#hans;

The man is good-looking in such a way that it’s honestly disquieting. Tall, blond, broad shoulders - all wrapped up in a perfectly tailored suit. Blame it on the drinks, or maybe just the nature of temptation, but Adam catches himself watching for a long moment. The stranger is all charming smiles as he talks with a senator that Adam only vaguely recognizes, and Adam is curious. In all honesty, he might be staring. It’s only when he finds his eyes trailing the strong jawline that he stops it altogether. 

You’ve been good, he tells himself, the mantra he’s used for so long. Keep it that way.

It’s not intended to be anything at all. In all actuality, that should have been the end of it.

Except he’s at the bar, waiting to catch a bartender’s attention - something that’s usually easy, given his height - when the other man has suddenly materialized at his elbow. 

“Connelly, right? Virginia?”

Adam’s still not used to that - the way people know who he is, because it’s their job. There’s a hand being offered. Against what may be his better judgment, Adam takes it.

“Johannes Starke.” He continues, with a smile. He has very white teeth and a strong grip, and he oozes a sort of self-assuredness that Adam envies immediately. “I’m with Oil.” Lobbyist is what that implies. Adam realizes he should have known this, probably just by looking at him.

Adam nods, and tries not to think too much about how he’s struck by a wave of cologne, or the all-too-charming smile. “Johannes Starke.” He repeats his name back - and unknowingly butchers it. “Pleasure. Call me Adam.” (He won’t for another two years - unless he wants something.)

“Then call me Hans.” There’s a beat, then the man - Hans - looks at him. “Can I buy you a drink?”

(“You were probably the last person to pick up on it, you know that?” Hans tells him, years later. He’s amused. “That I was flirting with you. Do you know how hard I tried to get you to notice?”)

---

2018 | It’s time we just let this thing go

They don’t talk often or spend much time together, but Adam would say they’re friends. His immediate impulses are long forgotten, ignored. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. He’s talked himself out of it and he doesn’t really think about it anymore.

It’s business talk, mostly, when they need something from each other. They run into each other at events and make conversation - about sports (Hans, Adam learned quickly, is a Yankees fan, and there’s always that friendly rivalry in baseball season) or about politics (the energy bill, which becomes a point of partnership).

Hans is always charming - never a single crack in the mask. (Adam hasn’t earned that from him yet.) 

Everything between them is strictly professional. Connelly and Starke. Adam doesn’t mind. Prefers it, to letting his mind wander too far in what feels like the wrong directions. Seeing him just enough to get to know him.

But never enough to get attached.

---

2019 | Hold me tight as I tell myself that you might make sense

He’s attached.

It’s like the opening of floodgates. The tiniest of openings and it all came rushing - 2 years of something he’d buried so deep even he didn’t acknowledge it was there. He wonders if Hans always knew, but he’s too afraid to hear the answer, and so he doesn’t ask.

They sit side by side against Hans’s car, slowly making their way through a bottle of wine and some terrible packaged cupcakes, and Adam thinks that maybe he’s never been this happy in his life. It’s strange to think that even though he grew up with the world at his fingertips, he finds happiness in the simplicity.

In the dim light, the quiet now that they’ve said all they wanted to say, Adam takes a chance to look at him. He looks no different than he ever has - the details are more or less the same, except now he experiences it differently. He has the chance, now, to let his fingertips brush that sharp line of Hans’s jaw. The same hand Hans had offered to shake two years ago has found a comfortable home on Adam’s thigh near his knee.

A little more wine and Hans’s lips are on his neck - positioned just so the mark he leaves will be hidden under Adam’s shirt collar tomorrow morning.

“I could get used to this,” Adam says, and he feels the way Hans smiles against his skin. Jesus. That alone is worth it.

“Yeah?” Hans prompts, but then his lips work their way up to Adam’s again - not giving him the chance to say he means more than just the kisses.

---

2020 | Let’s see this through

He’s still in disbelief that this is happening, though the absolute best kind - awe, more than anything. The hangover’s passed and he’s walking on air, the two of them standing and staring into glass cases at a dizzying wealth of options.

Honestly, Adam is looking at Hans more than he’s looking at the rings. Watching the way his eyes trail along the different bands. When no one is looking, Adam’s hand is on the small of Hans’s back, intimately close.

“That one.” Hans finally says, a finger pressed to the glass in front of them. “Right?” Adam looks, and he immediately smiles, breathlessly happy as he takes in the gold and silver, what it all means.

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “That’s the one.”

He’s in awe of it, really, and that shows as they sit down to lunch afterward. He’s damn near obsessed, holding Hans’s left hand and letting his thumb brush over the ring.

He’d never have imagined this - not even six months ago, let alone three years, when Hans was just an undeniably handsome stranger in a hotel ballroom.

Adam’s in too deep, as he’s always been. Over his head. “It’s pathetic,” he tells Hans, as they’re finishing their meal. “I never stood a chance, did I?”

Hans smiles, that blindingly white smile. It still makes him weak in the knees.