#anyway how y'all likin my overuse of italics

[bosspigeon]

19. Shy kiss with Adam/Nate? Adam giving Nate a shy kiss?

at every beat of my battered heart

Pairing: Nathaniel Sewell/Adam du Mortain, with a side of M!Detective/Mason

Words: 4538

Summary: Adam has had many centuries to learn how to repress his feelings, and he thinks he’s gotten quite good at it. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t take much more than speaking that which has remained unspoken (and a mouthy detective) to draw 300 years of repressed feelings to the surface. Thanks for that, Detective Kingston.

So, this prompt kind of got away from me. It wound up pretty big, but I think I’m really proud of it! Working title was “destroying 300 years of dumb pining.” Title is, once again, from Nothing But Thieves lyrics. “Impossible” came on while I was writing this, and I couldn’t resist.

“You’re improving quickly,” Adam offers as Detective Kingston takes a swallow from his water bottle. His face and tattooed shoulders are sheened with sweat, his chest rising and falling quickly, but quietly, under his tank top. His eyebrows creep upwards, one corner of his mouth quirking.

Adam’s spine straightens, jaw tensing in anticipation for the snippy retort he’s certain to--

“Thanks,” the detective says. He snags two towels from the table by his hip and tosses one to Adam, who catches it and wipes the sweat from his own face. “Think I’m starting to figure your style out. One of these days, I’m gonna land a hit, and I will make damn sure it’s a good one.”

Adam blinks, and smiles cautiously in return. “You sound confident.”

Detective Kingston’s eyes brighten. “Worried?”

Adam chuckles, in spite of himself. “When I have need to be, you will know.” He meets the detective’s eyes, bright and challenging, strangely invigorated by this tenuous new camaraderie. “I’ll be able to stop holding back.”

They are interrupted by a long groan from Felix, who has taken it upon himself to oversee the commander’s sparring session with the detective from his seat in a pile of cushions a safe distance from the mat. He flops onto his back with his legs straight in the air, arms spread on either side of him. His heels hit the floor with a dramatic thud, and he lies there, still groaning. “I can’t believe there’s another one of you,” he complains, staring at the ceiling. “Do you guys know how to be friends without kicking the stuffing out of each other?”

The detective huffs, ambling over to kick Felix’s leg lightly, which devolves into Felix flailing back at him with his colorful sock-clad feet.

There’s a pleasant warmth in Adam’s chest, one that started months ago as a small, tentative flicker. His work with the Agency was his only constant for half a millennium, and before Unit Bravo, even that was relegated to purely professional relationships and missions. And then he met Nate, and he became a constant too, eventually. Once Adam could allow himself, even a little, to have any sort of closeness with another person. And then came Mason, and Felix, and now Detective Kingston--who still rolls his eyes upon being addressed by his title, but old habits  die hard, especially for a creature so set in his ways as Adam. But in the last few months, he’s finally felt something inside him begin to settle. To be comfortable. Maybe, even, to feel at home.

He turns towards the training room’s door before it opens, fine-tuned to the comings and goings of his unit, and, of course, when it does open, there stands Nate, closely followed by Mason. Perhaps he’s gone soft in his old age, but Adam doesn’t try to hide his smile.

Nate’s warm brown eyes meet his, and brighten at the look on his commander’s face. “Ah! Finally taking a break, are we?”

“No, you’re not,” Mason says, nudging past him with his sharp grey eyes trained on the detective, still half-heartedly tussling with Felix. “At least, he isn’t.” He stalks across the room with all the intent and focus of a predator.

Detective Kingston meets his eyes with raised brows and a lazy curl of his mouth. “Oh, yeah?”

“I was promised a round, sweetheart,” Mason drawls, looming over the much shorter man. “I’ve come to collect.”

Felix, lying on the ground between them, clears his throat. “You two do remember I’m still here, right?”

Mason steps over him and pushes him across the floor with his foot, staring intently at the detective all the while.

Nate moves to stand at Adam’s shoulder, chuckling fondly and shaking his head at the ensuing scuffle. Adam looks over at him, and raises his eyebrows. “I take it everything went well?” he asks.

Nate nods. “Yes, yes, we just finished debriefing with Agent Kingston. It was all very routine. Almost boring, really. I thought Mason was going to cause a fight just to have some excitement.”

