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CHARACTERS: Adri and Jax
WHAT: Kissing and making up, literally.
WHEN: Yesterday afternoon
WHERE: Jax's office, Espionage wing
WARNINGS: In predictable fashion, lite 🌶 toward the end.
Jax wanted to throw something. He didn't typically give into his baser, angrier instincts, but his emotions of late had been a rollercoaster on steroids, and he was happy to contain these emotions in his office.
The words on the proposal he was drafting kept jumping off the page at him, and he could barely read his own handwriting. Taking a bunker in Russia would require a joint operation between several espionage areas, and while it wasn't a level one priority for the moment, this was to ensure future success across other operations, resettlement in particular.
He tossed the pen at the desk and sighed.
The knock on the door shouldn’t have been unexpected, so AdrĂan didn’t bother to wait for a response before pushing it open. The office was messier than his own — unsurprising: everything that Adri worked on had to be translated into codes, and starting it off that way had always seemed more efficient, thereby negating the need for random papers and maps and whatever other things littered Jax’s desk.
Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it. AdrĂan Aldana had never been one to discuss his feelings. Partly out of deep disinterest and partly out of some long forgotten but deeply held sympathy for those who had had theirs regulated for years. It made him distant, even cold at times, but it wasn’t for lack of caring, as much as that annoyed him. And Jax was one of the few on Mnemosyne whose emotions were of at least minor importance to him.
If he was as cold as Nikola liked to tell him he was, his life would have been much simpler.
Instead, he kept his eyes on his lover, arms folded, and waited.
Jax's own eyes had come up when the door opened, but they'd flitted away almost immediately, his own stubbornness refusing eye contact. Unfortunately, however irritated he was – mainly with himself – he had been raised better than to be inhospitable to a visitor. Even if that visitor drove him insane sometimes.
"Thank you for choosing not to break my door," he commented mildly. "I still don't want to talk."
So this was how it was going to be. The exhausted sigh he wanted to heave was swallowed down in favor of a brief flare of his nostrils. “Tough shit,” Adri replied, equally as mild. “And I have a tendency to get what I want when I want it, so start talking, Jackson.”
Unlike Philip, the use of Jax’s given name was rare, often spoken in equal measures annoyance and pleasure. It wasn’t purposeful — Jax was the most common moniker for him aboard the ship, whereas Phil and, God forbid, Pip felt blasphemous — just something that was, and he knew it was playing dirty to use it in this context.
There was heat in Jax's eyes when he met Adri's gaze this time, though he knew he wouldn't be able to sustain it for long. He slouched all the way back into his chair and huffed a sigh of annoyance.
"Look, I don't know how to explain it in a way that doesn't sound certifiable, Adri." At least he could keep his voice level. "Sometimes you say shit because you want a reaction, and you got one. I've got weird feelings about whatever we're doing, alright? I've never done – this before."
Ah. There it was.
He’d known that entangling himself with Jax had the potential to be fraught: typically, his liaisons were with people of similar mindsets, not looking for something permanent. But he had known about Jackson and Ronen, had vague recollections of how shattered both men had seemed when their relationship had run its course.
It should have served as a warning to Adri: danger. And yet, he’d pursued, coaxing Jax into becoming Icarus, flying too high only to be burned by the heat of AdrĂan’s indifference.
Jax would always want more than stolen nights and the taste of another on his mouth.
“It doesn’t sound certifiable,” AdrĂan finally replied once the silence stretched, filling the corners of the room. “Do you want to stop?”
The answer could, maybe should have been, complicated. But Jax dropped an elbow to the arm of the chair, pressed his thumb into the corner of his eyes, and mumbled, "No, but I'd understand if you wanted to. I'm not even asking for more or anything to change. Like I said, it's been a bad fucking week, and that's why I didn't even want to talk about it until after my birthday."
Mild confusion registered for just a beat at the mention of his birthday before Adri pushed it aside. Crossing the room, he perched on the edge of Jax’s desk. “I’m content to continue things as they have been,” he said, fingers finding the discarded pen and palming it before twirling it over his knuckles. “And you’re not asking, but you want more.”
It wasn’t a question and the certainty of it hung between them while Adri calculated his next move. He enjoyed Jax in his bed, knew that Jax enjoyed being there, but he wasn’t in the habit of holding anyone in stasis with him that didn’t want to be there.
Not long term.
Finally: “Is there someone here you want and can have that with?”
The younger man dazedly shook his head. "Probably, but after my last two relationships, I dunno if that's right for me anymore. And I can't set myself on fire to keep someone warm again." He met Adri's eyes again. "So the way things are is fine."
AdrĂan’s eyes narrowed and, unbidden, memories of his ex-wife surfaced: the way she had thrown herself into being a mother and wife and a teacher, trading the vibrant person that he had been captivated by and in love with to be a doll to be used and posed as others needed. The despair that had choked him as he watched her lose herself, as he watched her undergo the implant procedure to escape the feelings of never being enough, rose like bile in his chest.
