their old days, except for how Gepard is smiling in disbelief at him. How every line on his face is not born from all that frustrated tension he used to have, but instead simply from a smile he can't keep down.

Almost unravelled… but he still falls a little back into the Captain again when one guard snaps abruptly forward to latch a hand onto Sampo's jacket.

Sampo supposes he had spent too long admiring Gepard's pretty face instead of maintaining his speed.

Oh well.

There's a snag of the man's weight pulling against Sampo. The scuffle of feet rapidly catching on the ground as everyone in his immediate vicinity collides into one another at the edge of the plaza. He hears the clank of hard armour landing on the floor and the sound of more feet approaching in the distance.

Sampo doesn't let the dull ache of hitting stone linger. He rolls his thumb underneath the latch on one of his bombs, a soft click, and lets it explode into a billow of smoke from between his fingers. The heat of it burns his skin, but the familiar blistering is like a new rush for his blood.

Everyone on the floor (other than Sampo, of course) hurries to cover their faces, though they're too late to stop the coughing of their lungs.

"Shit," he can hear Gepard cough from the awkward pile of bodies smothered in dense smoke, almost covered by the sounds of other people's groans.

"So close," Sampo goads as he takes their surprise and pulls to his feet. He doesn't wait around for the air to disperse any longer, though, and continues his running. The push of his muscles and the pounding of his heart.

Disappointingly, the guards don't seem to follow. He eventually slows to a stop in a winding street behind some terraced houses, leaning against the old brick wall with a hand and catching his breath.

He supposes that he basically got his buzz, even if it is depressing that a simple smoke bomb was enough to-

Slam!

There's a heavy weight against his torso, suddenly. Pushing until Sampo is backed fully against the wall with forceful hands gripping his shoulders.

Gepard is heaving, hair tousled and skin tinged with the dredges of ash from Sampo's smoke bomb, just like Sampo's hand is. The pristine white of his jacket is also somewhat tinted grey.

"Got you," he says breathlessly.

Sampo bites at his giddiness, leaning back to rest his head on the wall. His voice is a mocking thing, "How tragic."

Gepard huffs a disbelieving laugh, eyes flickering between his before they fully look him up and down. "What were you thinking? Do you know how many guards were there just then?"

"I've seen more," Sampo replies mirthfully. He thinks he's high on adrenaline, what with how his hands thoughtlessly move to hold Gepard's cheeks. Pressing the pudge of his skin together under his palms. "Anyway, I figured we were overdue for a good chase."

"You didn't have to go through the whole district for it," Gepard emphasises, though there is a smile at his lips that Sampo wants to permanently keep on picture.

"More fun that way," he shrugs, pulling Gepard closer with his hands.

"More dangerous, you mean," Gepard says, leaning easily with it.

"Same thing," Sampo grins and closes the rest of the gap to actually kiss him. Thankfully, Gepard gives in to Sampo's want without any complaint.

It starts slowly. A warm indulgence of Gepard's weight leaning into him. The smell of smoke lingering between them even in the winter breeze.

Sampo is still chasing something at the moment, though, so he drags at Gepard's bottom lip with his teeth. The soft shaking of the other man's breath for it is very rewarding. He makes the next kiss heavier. More forceful.

Gepard begins to press back just the same. Hands latching onto his waist and chest pushing forward into Sampo's space more. Almost biting at Sampo with every kiss, now.

It makes his spine tingle delightfully with how his hair ends up scraping at the rough texture of the bricks behind him. The sound of brittle mortar breaking away underneath heavy breathing and the smacking of lips.

Sampo wants Gepard's sounds to be added to the mix.

He breaks their connection and pulls back to grab Gepard's jaw and forcefully tilt it to the left. Enough so that Sampo can trail a path of kisses from his mouth to just above his collar, where he softly scrapes with his teeth.

Gepard sucks in a lovely tight hiss, gripping his hips harder. Sampo headily sucks at the skin until he finally whimpers — a soft rumble Sampo feels under his tongue — and then licks over his new mark.

Pleasingly, Sampo can note that it is a soft, soft red he knows will blossom into something deeper against Gepard's pale skin. Just above where his uniform can cover.

Sampo grins selfishly to himself and tilts Gepard's head back until they're looking fully at each other again. The blond's eyes are half lidded, pupils dilated and mouth softly parted.

Shamelessly, Sampo runs his thumb over the edge of those lips and curls a leg around Gepard's to try and pull him even closer.

Something about the contact seems to make Gepard blink back into reality. Sampo sees how his eyes come into focus and quickly widen before he snaps a hand to grab Sampo's wrist.

"I'm meant to be working," he rushes out like one might when they suddenly recall they've left their oven running. His voice is as dishevelled as his face: swollen lips and rosy cheeks and hair that is sticking up at the base of his neck next to Sampo's fresh hickey.

He looks very, very appealing.

"This is basically working," Sampo pouts, moving his hands to cling to Gepard's cheeks again when he tries to pull back. He doesn't quite want the rush to end yet. "You've got Sampo Koski at your fingertips and you can do whatever you want to him. I bet a few Silvermanes dream of the day."

"Quit it," Gepard hisses, licking at his lips as he anxiously surveys the area around them like he's expecting someone to pop around the corner at any moment. "Stop trying to tempt me."

The idea of getting caught is nothing but tantalising to Sampo however, even though he knows such a thing would be disastrous for Gepard's reputation.

"Is it working?" he asks and knows his grin is too full of his desire.

"Of course it is," Gepard flusters but answers so easily. "It always is. But that's not the point and you know it."

The open admittance is one part of their fresh, new relationship that Sampo hasn't quite got used to. How Gepard will say his affection and his wants so forthcomingly and truthfully, like he doesn't even have a thought in his mind to lie. To hide it away for safe keeping.

Sampo is somewhat envious of this trait of Gepard's. Or maybe just awe-induced every time it turns his way. For every soft compliment or treacherous I love you that Sampo is gifted without expecting anything in return.

"You're not doing anything that important," Sampo says after a beat too long. Gepard, at the very least, doesn't seem to have noticed his faltering.

"Other than my job, sure," Gepard huffs.