Adam snorts, but keeps his eyes on his old friend, studying his profile, the gentle droop of his eyelids, the contented curl of his mouth, and the carefully concealed tension slowly bleeding from his broad shoulders. His eyes drift from Adam, to Mason, to Felix, to the detective, as if counting them all in his head. He always settles into himself better when they are all close, protective as he is. Even if they are being something of a handful. He huffs out a little laugh in spite of himself, and Nate’s eyes turn to him once more, crinkling at the corners.

“You’re in a rare good mood today,” he says. The happiness in his tone, in his eyes, is unmistakable. “Don’t ruin it,” Adam scoffs back, trying in vain to stifle his smile.

“I was only making an observation,” Nate teases. “You just seem happier lately. It’s nice to see.” He shifts slightly, and his arm brushes Adam’s, that single point of contact sending a bright, warm spark to his chest.

Their attention is drawn by a solid thud from the mats. Mason is on the floor, looking wide-eyed up at a triumphant Detective Kingston, who is straddling his belly with a wrapped hand on his neck. Felix is still on the floor in his pile of cushions, and he rolls over onto his belly to gawk at the scene. He then collapses into a fit of hysterical giggles, and if breathing was a necessity, Adam would be concerned he was going to suffocate.

Mason’s shock quickly changes to something else entirely, and he skims his hand along the taut line of the detective’s thigh. “That was a cheap trick,” he growls, eyes bright and lips curling up at one corner.

“Not my fault you’re easily distracted,” the human replies loftily, lifting up onto his knees. The motion pushes his hand down, and Mason makes a rough noise, fingers digging into his thigh. He could recover from the pin easily-- Adam himself knows how fast he can be-- but he stays quite happily where he is. Instead, he rolls his hips up to bring his body back in contact with Detective Kingston’s, who moves gracefully with the motion.

Before Adam has the chance to speak up, Nate loudly clears his throat, and both of them whip their heads around to meet his disapproving stare. “Really, you two?”

“You’re supposed to be sparring,” Adam says, shaking his head.

“Not canoodling,” Nate adds helpfully. Felix is overtaken by another fit of wild, hiccuping laughter.

“If it helps,” Detective Kingston says, rolling to the side and bouncing smoothly to his feet, “the canoodling is how I was able to get the drop on him in the first place.” His lips quirk wryly when he says “canoodling”  and Felix begins to make some truly concerning wheezing noises. Even Mason pushes himself into a sitting position to eyeball him with annoyed concern.

“I doubt such a tactic will help you with anyone or anything else,” Adam chides, crossing his arms.

“I mean, it’s worked for Mason at least once before,” Felix calls, having recovered enough to speak. He’s rubbing his cheeks as if they hurt.

“Three times,” Mason corrects smugly. 

Chase sidles up alongside Adam and swats him on the arm with the back of his hand. “Lighten up, would you?” The familiarity of the gesture is new, and strange, but not entirely unwelcome. Detective Kingston, much like Adam himself, does not dole out casual touches often, keeping himself carefully contained and most people at arm’s length. Nate has, of course, pointed out that this is likely why he and the human so often butt heads. They are oddly similar in many ways. Still, he looks at the spot the detective smacked, then looks at him and arches a brow. Detective Kingston rolls his eyes. “Maybe you’d be in a better mood if you and your better half did some canoodling of your own, yeah?”

The room falls eerily silent. Not a breath is drawn. Detective Kingston looks up at Adam, brows scrunching, sharp eyes searching. He slowly turns to Nate, standing at Adam’s shoulder and practically vibrating with sudden tension that Adam can feel without the need to look at him. The detective’s eyes return to Adam, and his furrowed brows fly upwards.

“Shit,” he blurts, taking a step back. He glances back at Mason and Felix. “Was I not supposed to know?”

“Know what?” Adam grits out, his jaw aching with how hard his teeth have instinctively clenched. His whole body feels suddenly overheated, the back of his neck prickling.

It is not easy to surprise Detective Kingston, and even when he is surprised, he hides it well enough, rolling with the punches, as he might say. Now, he seems to be entirely thrown. “You and Nate aren’t…” Behind him, Felix makes a sound, high-pitched and choked, and Adam’s eyes flick up to see him with both hands clapped over his mouth.

Adam’s heart is pounding in his ears. He doesn’t dare to look at Nate, and clenches his fists to keep his fingers from shaking.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Nate laughs, weak and strained. “Adam and I-- There’s no--”

Adam’s stomach twists, his chest tightens, and his nails are digging into his palms so hard it catches Mason’s attention. Nate’s, it seems, is quite occupied with--

He has to leave.

