#ethan sinclair

Huntsman. Nope definitely not gonna call him dad. Sabre. Mason's perfect partner and second in command. Hurricane. The murderous dreamboat who was also a ghost. Zeus. Enzo's far larger and less attractive sort-of-sibling. And then there was Ajax. Still golden and full of fire, sneering at the newcomer in his towel.

"Wait." Oliver held up a long finger. "Ajax left the 14s just before the uh. ...Incident. He was transferred to the 37s to replace Hurricane." He didn't stop to take a breath. "Who was killed but is standing right there." The finger drifted to Ben. He had a new scar but, if anything, it made him even more conflictingly adorable and terrifying.

"That's. A lot of coincidences but." He stumbled, blushing and running a hand through his wet hair and glancing at his toes bare on the cold floor until his words caught up. His green eyes found the little vanguard. "I'm really glad."

Zeus shifted in his periphery and Ollie spun, whipping the finger at the large man's broad chest. "Hey. I know your brother. Enzo." He sputtered, trying again to sound less invested. "Ares. Is he? Do you know if he-?" Oliver trailed off when Masons hand clasped his bare shoulder.

"I think we've got everything we need. Are you ready to go home?"

Mason pushed away from the terminal as though he had been burned.

“What the fuck,” he whispered. His heart was already in his throat and a surge of adrenaline rolled through him made his biotics spark around his wrists in a way they hadn’t since he was an untried and untested phoenix.

He felt like he’d had just seen a ghost.

Ethan looked up from where he lounged on the bed in their less than luxurious quarters on the Berlin. One eyebrow arched over the datapad he held in his hands. He looked casual but he tensed instantly, his own biotics simmering behind his eyes, turning them blue at whatever unseen threat had caused his husband to react so violently and ready to back him up as he always was.

“What is it?”

Mason didn’t take his eyes off the terminal, or the message that flashed there.

“Can you trace this?” he demanded. There was no gentleness in his tone.

Ethan unfolded himself from the bunk and approached. “Trace what, exactly, love?”

“This.” Mason jabbed a finger at the screen. “This message. This… what the fuck, this has to be a joke.”

Ethan’s gaze narrowed as he skimmed the short message. “It looks like gibberish. What’s got you so worked up? It’s probably some kind of prank message from the gremlin or-“

“No,” Mason said it sharply. Too sharply for Ethan to miss just how worked up he was. “No, this… This is… Fuck.”

Ethan turned his back on the terminal and stepped in front of Mason to block his view. “Mase,” he said slowly. Quietly. It took a long moment for the tick in Mason’s jaw to settle, for green eyes to meet gold flecked hazel. “Talk to me, babe.”

--

Mason dragged his blunt nails through the faint golden fuzz on his husband’s arms as he lay back against his chest. He’d told Ethan everything, in slow, halting tones, about a kid that shared the same eyes and the same dark hair… the same blood. A cousin that lived in his fragmented memories of his time before Cerberus, of a childhood spent by azure oceans and red dirt under his feet and the laughs of Kookaburras in trees. The heat and water and a sky so blue and clear he still woke up dreaming about it. A shadow, barely five to his worldly twelve, trotting off after him while they explored the rocks, and an old folk song Mason had sung about two boys going off to war to distract him from the screaming adults and skinned knees when they had skulked back towards the house.

He hadn’t thought about those memories in years, regaled to a past that felt like it didn’t belong to him anymore.

But the message, the lyrics from a song... That song, those words...

It couldn’t be a coincidence. It wasn’t possible.

“You can trace it, right?” he asked Ethan again, long after he had exhausted himself wandering through the broken halls of his memories, trying to find a face that was familiar and strange all at once.

(this is so dumb im sorry) -- “You can’t smoke in here.”

Ethan regards the curly haired engineer with a raised eyebrow. He deliberately takes another, slow drag of his cigarette, much to the engineer’s growing distress. “Is that so?”

“No, really,” Luca looks nervously over his shoulder. The doors to the makeshift workshop in the bowels of the Berlin's cargo back slide open and closed erratically. “You can’t smoke in here. There was a... um... incident. The bionium is airborne and it’s-“

“I know what it is,” Ethan hisses, instantly on alert and folding the cigarette into his palm. He has barely enough time to kick over a nearby metal workbench and haul Luca into cover before a fireball whooshes briefly over their heads.

There's a horrible scent of burning hair in the air and Ethan refuses to wonder if it's his hair that might be smoking.

Ethan straightened, slipping back into his cool indifference just long enough to turn, inspecting Isaac. Gus nudged eagerly at Ethan's hand with a soft, wet nose and both men smiled when he melted.