This time when he pulls back Sampo reluctantly lets him. At the very least, he can feel satisfied for the fact that Gepard is definitely unravelled. Especially noticeable when he tries to stuff back into Captain Gepard, considering how his expression is still askew and he looks like he's decided to climb through an ash-filled bush for fun.

Or make out with his criminal boyfriend against a wall, anyway.

"Don't miss me too much," Sampo sing-songs.

He thinks he expects Gepard to be disgruntled. Instead he softens some. "I'll try my best. And don't do anything stupid, okay? You'll have made the whole quarter on high alert."

Sampo brings himself to gasp, hand plastered over his chest, "Geppie. When would I ever?"

Gepard raises his brows incredulously. Sampo smiles at how it makes lines in the dust on his forehead and how the curl of one untamed strand of hair sits above them.

"Okay, okay," he appeases, raising his palms, "I'll stay out of sight and you can tell your buddies I was nowhere to be found."

"Good," Gepard nods, rolling a thumb over his metal knuckles. The motion of it sparks Sampo's skin, because it only happens when Gepard feels especially nervous about something.

Then, quickly and suddenly while Sampo is too busy thinking, Gepard leans close one more time to give him a simple, chaste kiss.

"See you at home, Sampo."

The kindness of his tone — the word home on his tongue as if Sampo hasn't just forcibly invaded his space — is like a blanket suffocating him with it's warmth. Sampo suddenly craves to be lounging in their bed like normal adults are apparently wont to do.

He selfishly presses one more kiss into Gepard before he pulls away for good. One last heavy, forceful smush of their lips. Trying to burn the feeling of it into his very being.

Gepard's face is nothing but confusion when they pull apart. Sampo tries to smile casually even though he had just impulsively poured way too much into his touch.

"See you later, Geppie."

"When did this happen?" Gepard rushes out in worry as he grabs Sampo's hand with both his own.

The red split of the skin on his palm looks especially strong against cold, grey metal.

"Just a little smoke bomb, don't know if you remember…" Sampo teases, trying to dissuade Gepard from his concern.

They're about to start cooking dinner in the low evening light. Sampo, like a real love-struck Fool, had changed into one of Gepard's t-shirts after climbing back into his apartment post-chase. Maybe just to have the smell mask his, rather than having Sampo be unnerved by his own stark presence among Gepard's domestic space, even if the man wants to call it something like home and include Sampo in the sentiment.

He had forgotten to change out of it before Gepard returned, however.

The simplicity of it's short sleeves and plain cut — especially because it is a size too big for him — makes him feel somewhat exposed. The feeling is even more noticeable when Gepard sweeps his gaze almost frantically over his skin, now; eyebrows pinched.

"They're hot enough to burn you?" Gepard exclaims, metal fingers making soft divots in Sampo's wrist. He's also changed into his own sleeping clothes, like he does when he knows he doesn't have to be put together for the outside world (which Sampo is somehow included in).

Sampo prefers the soft malleability of the cotton over thick jackets and armour.

"Well they are bombs, Geppie," he teases.

Gepard's jaw tightens. Letting go of Sampo's wrist, he moves quickly over to the bathroom. Feet softly padding against the multitude of rugs he has begun to acquire at Sampo's request.

Sampo lets himself sigh quietly in the absence of his presence.

"You shouldn't hold them when they explode," Gepard bites out when he walks back into the kitchen. There's a wooden box in his hands that he places on the counter.

"We were all a little too close to be throwing it around willy-nilly, though, don't you think?" he appeals to Gepard's care for his fellow Silvermanes, "It's not like I make it common practice."

Gepard's face is heavy frown. He doesn't reply as he rummages through the box. Eventually, he pulls out some bandages and a small white container marked with a red stripe. Sampo has seen it all too often, unfortunately.

"Isn't that…?" Sampo starts.

"Natasha gave it to me," Gepard says accusingly. He unscrews the lid of the burn cream in a way that easily reveals his frustration. "Said she'd like me to keep some around."

Gepard's look is piercing when he turns back to Sampo. He can't help the soft grimace to his laughter.

Sampo Koski is indeed a liar, after all.

"Okay, so maybe I forget every now and then, no big deal!"

Gepard grabs hold of his wrist with one hand, turning his palm face up. Exposing the soft blistering of the skin.

"No big deal, my ass," Gepard grumbles under his breath. He holds out the container for Sampo. "Hold this."

Sampo sighs in front of Gepard now. A heavy release of his breath that he tries not to sag with. He takes the cream with his blemish free hand, holding it so Gepard can get reach in to get some onto his fingers.

"Did you go to Natasha's clinic every time?" Gepard asks all too knowingly, intently staring at his hand.

Despite everything else — the tense frustration to his shoulders, the clench of his jaw, the flat tone of his voice — Gepard's fingers are nothing but gentle as they smooth over his skin.

The cream is cold. The thin layer that it creates over the dry, constant warmth his palm may have been emanating all day is unfortunately soothing.

"No," Sampo pouts. It's hard not to give in to Gepard's upfront nature, okay?

"Were you going to do anything about this at all?" Gepard continues. His fingers pause after there is a mask over all the red decorating his hand.

"Maybe after you fell asleep?" 

Gepard slowly looks back up at him. His expression has at some point melted into something too soft for Sampo's heart: in the downward curl of his lips; the pinch of his brows; the flickering of his eyes between Sampo's.

Sampo almost viscerally feels his innards curl up at it.

"It's fine, Gepard," he whispers. Dull and low and unfunny.

"It isn't," Gepard whispers back, "Why do you always…"

He sighs and wipes the last remnants of cream off his fingers. When he fully lets go to grab the bandages, Sampo almost wants to pull his hands back. To cling to the kindness of his touch instead of letting it slip away.

"It doesn't hurt that much," Sampo offers again instead.

"That much," Gepard repeats under his breath again as he unspools some of the bandage roll. It's the type that naturally clings to Sampo's skin when Gepard begins to wrap around the contours of his hand.

He flexes his fingers after Gepard snips the roll free and smooths down the bandage edge. Tight but not constricting, much better than his own handiwork ever is.

"You're pretty good, Gep."