He keeps his eyes down as he stalks towards the door and pushes it open. He flinches when he hears a crack, the clink of the broken-off knob (and the chunk of the door that comes away with it) dropping to the floor, but he doesn’t stop. It’s already broken, so there is no point in waiting, when he can still hear Detective Kingston’s words echoing in his ears, Nate’s urgent dismissals an accompanying chorus. He thinks, perhaps, that someone calls his name, but he can’t be sure with his skull ringing with--

He is a soldier. A leader. He knows well when to make a strategic retreat.

He reaches his bedroom and manages to close the door firmly without slamming (or shattering) it. Adam’s bedroom is his refuge, simple and spartan though it is. A permanent home is a rarity when one works for an organization like the Agency, especially for agents as active as Unit Bravo tend to be, so he has not had much time to settle in the way the others have. Regardless, it is his space, and his alone, and simply stepping inside helps to slow his heart. But his head is still an incomprehensible, tangled mess he can’t hope to parse. He sits heavily on the edge of his bed, with its precisely tucked military corners, and puts his face in his hands, exhaling a ragged breath.

He was so careful. He always has been. Emotions are dangerous, a distraction and a burden, and while he knows he cannot simply wish them away when they become inconvenient, he should have had more than enough experience with willing them down where they can’t burden him.

But he still remembers with sharp, startling clarity the moment he first laid eyes on the man who would become his closest friend and companion, hollow-eyed, ashen, and slouched, the tang of salt air and blood still clinging stubbornly to his skin. Centuries have passed, and Adam can’t remember what he said when making his introductions, but he can recall as if it were yesterday the way Nate’s mouth lifted weakly, the way his tired eyes creased at the corners, the way he huffed out a soft, raspy laugh and politely croaked, “Nathaniel Sewell. Lovely to meet you.” He didn’t know it for what it was then, but the surge of fierce, determined protectiveness that took hold of him in that moment never left, and over time softened into a quiet, gentle adoration that sits in his chest still to this day, unspoken, even to his own ears. To say it, to give it a voice, would make it real enough to hurt him more than the dull throb of longing, the urge to reach over on the occasions they study together and push a loose curl of hair back behind Nate’s ear.

Adam du Mortain is no coward, but he remembers all too well-- and fears-- what his feelings are capable of when they rage out of control, and that fear is what keeps them tightly leashed, and what protects the ones under his care from their influence. It is a useful fear, if still a shameful one, and Adam has lived as long as he has by using every tool at his disposal to succeed.

It’s a conversation he’s had with himself countless times before, when the ache gets to be too much.

He’s so engrossed in his silent mantra, almost meditative at this point with three centuries of repetition, he does not realize he isn’t alone until he hears his door click shut. His head jerks up, teeth instinctively bared upon being caught off guard, but it’s Nate, who raises his hands like he is gentling a startled animal and murmurs, “It’s only me,” with a soft smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

For a long, long moment, they simply stare at one another, before Adam breaks and has to look down again, the pained understanding crinkling Nate’s brow too much to bear. His shoulders buckle under the weight of it, his chest tight enough he would fear choking if he needed to breathe. He knows what’s coming, and has dreaded it even longer than he knew its name.

Adam feels every single second that ticks by, waiting for Nate to break the heavy silence, and his gut swoops when his friend inhales, as if bolstering for what he’s about to say.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

Adam’s spine snaps straight so quickly it’s a wonder he doesn’t hear it crack. But, of course, he can’t hear much under the racing of his own pulse in his ears. His eyes shoot to his friend’s face, and he is still smiling, but it is so much sadder now, his eyes shining with unshed tears. Adam rolls his tongue, his senses so full of Nate he can taste the tang of salt.

“Know what?” he croaks.

Nate’s face crumples, his mouth twisting into a scowl. “Adam, please,” he bites out, “spare me. Don’t…” He swallows so hard his throat clicks, the tears welling more, trembling on his lashes. His hands flex at his sides. “Don’t play dumb, please. You’re better than that.”

Adam has never been so confused in his very, very, very long life. He stares at Nate, however much it aches in the deep unspoken recesses of his chest, because he needs to understand. Nate’s lips are pinched into a grim line, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He looks sad, and hurt, but most notably, he looks angry. It’s a quiet anger, contained, but bubbling beneath the taut surface, and Adam wants to reach out and smooth away the line creasing his brow, the tension in his jaw.