Isaac didn't know much about Sabre. Not much other than the fact that they were entirely different. But everything in him warmed to see the way the flawless Phoenix melted to his knees for Isaac's old friend.

The Phoenix's massive biceps curled gently around Gus and the dog whimpered and whined mixed sounds of joy and relief, sniffing into Ethan's perfect hair with a happy, swishing tail.

"He really likes you," Isaac offered. He moved just enough to take a seat on the old porch steps, just a small distance from where the Phoenix and the dog knelt in the grass. "He's usually much more standoffish with folks at first."

Ethan sniffed. His cool tone hiding the warm sparkle in his pretty eyes as he smoothed his hands over the dog's soft fur. "Gus just has good taste."

"He does." Isaac agreed quietly. He let his eyes drift to the horizon- to the slowly setting sun. "There are a few little houses on the property. Spread out that we've always kept for farm hands or neighbors or whatnot. The refugees are being settled closer into town so if you and Huntsman wanted a place to stay planetside."

He hesitated, tipping his head in the direction of the busy farmhouse, filled with love and laughter and joy for the first time in far too many years, behind him. "Somewhere more private. You're welcome to any of them."

Marie backed towards the wall as his massive form advanced on her with a predatory grin. 

“I tried calling you.” 

“I’ve been very busy.” She smirked up at him through her dark lashes before stepping out of her pants as she walked backwards. She reminded him of a bear, the way he stalked like an immovable force. “It’s only been two weeks, and you’re already missing me?” 

“Two weeks is too long when we’re only here for two hours.” His gaze fell to her lace covered chest when she stripped off her shirt.   

Marie gasped when her back hit the cold metal and he caught up to her, steady hands curling around the back of her thighs to lift her until her legs wrapped around his waist. She always got a thrill from the way he could move her as if she weighed nothing and her hand curled into the black and gold logo on his chest before pulling the shirt over his head. 

“Then we will have to be quick.” She whined when one of his hands left her to fumble at the waist of his pants. 

“Marie, someone might see us.” He panted against her mouth after kissing her. The room wasn’t exactly out of the way, and he wanted her to be sure. But he didn’t stop. 

“I don’t care.” Her teeth latched onto his lip, drawing a deep growl from his throat. “Fuck me Zeus.” 

His wide hand slapped against the wall beside her head when she reached between them, wrapping her fingers around his length. He let her stroke him, swiping his tongue back into her mouth. 

“I’m already wet for you.” She pushed her hips forward, rubbing the tip of his cock against her entrance to prove her point, and he groaned in agony. 

She would never get used to the size of him, and she whimpered from the delicious in-between place of pleasure and pain as he slid into her. She held his face as he fucked her, looking into his eyes and matching his moans. She knew she’d have bruises from the force with which she was shoved against the wall every time he thrust, and the thought helped to send her over the edge. She clung to him, nails digging harmlessly into the thick skin of his back and he held her tightly as she came.   

She came two more times, the last one while riding him on the dusty floor of the warehouse and they spent the last hour curled against each other in a heap of clothes. She had kissed him until the very last second, and he had hated the way his fingers eventually had to drop from hers before they parted. And he had smiled the way only she could make him smile when he received her message 10 minutes later. 

‘I missed you too.’ 

- 

“No smoking.” The small Asian man was dwarfed by the giant desk, not bothering to look up from his work. 

“Right.” Ethan pulled the cigarette from his lips, reaching over to snub out the embers onto the shoulder of the ever present enforcement bot before flicking it into the trash. 

“So.” Their handler finally looked up when Ethan flopped down into a chair. “The mission was a failure.” 

“Yes sir…” Ethan’s brows furrowed, knowing Mason had already given a debrief, so he waited for the real reason he had been called into the office.

Tatsu leaned back in his chair, resting his lips on his steepled fingers. “My little birdies tell me that Zeus has been off his game. Distracted. Is this anything I need to worry about?”

“Your birdies are deaf and dumb, Tats. Zeus is fine.” 

“So he hasn’t been absent?” 

Ethan shifted uncomfortably, for once not able to see where this was heading. “He’s missed a few meetings. And was…misplaced last week. But nothing major.

“Misplaced.” 

Ethan was annoyed now. He was being toyed with, knowing full well Tatsu had every piece of information he already needed. 

“What’s this about?” 

“Zeus being the direct cause of the failure of this mission is just the cherry on top of the shit piling up against him.” 

He’d never admit it. The instinctual protection that kicked into his gut the moment he thought any of them were under attack. He kept the defensive tone out of his voice when Tatsu’s brows rose. It was tactical to make Ethan answer this particular question, but he was as skilled at dancing around the point as his boss was. 