"Military training does that," Gepard shrugs. His gaze digs into Sampo. "If you're not going to visit Natasha, will you at least tell me next time?"

His voice is a small, small thing; the worry it holds crawls up Sampo's spine.

"If you really want me to, sure," Sampo says too honestly.

"I want you to want to," Gepard implores softly, "Don't you care about this?"

About yourself, is what he really says.

Sampo laughs. It isn't a conscious thing, but it tumbles from the cavern in his chest that Gepard is trying to explore and Sampo lets it. Smoking him out.

"Of course I do," Sampo Koski smiles, trying not to think about how Gepard's face drops. "Little ol' Sampo cares a lot about himself, you know. How else do you think I look so good?"

The silence of Gepard's unamusement is heavy. He lets out a hard breath and grabs the cream out of Sampo's hand to put it back into the box with the bandages.

"Okay," Gepard says like a resignation and picks up the box. The low flat tone of his voice feels like the sound of Sampo's heart flat-lining. "Just do it for me, then."

He leaves for the bathroom again. Sampo silently grieves his turned back like a Mourning Actor might.

(It might be the closest he ever gets to understanding something about them.)

Sampo runs an errand for Natasha.

This sounds simple and easy and not anything at all, and that's true. He's been smuggling her medical supplies for as long as he can remember being on this planet.

There's this thing about Natasha, though. About how knowing her eyes become, sometimes, when she looks at him. Sampo never lets them linger for long. He's always got some place to be; some scam to run; some thrill to chase. Luckily, Natasha isn't one to push too hard when he goes.

Nowadays, there's this little hiccup called Gepard's influence, however.

His errand involves sneaking into one of the hospitals in the overworld and taking a few things from their oversupply. This isn't the issue. Oh no, this is the part he's done a million times over. The issue is when he hands over the box for Natasha to take, and her expression quirks very strangely.

"You injured your hand?" she asks with a raised brow.

Sampo wants to jump out of the window at how her head tilts.

"Well, you know better than anyone how it is," Sampo smiles, all teeth, and shrugs, "No good job ends without some kind of injury for ol' Sampo Koski."

"Hm. You do have a bad habit for it," Natasha admonishes him with a familiar look. She turns to place the box on the desk behind her. Barely squeezing in amongst the clutter of everything else in her office.

He expects her to be frowning when she turns back to him, but instead it is only a light, amused smile to her face.

"Who did the wrap?" she asks with a hand to her hip. Sampo would gamble into a lifetime of debt that she already knows the answer. "I've seen how you do tend to do it, and it's piss-poor in comparison."

Sampo titters, shoving his hands into his pockets at the examining. "Oh, you know. Just a certain Silvermane with a penchant for worrying."

"Ah, of course," Natasha says so simply and smiles at his admission, "He's much nicer than his face first appears, hm?"

Sampo laughs to himself, staring at the clutter of the desk and thinking only of Gepard's fingers wrapped tightly around his hand, "Yeah. He is."

Everything about the words are nothing but tender. The realisation that he's said them out loud — in front of Natasha, no less — makes his skin burn in an awful embarrassment. He tries to reach back in himself for the conman Natasha knows more than anyone else, but she's suddenly at his shoulder in the doorway. Pressing a heavy, heavy hand to his shoulder and squeezing him tight.

"He'll put me out of a job at this rate," she says with a pleased curl to her expression.

Sampo feels his insides like a whirlwind at the admission. Swirling and swirling and swirling.

Gepard, he has quickly learnt, seems to care an awful lot about Sampo. He doesn't hide it even for the world.

Natasha, then…

Sampo never used to think she cared for his demeanour at all. With her disappointed looks and her admonishments like Sampo is nothing but an overzealous child she regretfully has to bandage up to often.

Recently, though, she's also been saying such upfront things to him. Even if they aren't quite upfront at all.

Things like apparently gifting Gepard burn creams to keep in his bathroom because she'd like him to keep some around. Things like saying worrying about you is part of my job.

He wants to reach into himself and smother the part of him that feels stupidly full with it. He wants to rebut her. Send her words painfully back like how they have already painfully pressed into him.

Natasha is quick, though, and never lingers for too long with him. Fast and fleeting. She's already retreated onto the main clinic floor before he even gets a chance to think.

"Tell Gepard hi from me, will you?" her voice says from behind him, "I haven't seen him down here in a little while."

Sampo doesn't bring himself to say anything back. He flees from the window in her office into the streets below and lets the adrenaline of even the brief fall swipe away all else.

Silently, he blames Gepard's influence for the change in her attitude.

Sampo has had a lot of bad ideas in his lifetime.

In the grand scheme of things, this one isn't even that bad, but the low burn of embarrassment in his stomach is definitely noticeable.

"Hello," he says with a slightly sheepish smile from the window to Gepard's office. Squatting on the ledge with his bandaged hand still holding the top frame. "Nice weather, eh?"

Gepard himself is sat behind his desk — which is boring, dusty, and meagrely decorated — with his head in his hands like he's trying to pretend the world around him isn't real.

Recently, Sampo has been visiting Gepard whenever he has the unfortunate task of desk work, because for one thing) they haven't been able to do any case work together as of late; and for the second) he knows Gepard hates just sitting around "uselessly" (as he himself puts it) in this room all day on his own.

What else is Sampo to do other than bring the entertainment of his company, then? It's not like he contributes much else.

"Hello, Sampo," Bronya says from the seat Sampo would usually take. Sitting across from Gepard with a casual line to her posture and a curious tilt to her head. Her eyes flick minutely back to Gepard before returning to Sampo. "It has been particularly sunny as of late."

"You're very correct, Miss Bronya," Sampo smiles too tightly, still not moving an inch, "I, uh, came to say hello to Gepard?"

At the mention of his name, Gepard turns his head enough to show Sampo the mortification that is lining his red-tinted face. He looks like he wants to shoo Sampo away as one might do to a stray pet.

For some reason, Bronya presses her lips together and stifles a laugh. "I figured," she hums amusedly, "Are you going to come away from the window?"