“You deserve better.” The words came out harsher than intended. He’d meant them as a matter of fact statement, indisputable, and yet for a moment the anger he had pushed aside colored his voice. He swallowed. “I’ll vet them for you.”
"Pushing me away already?" It was meant as a joke, but Jax's smile felt like glass. "I'm not unhappy, you know. When I am, I can walk away. I walked away from Rone at the end 'cause it was miserable being miserable, and I'm never doing that again."
Snorting, Adri leaned toward him, cupping the back of his neck. “No, but I’m not going to assume I know how you feel. This,” and he used his free hand to motion between the two of them, “only works if you talk to me. When you’re ready to walk, though, I want to make sure it’s towards something better.” A smile curled on his lips. “Which is hard because I’m the best damn fuck on this ship and we all know it, but you have to have goals, St James.”
Jax tongued the back of his teeth in an attempt to fight a much less fragile smile, and one hand curled above the other man's knee. "You are so fucking cocky," he whispered, but not with any admonishment. "You and Flip. Remind me why I like either of you again?"
A cold, possessive ribbon tied itself into a neat bow against his ribs, below his heart, at the mention of Philip. That was a problem for another day, though. “I’m told Philip is immensely likeable,” he replied dryly. “As for me, I’m exceptionally attractive, charming, and can fuck you so good you beg for it. I don’t see what’s not to like about that.”
There was a huff of helpless (strangled) laughter. "Do not fuck me on this desk, AdrĂan. There is so much goddamn paperwork."
AdrĂan’s eyebrows quirked in challenge, and he used his grip to pull Jax towards him. “Seems like you’re asking me to fuck you on this desk.” His tone was entirely conversational despite the way his body now angled towards Jax, the hand on his knee sliding up Adri’s leg with the movement. “You just have to ask.”
"Oh, you mean beg?" The hand moved much higher, fingertips dancing right up thigh to thread through a belt loop. "You gonna help me pick my proposal off the floor if I do?" Jax's other hand played idly with his shirt collar. "Or would you prefer me bent over?"
“I’m too old to pick things up off the ground,” he deadpanned, “but if you beg prettily enough, I might find it in me to let you ride me in your chair.”
A tempting alternative. With an affirmative hum, Jax properly folded himself into the space between Adri's legs, while his touch found itself at the base of the other man's neck. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather it be in me." Within a hair's breadth of Adri's lips, he added: "If you don't fuck me over this desk in the next five minutes, I'm throwing you out."
Rather than commenting on the pun, Adri closed the distance between them, whispering an admonishing, “You can beg better than that,” before claiming his lips in a heated kiss, Jax’s laugh swallowed up in the lip lock.
WHAT: Kissing and making up, literally.
WHEN: Yesterday afternoon
WHERE: Jax's office, Espionage wing
WARNINGS: In predictable fashion, lite 🌶 toward the end.
Jax wanted to throw something. He didn't typically give into his baser, angrier instincts, but his emotions of late had been a rollercoaster on steroids, and he was happy to contain these emotions in his office.
The words on the proposal he was drafting kept jumping off the page at him, and he could barely read his own handwriting. Taking a bunker in Russia would require a joint operation between several espionage areas, and while it wasn't a level one priority for the moment, this was to ensure future success across other operations, resettlement in particular.
He tossed the pen at the desk and sighed.
The knock on the door shouldn’t have been unexpected, so AdrĂan didn’t bother to wait for a response before pushing it open. The office was messier than his own — unsurprising: everything that Adri worked on had to be translated into codes, and starting it off that way had always seemed more efficient, thereby negating the need for random papers and maps and whatever other things littered Jax’s desk.
Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it. AdrĂan Aldana had never been one to discuss his feelings. Partly out of deep disinterest and partly out of some long forgotten but deeply held sympathy for those who had had theirs regulated for years. It made him distant, even cold at times, but it wasn’t for lack of caring, as much as that annoyed him. And Jax was one of the few on Mnemosyne whose emotions were of at least minor importance to him.
If he was as cold as Nikola liked to tell him he was, his life would have been much simpler.
Instead, he kept his eyes on his lover, arms folded, and waited.
Jax's own eyes had come up when the door opened, but they'd flitted away almost immediately, his own stubbornness refusing eye contact. Unfortunately, however irritated he was – mainly with himself – he had been raised better than to be inhospitable to a visitor. Even if that visitor drove him insane sometimes.
"Thank you for choosing not to break my door," he commented mildly. "I still don't want to talk."
So this was how it was going to be. The exhausted sigh he wanted to heave was swallowed down in favor of a brief flare of his nostrils. “Tough shit,” Adri replied, equally as mild. “And I have a tendency to get what I want when I want it, so start talking, Jackson.”
Unlike Philip, the use of Jax’s given name was rare, often spoken in equal measures annoyance and pleasure. It wasn’t purposeful — Jax was the most common moniker for him aboard the ship, whereas Phil and, God forbid, Pip felt blasphemous — just something that was, and he knew it was playing dirty to use it in this context.
There was heat in Jax's eyes when he met Adri's gaze this time, though he knew he wouldn't be able to sustain it for long. He slouched all the way back into his chair and huffed a sigh of annoyance.