“I don’t understand,” he insists, voice cracking with emotion he tries very hard to push down, but the walls he’s so carefully built are starting to crumble.

Nate glowers at him for a long moment, and the intensity, the pained fury, in that stare makes Adam feel like an insect specimen being pulled apart and held down by pins being driven ever so slowly into the softest parts of his body. And then, like storm clouds blown away from the sun, the expression changes. Nate’s jaw goes slack, his eyes widening.

“You… You’re serious. You have no idea, even now? After--” He laughs, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle it. Still, it hurts, and Adam curls in on himself and clutches his chest, a sour feeling bubbling inside him. “Adam, I thought… All this time, I thought you were… Pretending to be ignorant, to spare my feelings, and then you just-- You ran off, and I… I thought you only just--” He’s begun to pace, rambling as he stalks back and forth from one bare wall to another, hands gesturing wildly, and he doesn’t look as if he’s including Adam in this strange, one-sided conversation.

Adam curls in on himself tighter, shoulders around his ears, eyes on the floor.

Nate finally comes to a stop in the middle of the floor, and he laughs again, nearly hysterical. Adam can’t bear to look at him. Until he speaks, the words coming out of him in a near-frantic rush. “I’ve been absolutely, stupidly, pitifully in love with you for centuries at this point, and I've kept it to myself because, of course you could never feel the same, and I figured you knew, because you had to have known, I was so obvious about it, but you didn’t want to hurt me, so you pretended you didn’t know, but you really, truly had no bloody idea.”

Adam lifts his head so sharply it makes him dizzy. Nate is standing as if a stiff breeze could knock him over, unsteady and weak, hands visibly shaking at his sides. His eyes, dark and sweet and framed by long, wet lashes, glimmer in the low light. He inhales, shaky and shuddering. “You don’t have to say anything,” he whispers, smiling that strange, sad smile. “I know… I know this is all coming out of nowhere for you, and I know… I know you could never…” His breath hitches. “I’m sorry, Adam. I should have told you so long ago, just to clear the air.” He laughs again, soft and weak. “Maybe that would have made it easier to…” He trails off, twisting his hands and looking away.

Adam pushes himself to his feet. Every muscle in his body feels pulled taut, protests the motion, but when he is fully upright the tension slowly bleeds away. He crosses the room with a deliberate slowness, one foot in front of the other. Nate doesn’t look up until they are nearly chest-to-chest, and his eyes… they are warm, and soft, and so, so sad. His lips tremble, soundlessly forming words that Adam vaguely recognizes as, perhaps, a weak apology, but his pulse is drumming so wildly in his ears he doesn’t think he’d hear them if they were spoken. He can’t be sure what his face is doing, what he must look like, because he is so focused on Nate, on the words echoing in his head and overlapping in a confused, desperately overjoyed jumble. He reaches out tentatively, his fingertips brushing Nate’s where they twist around each other. They freeze the second Adam’s make contact.

And then they grab his and cling, his grip so tight Adam thinks if he looked down, he’d see stark white knuckles. He pulls one hand, just one, loose, and Nate makes a heartbreaking noise deep in his chest, clutching the hand Adam leaves him even tighter. It would likely hurt if it were anyone's hand but Adam's.

With his free hand, he reaches up, curling his fingers around the nape of Nate’s neck, fingers burrowing into his hair. There is something in him that screams at him to put a stop to this somehow, but after so long of looking at his dearest friend, the man he’s had at his back for centuries, who he trusts more than anyone he’s ever known, he knows he’s not strong enough to stop, not after so many years of longing. The dark strands curling around his fingers make him shudder, and when he pulls, Nate comes willingly, bending down so that Adam can put their foreheads together. It takes another steadying breath for him to tilt his face up and press his mouth softly, almost timidly, to Nate’s chin, the stubble catching his lips and sending sparks through him.

Nate gasps, twisting his head sharply to the side, and their lips brush, a single quick, wet point of contact, and the sparks become a firestorm under his skin. The sound that rips from his throat would be mortifying, if he had any willpower to think of anything but crushing his mouth to Nate’s so hard he feels his lip split. The sting is hardly worth acknowledging, healing away almost instantly. He feels wild, hungry, but somehow weak and fragile, clinging to his friend as if afraid to be swept away, or worse, pushed. But Nate holds onto him as if he can’t bear to let go, lacing their fingers together and squeezing, wrapping the other hand around Adam’s lower back and pressing so that Adam stumbles against him. A miscalculation on Nate’s part, and one that sends him careening towards Adam’s desk.