"Well I wouldn't want to intrude, buuut…" Sampo replies, knowing he should very much turn back around the way he came and climb the dangerous route back to the district floor, so so many metres below.

Sampo Koski is an addict for the thrill, though, and right now the thrill actually feels a lot like jumping down from the window into the small room with a laugh. "If you insist. I'm happy to hang around!"

Bronya already knows something about the two of them anyway, so it really isn't that bad of an idea.

Sampo doesn't want to examine why his nerves are tingling under his skin.

"We really weren't insisting," Gepard whispers in shock from behind his hands, which are now only covering up to his nose.

"Sure you weren't," Sampo laughs and casually stalks to stand next to Gepard, indulging in the pink of his cheeks. He rests an elbow on the top of Gepard's chair with a toothy grin.

"I don't know," Bronya chimes in. Sampo turns his head her way only to find her evaluating him like a puzzle-box. "I think we're pretty overdue for a meeting."

Sampo is overcome with the urge to be unreadable to her and the too-meaningful judgement of her opinion, "How right you are! Don't you agree, Geppie?"

He indulges in his impulses and runs a hand through Gepard's hair with his question, distracting himself from his racing thoughts. The bandages are a stark white against blond locks.

Gepard drops his hands and clears his throat in apparent embarrassment, "Actually, we were talking about something…"

He doesn't move his head away, though, so Sampo doesn't move his hand: softly twirling strands of hair around his fingers.

Bronya raises a brow at Gepard and they exchange a secret little look between each other. Sampo itches to know about it so strongly and possessively it almost knocks the wind out of his chest.

"Talking about what?" he pries in a forceful lightheartedness, "Sampo Koski is good at keeping secrets, just saying."

Gepard is still only looking at Bronya. Her expression shifts into something a little teasing.

"You were going to tell him anyway," she accuses, except her tone is nothing but affection. Gepard opens and closes his mouth silently.

Sampo's grin and mirthful tone is infinitely more truthful all of a sudden, "Oh?"

"I have something I want Gepard to investigate," Bronya shrugs, smiling at Gepard when he sighs. It's a very sweet smile, and he thinks he now knows what made Seele trip so quickly and suddenly into her affection. "And I've heard you're often involved in such things."

"My reputation proceeds me," Sampo smirks back, catching how Gepard tilts to look at him again.

Sampo brushes the hair from his forehead much too tenderly, but he can't bring himself to be anything else just yet.

"It's not something I could've really done on my own anyway…" Gepard mumbles with an adorable pout, fingers tapping a quiet pattern into the table.

"I can't, either. That's why I came to you at all," Bronya says and slips into professional, except for how her eyes shift to stare directly at Sampo at the end of her sentence like it's targeted. He hums curiously and she continues with something close to disappointment sweeping over her face, "There's been some… reports from a few of the fresh recruits we've had since the Trailblazers left. About Captain Rozaliya mistreating her power."

"Ah," Sampo replies and nods in understanding. His next words leave him thoughtlessly with a soft chuckle, "Well, that's Silvermanes for you."

Both Gepard's and Bronya's faces fall simultaneously at his words. He thinks he actually kind of regrets speaking, for once.

"Er… I just meant-"

"No. You're right," Bronya cuts him off. She's folded her hands in her lap and is frowning heavily. "Tell me something, Sampo. Do you remember a time when the Silvermanes were different to this?"

Sampo notes all too clearly the way Gepard's prosthetic hand curls into a fist. He rubs a thumb soothingly into the man's hair for it.

"I'm not the best person to ask," Sampo actually admits with an almost-casual shrug, "But not really, no."

"Neither do I," Bronya replies with a sad smile. Her eyes flicker up to Gepard's maybe somewhat unconsciously. "But I still used to think they were the most admirable people in the world anyway."

"Bronya…" Gepard says quietly like he isn't sure what to say otherwise. The lines of his face seem sombre in a way Sampo wants to smooth out.

"I want to be able to see us that way again," Bronya admits softly, "That means doing something about reports like this, to start."

There's a quiet in the room that follows her words. Sampo hates how he feels it burrowing under his skin and quickly brings himself to smile. A playful warmth to his words when he speaks again, "Well, you've got the right guy on the job! Geppie and I make a good team when we want to. Isn't that right?"

Sampo pokes at Gepard's cheek and counts himself a win for how he actually smiles. Even if it is just a curl at the corners of his lips.

"Most of it's just you," Gepard says with way too soft of an expression considering the way Bronya is eyeing them.

Sampo scoffs and turns back to face her, "The Captain here sure has a bad habit of discounting himself, huh?"

Bronya somewhat brightens even despite the sunken line still shaping her shoulders, "He does."

"Hey," Gepard grumbles, "It's more like a fact than anything else. You do way more work for this than-"

"Scamming people out of information isn't really working," he cuts in, "That's a bit righteous."

Gepard raises his brows and leans back to look up at him more. Sampo lets his arm fall from on top of the chair, just so he can still slide his fingers into the hair at the blond's nape with the movement. "I'd call it working when you're doing it for me. Maybe that makes it a little righteous, too."

"Are you trying to put me off?" Sampo grins to the way Gepard is truly smiling at him. Crossing his arms across his chest and tilting his head.

"Hasn't happened yet, has it?" he asks with a playful shrug.

Oh, Sampo feels his affection for that expression like a balloon swelling under his ribs. Pressing and pressing and pressing. Making his laughter squeeze out suddenly enough that he presses the backs of his fingers to his mouth to smother it's abruptness.

Unfortunately, the way the action makes his head tilt also makes his eyes catch onto Bronya's.

She's smiling at him, now; that very same smile she had just given to Gepard. Sweeter than even Penacony's most artificial confectionary.

Strangely, it does curl into something a little bashful when she sees Sampo looking. The very same as how Sampo's stomach curls at the fact she already sees him as the type of person who deserves wrongfully tender smiles instead of mocking laughter or frustrated scoffing.

(Just like Natasha suddenly has, too.)

That isn't the face he wants to show to her.

"Anyway. I'm not going to do this for free, just so you know," Sampo Koski says in an awkwardly mixed tone. Caught between the last dredges of his laughter and the rising wind of his irrational paranoia. He pulls his hands away from Gepard's hair and back into his pockets, for the bitter feeling has finally overwhelmed the good, distracting rush he gets from his impulses.