“We’ve all made mistakes. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, what is this really about?” 

“Does Zeus have his priorities straight.” 

“Of course he does.” 

“Hm.” Tatsu tapped a finger against the screen and Ethan froze. There was no mistaking Nico with his pants around his ankles or who he had pushed against a wall.   

“Who is she?” 

Ethan sighed on a slow blink that pulled his eyes away from the screen. “An Alliance officer.” 

“I’m not your level of genius Sabre, but I can see she’s wearing an Alliance uniform. Or was, at least. Who is she.” 

“Lieutenant Miller, sir.” 

Ethan knew when the man went silent he was thinking, and he recognized the danger in that, so he didn’t give him the time to do so. “It’s nothing. She’s a plaything. He has to burn off steam somehow right? We don’t want Zeus going boom from too much pent up pressure.” 

“There are other ways to blow off steam than sneaking around with Alliance officers.” Tatsu sneered, leaning forward and all façade of casual banter disappeared. “I’ve always liked Zeus. Dependable. Efficient. Follows the rules. I called you because if it goes to Huntsman, he will have to report it to those higher than me. So consider this a curtesy call. Remind him, Sabre. Take care of it or they will.” 

Ethan didn’t need to be told just who they were. “Yes sir.” 

- 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“Whatever this is, can’t happen. You have to cut her loose.”  Ethan pulled the edges of his leather gloves under the hem of his suit’s sleeves. “This is your first and final warning Zeus, the next time it goes above Tatsu’s pay grade.” 

“She’s not a threat, Ethan.” 

He intentionally ignored the significance of the use of his real name and the fact that he never thought he’d ever hear a twinge of vulnerability in the vanguard’s voice. “She’s a bloody distraction. And they consider that a threat. If you put her on the radar, there isn’t shit you or I can do about it.”

Nico’s chest heaved at that, gold pupils darkening in a challenge. His mouth opened to retort only to snap shut when another form appeared in the hallway. 

Mason stopped in his tracks in the doorway to look between the two men. “What’s going on?” 

“Nothing.” Ethan replied without taking his eyes from Nico’s hard stare. 

“O-kay…” 

“Hey.” Ethan called to Mason’s disappearing form. “You,” his finger jabbed in Nico’s direction. “Don’t move.” 

“Hey.” He called again after turning the corner and Mason finally stopped as Ethan caught up. He heard a sigh before striking green eyes turned on him. “Can we talk later?”

“We’re done talking about it Sabre. You said that yourself.” 

“I know what I said but…” He took too long searching for the words he wouldn’t say and the disappointment in Mason’s eyes made his chest constrict too much for his liking. 

“Exactly.” Mason huffed out a breath before reaching to straighten Ethan’s tie. “I have a meeting. Be careful tonight.”   

P3 was still riddled with defenses and largely inaccessible to anyone without firsthand knowledge. Oliver tried to settle the strange twist in his tummy. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that everything would be almost exactly the same.

-

Even empty, it felt more comfortable in the group wash rooms than the private stalls in the squad leader's quarters. Oliver's shoulders shuddered with quiet sobs underneath the white-hot water of the station's showers when the quiet hum in his bones responded to something unseen, sparking to life only to find an easy harmony with his kind.

He hadn't felt anything like it in years and for the first time in a very long time, Oliver didn't feel alone. The relief that flooded over him almost started him sobbing again.

-

"When you're five years old, your twelve year old cousin is literally the coolest person in the world. Mason was my superhero. My whole life. He was everything I wanted to be. And then he became a Phoenix. I saw him in commercials and on magazines. They did interviews and photo shoots for calendars. They were so... cool."

Ollie cracked a pretty smile and combed his fingers through Ben's shock of white hair, brushing it out of his face to see his pretty eyes. "I guess that's how propaganda works though, huh."

-

"I can feel him." Mason's jaw clenched and his green eyes stayed fixed on something none of them could see.

Ethan worked quietly, uploading a number of coded encryption keys to access the station. It didn't take long. He gestured lightly as the massive metal doors slid open to a dark hallway. "After you, love."

-

Oliver finished his shower quickly. Rinsing the soap from his back and letting the hot water run over his head, wetting his dark hair a final time before he shut it down. He'd beelined to cleanliness and hadn't had a chance to rifle through what was left in the closets so he wrapped a white towel loose and low around his hips.

The smile fit his face before he rounded a corner, somewhere between the showers and the mess, only to catch a glimpse of a ghost at the other end of a long hall.

--

Post War Terra Nova