#creaking-skull

So Roy and Tito meet when Roy is assigned to the SSV Jakarta as a Lieutenant. This is pretty in between being recruited and the events of the first game so Roy doesn't have a ton of experience and hasn't taken his place in the Alliance very seriously at this point. Naturally it means that Tito's hardass nature doesn't phase Roy at all, and just kinda brushes him off and doesn't let Tito intimidate him. Which of course pisses Tito off immensely and would often rope Roy up with some kind of crap job or whatever. Only Roy would do those really well, along with his actual job and got on the good side of everybody on the Jakarta.

And being Roy, he's an insufferable flirt the entire time. It's lust at first sight for him.

As they continue on their tour and work alongside each other more (both on ground and on board) Tito sort of cools it with his initial antagonism yet continues to keep Roy at arms length. Roy on the other hand doesn't take the hint and keeps being himself.

Everything comes to a head when Roy accompanies Tito and a few others on a ground mission to bust a smuggling ring deep in the cave of an ice planet. In the skirmish the pirates detonate a small explosive as a last resort and cave in Tito and Roy. The rest of the crew, on the other side and therefore able to get out, leave and get help. It's pretty deep in the cave though so it takes a while and comms can't really get through until someone actually gets out of the cave.

Which leaves Roy and Tito alone in an enclosed environment. A very cold closed environment.

It goes okay at first, they're managing just fine but...it sure takes a while. Eventually the cold is too much and they decide they need to start conserving as much heat as possible, so they take their armor off and huddle together as tightly as possible. All very professional...except for Roy getting way too turned on having Tito essentially spoon him. And he's not good at hiding it. So it turns into some over the clothes rutting action.

Cut to like, maybe a week later and the two have just sort of been avoiding the subject. Well more like Tito has completely stonewalled Roy while Roy is grappling with the fact that that happened and he wants it to happen again. One night Roy invites himself into Tito's quarters and just lays it out for him. "Hey about what happened that time? Yeah, I can't stop thinking about it and if I can't have you again I will literally explode!" He's saying all this with the notion in the back of his head that Tito will drop him off at the next space port and leave him there.

Only Tito admits that he's been thinking about it too, and part of why he's been a hard ass on Roy has specifically to try and avoid this. Welp. Roy is pushy, insistent that they can keep it a secret if they play their cards right.

The night ends with Roy's face pressed against the shitty bunk while Tito hits it from the back. Y'know, like you do.

And they are pretty good at keeping the affair under wraps, mostly flirting while on the ship and saving most physical intimacy for any time they have shore leave. One instance has the Jakarta crew in Rio for a few days renting out some space. Tito books a little bungalow a bit away from the others and though technically Roy shares one with some other officers he's hardly in it. For the most part the two stay at Tito's and can't keep their hands off of each other. At one point, by the end of shore leave, they have a little thought independent of one another that...something long term like this would be really nice. Neither one of them says anything.

Things continue as they are and slowly their relationship becomes more than physical. In isolation it's not a terrible thing but in cases where you're a captain faced with a hostage scenario where you can only save one of your crew (dooming the other) and you choose the one you've been sleeping with...well...

Events of Akuze happen shortly thereafter, followed by Roy's offer into the ICT program. Roy isn't in a good headspace to accept the offer but eventually relents to Tito's insistence, so after he recovers he ships back out to Rio.

Sometime during Roy's time in Rio someone reports Tito for favoritism and possible fraternization with a junior officer, and Roy of fraternization with a senior officer. The two discuss what action to take, as the charges will leave both dishonorably discharged and Roy will be pulled out of the ICT program.

Tito decides to take the full blame so Roy can continue his career. Something Roy is very much against. Tito, being really fucking stubborn, doesn't take no and tells Roy it's for the best. When Tito is discharged it also ended the relationship.

Roy tries to play it off, tries to focus on his training instead of being sort of dumped. There's a point where Roy gets Tito's new contact info and shoots him a message, only to receive nothing in return. It's the final nail in the coffin so Roy moves on, going back to his ways of sleeping with other people in the program (like Kai Leng) and whoever would take him on shore leave.