Gepard's face slips into a frown in his peripheral.

"Oh, right," Bronya says, almost startled, "Um…"

Her eyes flicker to Gepard questioningly, though he's busy scrutinizing something about Sampo, "What are you talking about?"

"Why are you surprised?" Sampo asks, "You should know better than anyone that this is how I run things."

"I guess so. But, usually this is just…" Gepard trails off, nose scrunched and eyebrows heavily furrowed. Seeing far too much.

When did Sampo start struggling to paste over himself? It makes him kind of depressed when he starts to think about it too hard, so he takes a good deep breath, holds it, and releases his swirling insides with it when it leaves.

He smiles.

"But, rest assured! Sampo Koski is a generous guy; and I do like you, Little Miss Bronya," he continues theatrically as the businessman before either of them get a chance to speak again. Especially Gepard, because the shifting of his face is dangerous. "So, for my efforts in your endeavour… how about you let me have a scope around those storage vaults the Architects like to keep locked away up in the higher levels?"

Bronya's expression quickly goes through a variety of very differing expressions. Gepard's eyes widen just the same.

"I promise I won't take anything!" Sampo quickly emphasises with a hand to his chest and a smirk, "Sampo's honour."

Bronya's face is dreadfully pinched, "I don't know if I can do that."

"No? You're the Supreme Guardian, though, are you not?"

He's trying to ignore Gepard's disappointed face, but it's almost like trying to ignore a city-wide siren that is permeating through even the hardest concrete.

Bronya curls her fists tight and tightens her posture up, trying to make her words have weight, "They're locked for a reason."

"The reason is control," Sampo shrugs, easygoing for the way the other two people in this room have stiffened, "Have you even been in there?"

Bronya's lips curling inward should not make his skin crawl uncomfortably, but it does.

"…I haven't," her words are like a shame twisting her face into something small. Looking up at Sampo like he is admonishing her, even despite the hard strict line her posture makes.

She looks so young, all of a sudden.

"Well then," Sampo smiles with his hands outstretched in front of him, "What's more important to you? Changing the Silvermanes, or protecting a secret the Nobles and the Architects keep even from yourself?"

Gepard finally cuts in a hard, "Sampo." His voice is taught and it carries nothing other than that commanding tone of the Captain.

Sampo spares him a look but doesn't respond. He thinks it actually makes Gepard annoyed, and that's a feat he hasn't accomplished in a long time.

The excitement has died. A chipped mask he can't quite fit into right now. The dull thrumming of the old wisps of it are all that are left.

"That's enough, Sampo," Gepard continues with a disapproving edge, "This isn't even something that important to you, stop making it bigger than it needs to be."

It's said with such understanding finality. Like Gepard has seen Sampo so clearly he doesn't even have to question what he states as true.

Unfortunately for Sampo, he's correct, but acknowledging that will also mean acknowledging everything he is currently regretting about jumping down from that window, and he'd rather not do that, thanks.

"Oh, and how do you know that?" he asks with a laugh. One that tastes like the burnt ash in his lungs he is now breathing onto Gepard like a curse.

"Because I know you. And this-" his hand snaps out to gesture toward Sampo, "this thing that you're doing, it isn't-"

"This thing that I'm doing?" Sampo asks with a hard laugh, "And what's that, Geppie?"

"You actually want me to say it?" he asks incredulously, eyes sweeping over Sampo's face, "That you wouldn't be asking this if it weren't for the fact that Bronya is-"

Very abruptly, Bronya stands from her chair. Gepard's words thankfully die at the movement. At the way she clears her throat, face smoothed out into a firm professionalism, like Sampo's criminally disastrous speaking hadn't begun to peel at her even though it clearly had.

"Changing the Silvermanes," she says with a similar finality to her words, holding her head straight forward to meet Sampo's gaze, "If the question is what's more important to me, then that's my answer."

Her words cut through the tension rumbling at their feet with a purposeful precision.

"Great!" Sampo makes himself say with a grin, pretending like he can't still see the annoyed lines etching into Gepard's skin.

"However," Bronya suddenly adds like she is drawing upon a strength, "only after you've done at least one thing for this investigation. And I'm not letting you free on your own in there. Your honour doesn't mean anything to me yet, Sampo."

It is a vindictive part of his brain that treasures the words. Your honour means nothing to me.

"I'm also coming when you go," Gepard adds as he similarly stands, eyes boring into Sampo's skull and shoulders pulled back.

The businessman wants to bargain for more. To say I want to go look in the vault first, that's non-negotiable.

Sampo wants out of this conversation much more than that, though.

"Sure! Fine by me," Sampo placates happily with his hands facing palm out, "It'll be like a cute day trip! Sampo Koski and two of the most high-ranking Silvermanes around."

Both of their faces pinch at the corners.

Sampo — after his somewhat bad idea that had quickly spiralled into an awful one — escapes like he's good at.

For the first time in a long while, he waits out the day in a decrepit old shack out in the snow plains like he used to when he wanted to get far away from life for a while.

When he was younger, running away meant other planets all together.

In comparison, then, this shack shouldn't feel very far at all, but it does. It feels isolated in the brisk blizzard of Belobog's uninhabited landscape. Away from all semblance of worldly perception other than his own inner monologue that has never shut up even once in all the time he's been alive.

It would be a boring story if it was quiet, though, wouldn't it? Sampo is surely at least good for that.

He waits until the sun has set far beyond the horizon and doesn't even speak a word while he does; because he needs just a moment away from all the sentences that spill from his lips when he lets them.

It's utterly dull and drab and lonely. Unentertaining in his silence.

It makes him remember why he likes company.

Travelling back into the city takes longer than he felt it did to come out here in the first place. Feet not leaving a single trace in the snow dunes he travels across or the eventual cobble of the administrative district.

Gepard's window is open. 3 stories high and facing toward the mirroring line of apartment buildings one street over. He climbs the same way he always does. Off of the edge of the door canopy and then the balcony sat just one floor above that until he can grab onto the edge. Familiar and unthinking and quiet in the dead of the night.