"Look, I don't know how to explain it in a way that doesn't sound certifiable, Adri." At least he could keep his voice level. "Sometimes you say shit because you want a reaction, and you got one. I've got weird feelings about whatever we're doing, alright? I've never done – this before."
Ah. There it was.
He’d known that entangling himself with Jax had the potential to be fraught: typically, his liaisons were with people of similar mindsets, not looking for something permanent. But he had known about Jackson and Ronen, had vague recollections of how shattered both men had seemed when their relationship had run its course.
It should have served as a warning to Adri: danger. And yet, he’d pursued, coaxing Jax into becoming Icarus, flying too high only to be burned by the heat of AdrĂan’s indifference.
Jax would always want more than stolen nights and the taste of another on his mouth.
“It doesn’t sound certifiable,” AdrĂan finally replied once the silence stretched, filling the corners of the room. “Do you want to stop?”
The answer could, maybe should have been, complicated. But Jax dropped an elbow to the arm of the chair, pressed his thumb into the corner of his eyes, and mumbled, "No, but I'd understand if you wanted to. I'm not even asking for more or anything to change. Like I said, it's been a bad fucking week, and that's why I didn't even want to talk about it until after my birthday."
Mild confusion registered for just a beat at the mention of his birthday before Adri pushed it aside. Crossing the room, he perched on the edge of Jax’s desk. “I’m content to continue things as they have been,” he said, fingers finding the discarded pen and palming it before twirling it over his knuckles. “And you’re not asking, but you want more.”
It wasn’t a question and the certainty of it hung between them while Adri calculated his next move. He enjoyed Jax in his bed, knew that Jax enjoyed being there, but he wasn’t in the habit of holding anyone in stasis with him that didn’t want to be there.
Not long term.
Finally: “Is there someone here you want and can have that with?”
The younger man dazedly shook his head. "Probably, but after my last two relationships, I dunno if that's right for me anymore. And I can't set myself on fire to keep someone warm again." He met Adri's eyes again. "So the way things are is fine."
AdrĂan’s eyes narrowed and, unbidden, memories of his ex-wife surfaced: the way she had thrown herself into being a mother and wife and a teacher, trading the vibrant person that he had been captivated by and in love with to be a doll to be used and posed as others needed. The despair that had choked him as he watched her lose herself, as he watched her undergo the implant procedure to escape the feelings of never being enough, rose like bile in his chest.
“You deserve better.” The words came out harsher than intended. He’d meant them as a matter of fact statement, indisputable, and yet for a moment the anger he had pushed aside colored his voice. He swallowed. “I’ll vet them for you.”
"Pushing me away already?" It was meant as a joke, but Jax's smile felt like glass. "I'm not unhappy, you know. When I am, I can walk away. I walked away from Rone at the end 'cause it was miserable being miserable, and I'm never doing that again."
Snorting, Adri leaned toward him, cupping the back of his neck. “No, but I’m not going to assume I know how you feel. This,” and he used his free hand to motion between the two of them, “only works if you talk to me. When you’re ready to walk, though, I want to make sure it’s towards something better.” A smile curled on his lips. “Which is hard because I’m the best damn fuck on this ship and we all know it, but you have to have goals, St James.”
Jax tongued the back of his teeth in an attempt to fight a much less fragile smile, and one hand curled above the other man's knee. "You are so fucking cocky," he whispered, but not with any admonishment. "You and Flip. Remind me why I like either of you again?"
A cold, possessive ribbon tied itself into a neat bow against his ribs, below his heart, at the mention of Philip. That was a problem for another day, though. “I’m told Philip is immensely likeable,” he replied dryly. “As for me, I’m exceptionally attractive, charming, and can fuck you so good you beg for it. I don’t see what’s not to like about that.”
There was a huff of helpless (strangled) laughter. "Do not fuck me on this desk, AdrĂan. There is so much goddamn paperwork."
AdrĂan’s eyebrows quirked in challenge, and he used his grip to pull Jax towards him. “Seems like you’re asking me to fuck you on this desk.” His tone was entirely conversational despite the way his body now angled towards Jax, the hand on his knee sliding up Adri’s leg with the movement. “You just have to ask.”
"Oh, you mean beg?" The hand moved much higher, fingertips dancing right up thigh to thread through a belt loop. "You gonna help me pick my proposal off the floor if I do?" Jax's other hand played idly with his shirt collar. "Or would you prefer me bent over?"
“I’m too old to pick things up off the ground,” he deadpanned, “but if you beg prettily enough, I might find it in me to let you ride me in your chair.”
A tempting alternative. With an affirmative hum, Jax properly folded himself into the space between Adri's legs, while his touch found itself at the base of the other man's neck. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather it be in me." Within a hair's breadth of Adri's lips, he added: "If you don't fuck me over this desk in the next five minutes, I'm throwing you out."
Rather than commenting on the pun, Adri closed the distance between them, whispering an admonishing, “You can beg better than that,” before claiming his lips in a heated kiss, Jax’s laugh swallowed up in the lip lock.