As for what Tito does after all this...I don't know and I think it's better that way. He does get pulled into emergency service when the reapers attack Earth and the two do end up running into each other in London. It's...really awkward actually. Tito's been doing god knows what while Roy has gone through The Horrors. You know.

But it is nice to see each other again at any rate.

Mae asks him if he’s all right and he tells her he’s fine. (His feelings about her haven’t changed; he still thinks she’s fucking fantastic and also more than a little bit terrifying.)

Dorian asks him if he’s all right and he tells him to fuck off. It’s Dorian. It’s allowed.

Ashur asks him if he’s all right and it’s the very last straw.

“What d’you think is all right about this?” he asks. “Blight and—and gods and dragons and—how does it even work, anyway? Are they gods, too, the dragons? Are they our gods? What the fuck are everyone’s gods doing all over Minrathous? Where’s the blighted Maker, then?”

Ashur waits until he’s certain Tarquin is finished (which is impressive; Tarquin isn’t even sure he’s finished) and then says, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked.”

It doesn’t help, because there’s no reason he shouldn’t have asked. Tarquin’s just—he doesn’t even know. Angry. Maybe. Not at Ashur. But it’s stupid to be angry at a dragon and even stupider to be angry at a god, so he’s got nowhere else to point it but at Ashur.

“Yeah,” he says, “but it’s your job, innit? Make sure we’re all okay or, or at peace or whatever it is. We’ve all got jobs to do.”

“I don’t expect anyone to be at peace with what’s happening,” says Ashur. “I just… want to know if I can help.”

“Well, you can’t,” says Tarquin. And that’s unfair, too, because Ashur probably could help if Tarquin wanted him to. He’s never been good at that kind of thing, though—wanting help, asking for help, taking help when it’s offered. People help themselves; that’s how it works. And when they can’t, the Shadow Dragons help them. Tarquin doesn’t need help. There’s nothing to need help with. It’s the people out in the streets who need help—the people they’re supposed to be protecting. From dragons. And gods. Somehow.

“You ever think,” he says to Ashur, “that we’d be a lot better off if someone had knocked some sense into a few of those magisters before they went and stuck their grubby hands all over the Golden City?”

The look he gets back from Ashur is not what he’s expecting. It’s a little confused (and that happens often enough), a little contemplative (which happens less often), maybe a little fond (and Tarquin isn’t thinking about that, not right now).

There’s a thoughtful hum and the corners of Ashur’s eyes crinkle up, just a bit. You’d have to have been watching to see it—only Tarquin has been. He always is.

“Fuck off,” he says, because it seems like the thing to say. It often does, with Ashur.

Normally, Ashur tolerates it (at best; at worst, he radiates disapproval and Tarquin’s shoulders tense as he pretends he hasn’t noticed because it’s the only thing he knows how to do when it happens). Today, there’s a soft huff—almost a laugh, but not quite.

“You know,” Ashur says quietly, “I just can’t seem to understand you.”

“What’s to understand?” asks Tarquin, wielding the question like a polearm, keeping them safely distanced. “I work, I come here, I hit things. What else is there to know?”

Ashur says, “I don’t believe that.”

And that makes Tarquin angry all over again, because what would Ashur know, anyway? He can believe what he likes.

“Yeah, well,” says Tarquin, turning to the stack of notes and maps Ashur has piled up on the table between them. This is safe ground. They can talk about hideouts and strike zones and raids all afternoon and they won’t—almost certainly won’t—tread onto the strange, shaky areas between them where nothing’s exactly what Tarquin expects, or Ashur, for that matter. “We’ve got work to do.”

Ashur nods and comes around to Tarquin’s side of the table to get a better look at the maps. Their shoulders brush as he leans in and Tarquin doesn’t think about it, doesn’t think about understanding and not understanding, doesn’t think about anything except what they’re supposed to be doing right now.