He doesn't know if it is thanks or regret he feels for how Gepard is sat curled on his sofa. Hair mussed and lights low. Slowly turning the page of the book he holds with eyes that are far away with something.

Sampo's foot scuffs the edge of the wall as he truly pulls himself up onto the window ledge. Gepard's head snaps his way at the sound, before he fumbles to drop his book onto the coffee table and rush over to where Sampo drops down onto the rug inside the apartment.

It leaves them standing a little awkwardly in front of each other.

"Why are you up?" Sampo finally brings himself to ask, "You're working in the morning."

Gepard's expression has collapsed in the hours Sampo has been away from it. From frustration into something hurting. "I wanted to be here if you came back."

If you came back.

Not when.

If.

"I figured you were still annoyed at me," Sampo hums not quite like a question, but almost. His voice is soft in the warm glow of only the lamps and the silence of the night outside.

"I am," Gepard admits with a soft shrug, "Doesn't mean I didn't want you to be here."

"You probably shouldn't," Sampo whispers to the other's admittance, which is apparently as easy as the blond's affection: saying I'm annoyed at you. Somehow it is comforting to hear it outright.

Sampo wonders once again how Gepard doesn't ever have the urge to lie.

Gepard's expression, for some utterly insane reason, seems a little pained, "Come on. I still need to change your bandages. I bet you didn't while you were away, right?"

Sampo huffs a laugh and flexes his fingers at the reminder, "How'd you know?"

Sometimes, Gepard has bad dreams.

This is a fact Sampo had inferred a long time before they were something real at all. Long before he would wake to the restless rustling of sheets and the quivering of Gepard's expression — his voice — just an arms reach away.

Tonight (very unfortunately considering how little sleep the man was going to get anyway) seems a night for a bad dream.

Sampo's hand is a lot better than it usually would be by now. Gepard decides that it's healed enough in the few weeks of actual care not to be infection-prone, and proclaims he can sleep for once without bandages wrapped around his skin.

Not that Sampo sleeps much anyway.

Instead, he selfishly and silently wonders to the ceiling if Gepard had only said that to keep a little distance between them still. To avoid having to touch Sampo so gently and so lovingly after his self-admitted annoyance.

Even more selfishly, he cures the hole that Gepard's lack of touch had left while the man is sleeping. Even more indulgence in this ever-growing secret than he does on an ordinary night. Lying on his side just like Gepard. Pressing a palm to his shoulder, his neck, his cheek. Memorizing the warmth of him just in case Sampo truly does ruin the best gift he's ever had.

This examining of Gepard is what queues him in very, very quickly to the shift, however. How his brows pinch and how his fingers flex against the air. How his mouth twitches and he curls inward. Like he's trying to protect the vulnerable parts.

Gepard whimpers and Sampo's heart is suddenly that fragile thing he tries to pretend it isn't.

"Shhh," Sampo soothes to Gepard's subconscious. Softly rubbing a thumb over his cheekbone. "You're okay."

Tonight is a somewhat restless one, though. Gepard kicks out a leg at Sampo's own and tries to pull away from his touch. Shifting against the sheets.

"Gepard," Sampo says softly, raising up onto his elbow to grab Gepard's shoulder. The man just squirms some more, his breathing quickly becoming short and staccato and panicky.

"Gepard," Sampo repeats with a dreadful worry. Gripping tight to the skin.

He still doesn't quite know what he's meant to do when soft soothing isn't enough to dispel Gepard's agitation.

He especially doesn't know what to do when Gepard thrashes and then gasps his eyes open. Hand snapping out to curl around his chest. Grabbing at the stump of his elbow like it pains him and curling even further into a ball.

"Hey, hey. You're good, you're okay," Sampo titters, hand now hovering over skin like he isn't sure if he can touch as lovingly as he wants to.

Awakened Gepard is still annoyed at him, after all.

The blond's next breath is a wet heave into his chest. He presses his distraught face into the pillow and shakes.

Sampo's lip curls with his worry when he speaks next, even though he tries to pull that back just like he has his hand. Sitting on his knees next to Gepard, now, with his hands in his lap and sheets spooled messily around his waist. "Gepard?"

Sampo bites at his lip and waits when there's no response. A torturous wait, where the soft sounds of Gepard's stifled crying make him crumble at the edges. Craving, aching, silently begging to smother him in the comfort clawing at his insides.

Suddenly, Gepard tilts his head back enough to look up at Sampo. A disastrous, painful red to his crumpled face.

"Why-" he blubbers between his sobs, "Why are you so far away?"

Sampo Koski shatters.

It leaves only himself.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whimpers with the failing of his reservations. Abruptly fumbling into Gepard until the man is laying fully back on the mattress and looking up at him through the tears that quickly begin rushing down his face.

Sampo's hands are clutching at the sides of his head and resting his weight onto Gepard with a heavy pressure that he knows Gepard likes. Kissing at every tear that spills over and every wrinkle in his expression.

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm sorry," he repeats like a mantra of his own internal crying, "I thought you wouldn't want me to. I thought-"

"No. I want- I want you to hold me." Gepard cries some more and hits his hand against the side of Sampo's in a heavy, repetitive beat. A thumping like making the motion over and over is grounding the parts of him that are coming undone. "Stop pulling away from me again. I can't- I can't-"

The words are like a knife slicing right through his now-shattered outer shell.

"Shhh, shhh," Sampo croaks out and presses one good, heavy kiss to Gepard's lips. "I'm sorry. I'm here, baby. See? You're safe, you're good."

Gepard weeps. He weeps and weeps until the quick rise and fall of his chest evens into something almost-stable. Hiccupy but not breaking down at the seams. Until his hand stops it's hitting and grasps around Sampo's tightly instead.

"Shit, I was- your hand-" he bites out like he's only just realised what he had been doing.

"Is okay," Sampo breathes out quickly, "You even said so yourself, remember?"

Gepard actually smiles (even if it is pinched and wet). It's like a fresh breath of life pouring into Sampo's lungs and clearing out some of the ash that has been lingering around.

