#elskcv

“Oh my God, I don’t know how Vaughn pulled this off, but this is amazing.”

By “this”, of course, Rhys means the little inn they’ve found in a relatively quiet mining town. After a good dinner with Vaughn, a dip in natural hot springs to get clean, and Rhys taking the time to work on Loader Bot’s maintenance, he thought it’d be too much to ask for an amazing bedroom... but hey, this is what Rhys gets for doubting his best bro. Consider his lesson learned.

“Does that bed feel as soft as it looks?” he asks, locking the door behind him. Vaughn had gotten them a room with just the one bed; having made a habit of sleeping with his arms around Gaea already, the only thing new to Rhys about this arrangement is that the bed isn’t fucking filthy.

Usually telling Aldo that he’s either a) got a lot of work to catch up on; or b) feeling under the weather is enough to get the man a safe distance away from him. And it isn’t that Sebastian wants him gone-- God knows the peculiarity of being able to feel affection for anyone again has been utterly outweighed by how happy Aldo makes him-- but it’s for his own damn good that he stays away when Sebastian’s like this.

He hears the knocks outside his door, however, in the middle of slinging a backpack up over his shoulders. With the full moon so high, Sebastian’s temperature’s already begun to skyrocket, and he swallows with a dry throat and stares at the door like maybe keeping still might make Aldo go away. He can smell him through the bottom crack in the door, can hear the beats of the other man’s heart and count them on his hand, and he knows for both their sakes he ought to ignore him...

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

...but all the same Sebastian opens the door.

Standing there with a backpack on and a pair of hiking boots to go with the heavy jacket on his person, Sebastian looks the very picture of a man about to leave on a trip. It is by no means the look of a man who’s “been feeling sick all day”, but maybe his pale face and the sweat curling down his neck might work in his favour.

“Hey,” he says, offering a small smile. “What’re you doing here?”

Sorry it’s been so long. Last job ran my ass to the ground. I’ll see you in two days. Jake

And true enough, two days since he’d sent that text and with a new bike stopping right in front of Gaea’s home, Jake is there. He’s nervous, despite every reason he has not to be, but spending over six months away when he told her the battle couldn’t possibly take more than two weeks makes it feel like he’s broken some sort of promise.

Not that Jake’s ever really promised Gaea anything except paying her back one day for everything she’s done for him. Not that he’s ever let himself make such incriminating ties to anyone, not since he was seventeen.

He scowls, though, at how guilty he feels. It’s not like he lives here. It’s not like she’s family. This isn’t his home, and...

And yet he told her he was coming back. Her, and no-one else.

"He's taken to it all very well; but I can't help but wonder at his ... happiness here." His voice comes distant, thoughtful, eyes drawn towards the far hill, the large tree where he and his young student had begun training.