"I said it was better," Gepard rasps, face catching between his smile and his soft tears now, "Better doesn't mean fixed, Sampo."

"Close enough for now," Sampo smiles back and rubs his thumbs under Gepard's eyes. Entranced by the shift of red skin to white under his pressure. Gepard's eyes flutter with it and all his tension finally starts to sink into the bed.

Sampo hums and also shifts enough that he can place his chin on Gepard's sternum and curl a leg around his. Sprawled across the man's entire body.

He wishes they were skin to skin, but Belobog is not warm enough to sleep naked, unfortunately.

(At the very least, Gepard with his pyjamas and an unruly bedhead in the mornings is adorably cute enough to give Sampo a cavity.)

"Sampo?" Gepard asks softly, tilting further into his hand and curling his fingers tighter around it to match.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever have bad dreams?"

Sampo huffs, "Doesn't everyone?"

"I don't know," Gepard shrugs from where he's laying, expression nothing but raw, "Not like mine, at least."

"…No, they probably don't," Sampo agrees woefully, "I wish you didn't have them like that, either."

"Me too," Gepard says with a quiver, "You think almost a decade would be enough time to get over it."

"A limb is a limb," Sampo whispers, "Your body never gets over that."

Gepard crumples again and Sampo is already wiping at the wet sheen under his eyes.

"I hate that I always dream it's real again," he croaks, and presses his elbow to Sampo's shoulder, "Just for a moment and then- then it's-"

Sampo moves his left hand — the one not being held so firmly — to grab Gepard's arm and bring it up to his lips. To press a kiss to the blue-tinted, scarred skin where they had amputated. Soft and chaste and filled with all the love in his chest.

Gepard's breathing stutters.

"I wish I never dreamt at all," he admits in a rasp. Sampo oh-so-desperately wants to alleviate the pain in his expression.

"There's a planet where that would be blasphemous to say, you know," he offers with a cautious smile, thumb smoothing patterns into Gepard's skin. Outstretching an offer for Gepard to take if he wants.

Sampo has done this maybe too much recently, but he can't help himself from smiling in the face of those tears, because he's always going to be a Fool at heart.

"Oh yeah?" Gepard asks, throat raw. Following where Sampo leads, for once. His show of entertainment to distract from Gepard's own dreadful fear. "Why's that?"

"It's full of people who live in their dreams more than reality, of course," Sampo says and very quickly leans into his theatrics, "The dreamscape is my reality, and your reality is nothing at all."

Gepard's face dips into confusion. "They live there? What does that mean?"

Sampo abruptly realises he's trying to explain the concept of Penacony to a man who has never seen anything other than the cold, grounded reality of Jarilo-VI for his entire life.

"As in, the people of this planet decided that they didn't much like the real world anymore, so they created a a fake one built upon dreams," Sampo smiles, "A world where they could run away from misery and live to their hearts content without the consequences of life at all. Work, school, eat, play. All of it. Then, they would come back to our world to sleep, and when they woke, they would return back to dreaming."

"So… they're never really awake at all?" Gepard asks curiously even with his tired expression, thoroughly enraptured by every word.

It's one of his favourite things about talking to Gepard. How he listens much better than any other audience Sampo has ever had. Even for his passing comments. His throwaway words that Sampo himself forgets the moment they've left him.

Sampo squeezes Gepard's splotchy cheek in his affection for it. Pressing a kiss through his t-shirt to his sternum.

"You could say that, yeah," he nods, "They're living their life in a pool, and then spending all their meagre time away from it wishing to go back."

Gepard's face is scrunched in distaste. His heart has finally stopped hammering against where the two of them are pressed chest to chest, though. "Why would you even do it at all, then?"

"Why do people do anything?" Sampo chuckles, "It feels good. And when it feels good, it's addictive."

"I guess so," Gepard says reluctantly and then stares at him for a moment or two. Rubbing his own thumb over Sampo's knuckles. "Did… you spend a lot of time there too?"

Sampo can't bury his soft laugh when he says, "Oh yes. Have you met me, Geppie? I'm a prime suspect for the addiction of a place like Penacony." He grins something fierce, "I used to love it when it was new. Living out your every fantasy; not caring about anything at all other than the next thrill… You can't even die in there unless you're really fucking it up. You just wake right back up in this reality."

His left hand slips to tap a soft pattern into Gepard's chest, eyes a little unfocused when he hums, "That was one me and some other Fools did a bit too much back then."

There's a bout of silence. It makes his eyes focus back into Gepard's face, which has pinched inward again.

"What?" Sampo asks quickly, feeling his own worry for the hurt curling Gepard's lips like a rising tide.

"You…" Gepard says with a wobble to his voice, "You really say some things that worry me, sometimes."

Aha, when did Sampo become such a bad entertainer? It feels like every time he tries as of late, it never quite works.

Because the stories you're trying to tell him are your own. They're real. And you've never been funny in that way, just-

He really wishes his brain would be quiet once in a while.

"What do you mean?" Sampo questions.

"What do I mean?" Gepard whispers back dreadfully, "Sampo. You just said you used to go into this place just to die."

Ah.

"No no no," Sampo quickly replies, trying to soothe the way Gepard's raw edges are peeling again, "It wasn't… I don't mean like that. I was just- just young and hotheaded and I never used to be able to get enough, you know? That was the last straw anyway. The one that made me leave back then at all."

"Because you wanted to keep doing it?" Gepard asks under his breath so carefully like the words are going to curse him or cut him in twain. Like he knows exactly the way they will constrict around them both.

Sampo sure feels like he's being cut open at the question, at least. At the way he wants to say:

Yeah, because it became the only thing that would excite me. The buzz right before you wake up. Not knowing if-

Sampo's face twitches terribly and tips into a smile. Always ready for him to slip into when he doesn't want to slip into anything else.

"I'm not quite that insane just yet, Geppie," Sampo Koski says, "What kind of guy do you take me for?"

Gepard's face is a bitter, bitter frustration all of a sudden, "That's not... Why do you do that?"

The coldness of his tone is like a slap across the face. Sampo feels his lungs struggling with the weight of it. Of trying to keep his face in place when he wants to curl up at the sound. "Do what?"

"That," Gepard hisses like he doesn't know what else to say. Sampo feels the tight escape of it through Gepard's chest under his chin like his own deflation.

"I don't know what you mean," he says with an expression caught between too many things. Sampo and Sampo Koski. His smile and his faltering chest. The secret of night in Gepard's bedroom. The way Gepard scoffs and the way that he seems to curl away from Sampo. Letting go of his hand to curl his own into a fist beside them. Pulling back his touch. His affection.

"Okay," Gepard says with a shrivelled expression. Looking only at Sampo's shoulder like he can't bring himself to look at his face right now. "Okay."

Sampo falters for it. Opening and closing his mouth so stupidly, until all he can bring himself to say is, "It's not like I like the place, honestly."

Gepard's eyes do flicker to his again, but they don't look anything other than wary.

"Swear it." He still tries to smile. "It was dreadful when I went back recently. Don't know why I ever used to..."

He trails off at how Gepard's face truly crumples. From the bitterness into something close to the pain of losing a limb, somehow, "You left? When? When did you-"

Sampo's words tumble from his lips coated in nothing but hastiness to soothe Gepard's suffocating pain again, "Just for a week! And it was before the masquerade. You weren't even-"

Gepard suddenly moves to clutch at Sampo's shoulder like he couldn't bare even this long without touching him. "I didn't even know you were gone," he bites through the thick coating of tears just beginning to cling to him again. 

"We weren't together yet," Sampo whispers back insistently.

"I still would have cared," Gepard says with a quiver that only gets stronger when he continues to speak. Something between anger and fear, maybe. "Please don't leave without a goodbye when you really go."

"I won't," Sampo promises quickly and moves to push himself up onto his elbows again. He thinks Sampo Koski has fallen to the floor somewhere, even though he had tried so fucking hard to keep him up. "I won't."

"I love you," Gepard breathes as the first tears gather on his eyelashes again. Looking up at him so- so- "Please don't-"

Sampo breaks at the sight and finally leans down to kiss Gepard. The blond presses up into him with a fervour, wrapping his hand tightly into the collar of Sampo's shirt.

(Gepard's. It's Gepard's shirt that he's wearing again, because he can't sleep in his own anymore.)

"I love you," Gepard says again in the small break of their kiss.

"Sometimes I wish you didn't," Sampo whimpers pathetically and then distracts himself from the very fact he does with a harder press. Leaning all his weight into Gepard below. Still, even despite this, Sampo's mouth continues running just like it always does. Speaking into Gepard's soft skin without any input of his own. "Say it again?"

Gepard makes a wet sound into their kiss and pulls even harder on his shirt, "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."

Sampo's arms are trembling where they're propping him up.

"I love you," Sampo finally whispers back. Never often enough when Gepard gives his so easily. Too quiet even when he brings himself to.

Gepard shouldn't take his meagre, meagre declaration but he does. He almost laughs against Sampo lips — just the barest of things that Sampo still clings to — and then pulls back enough that Sampo can see his expression smooth into something new, "Make me a promise?"

"Anything."

"I mean a serious one," Gepard rubs his lips together anxiously, red-lined eyes flickering between Sampo's own, "And you- you don't have to say anything about it, okay? I'm not prying for reasons, I just wanna hear you say yes or no."

Sampo thinks his heart is dropping a little, "Okay…"

"If you have something like that urge again," he starts, "Like... dying on that dream planet. Will you come to me?"

"Geppie," Sampo instinctively tries to say. To cover over again. "I mean it. It really wasn't like-"

"That isn't what I'm asking," Gepard cuts in with a determination lining the furrow to his brows, now. "Just yes or no. I don't need the show and dance or anything else. Just- just tell me that."

Sampo knows that he's a sucker for that face. A sucker who used to be able to keep himself far away from things like this. From even his own thoughts when they got too unfunny for the reality he likes to try and live in.

He knows this, because he says, "Yes, okay," and he actually means it, for once.

Gepard kisses him again. So softly. So tenderly. So easily.

"Thank you."

Another kiss.

"I love you."

Sampo shivers at the kindness of it.

Even just barely waking up in the morning feels a bit like the hangover Sampo gets after a particularly strong rush.

Except, instead of a craving to slip back into intoxication, it is a deep shame for the fact he had shattered so easily, and then couldn't mend his mask at all no matter how hard he tried.

The morning light is like a sharp, stinging glue, then. Starting to piece him back together. A clarity for himself in the day time.

Gepard's clarity seems a lot nicer. Sampo blinks open sleep-addled eyes to his boyfriend stood at his side of the bed — fully dressed in his Silvermane uniform — and leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead.

"Mm?" Sampo rumbles in his half-awake state.

"Sorry," Gepard whispers with his fingers still pushing back Sampo's unruly bed hair, "Go back to sleep. I'll see you later."

"'M awake now," he eventually brings himself to say. A slow rolling of his tongue.

Gepard laughs. A soft breathy chuckle.

Sampo wonders whether he should focus and try to figure out why this is what gets him to laugh, just so he can replicate it again.

"Okay," Gepard says, "Have a nice dream."

"Mm," Sampo hums and presses a palm to his face. He wants to curl around Gepard and send them back to sleep again.

Gepard chuckles again. He whispers love you into Sampo's skin, still so easy, and then stands upright.

Sampo closes his eyes to get away from the brisk morning sun. Just for a moment. He'll be Sampo Koski again when the rays aren't as pointed.

He dreams he's old and grey and domestically boring.

He dreams Gepard is the same right next to him.

(Except for his hair, anyway, which isn't prematurely greying like Sampo's has been for far too long.) 

((It can't even be called premature anymore, can it?))

They look the same as they do when Sampo is awake.

There is no Sampo Koski in this dream, though, he thinks. No Brughel, businessman, conman, actor, liar, Fool or anything at all. No other face to pull from his back pocket.

They look the same. But dream Sampo says I love you first before Gepard does. Intertwines their fingers and gives in. 

Gepard looks happier than anything else in the world. 

It's a horrible, terrible, awful dream.

(He wishes he could make it into one of those dream bubbles on Penacony to keep forever.)