He grunts when his backside hits the edge, and he has to release Adam’s hand to flail back and catch himself, which leaves his commanding agent no choice but to clutch at his crisp shirt and feel the threads strain in protest against his needy grip. Mostly unphased, his tongue drags along Adam’s bottom lip, a wordless request that Adam permits without thought, mouth falling open in a thready moan.

With permission happily given, Nate consumes him. Somehow, they wind up spun around, Adam pushed against the desk, breathless and overwhelmed, knees close to buckling. They break apart, and he makes another strangled, pitiful sound that rips itself from him with no consideration for his centuries of careful restraint. Nate gives a low, warm laugh that rumbles where their chests are pressed together so snugly Adam can’t tell whose wild heartbeat is whose. He chases the lost kiss, wants to know desperately what that laugh tastes like, but Nate stops him with a firm hand that slides between their bodies and presses to the center of his chest. The bare inch of space it creates between them feels like entirely too much.

“How long?” Nate asks roughly, still staring down at him with stars in his eyes, lips reddened and wet. He swallows hard, his jaws flexing, his breaths short and shallow. “How long have you…”

Adam wants to look away, but when he tries to, Nate’s hands flash up to cup his cheeks, holding his face still. Adam’s breath hitches, his heart pounding so hard he fears it’s going to beat its way right through his ribs.

“How long, Adam?” Nate asks him so softly, his thumb drawing along his cheekbone.

“As long as I’ve known you,” he admits tightly. He wants to close his eyes, to hide somehow, but Nate’s dark, intent gaze holds him prisoner, warm and tender and understanding. He helplessly clenches his hands, frozen in place, his body alive with heat and tremors he thought he’d long learned to force down, along with every other emotion he’s felt since his family… Nate’s thumb drags along the divot below his lips, his breath hitches, and the words keep tumbling from his mouth as if Nate’s got them on a string. “I have never once looked at you without… without wanting.”

“Adam,” Nate nearly sobs, smiling so broadly it must ache, those damnable, beautiful crinkles scrunching around his eyes. The tears fall freely now, dripping down his cheeks. Adam wants nothing more than to kiss them away, but he doesn’t, shaking with the will it takes to keep himself contained. “You never… Why didn’t you say anything?”

Adam steadies himself on the edge of the desk biting into the backs of his thighs, his lungs squeezing. “I didn’t think…” He looks up at Nate, the fall of hair over his brow, the endless warmth of his eyes, the wobbly, wondering smile on his soft mouth, and he breaks. The heat of tears on his face is quickly brushed away by gentle fingers, and Nate croons wordlessly at him.

“You didn’t think you deserved it,” he finishes, as he always does, reaching into Adam’s heart and plucking the truth from him as easily as if it were any of their thousands of wordless conversations. Nate knows everything about him, his past, his fears, his guilt. And never once has he begrudged Adam the space to express them, even when it was ugly. Even when he couldn’t put them into words, and simply needed to feel something break.

“You are…” He swallows, licks his lips, cooling now that Nate’s lips aren’t keeping them warm. His chest squeezes, the rhythm of his heart staggering with fears he could never give voice. But he needs to, now. He’s held them inside for so long, and look where it’s gotten him, the both of them. Denying not just himself happiness, but Nate, the one who deserves it more than anyone. “I was afraid you would… Even if you didn’t feel the same, I couldn’t take the chance you would indulge me out of kindness.”

Nate chuckles, but there is a heat to his tawny skin that Adam can taste more than he can see. “I am not so self-sacrificing as all that,” he sighs wistfully. “You always did have a much loftier opinion of me than you should.”

“I think my opinion of you is more than justified,” Adam fires back fiercely, tugging on Nate’s shirt, where he suddenly realizes his hands are still tangled.

Nate smiles, and it is such a soft thing that burrows into Adam’s chest and makes a home there, along with every other smile he’s privately stowed away. But this one… this one is for him, and him alone. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew all the things I’ve been thinking about doing to you for the last three hundred years.”

Heat streaks its way through Adam’s body, and there is a tiny pop as one of Nate’s buttons finally gives way to his grip.

The tender smile on Nate’s lips curls into something entirely different, sly and wicked, and his thumb drags along Adam’s lower lip. Adam is suddenly intensely aware of how closely the two of them are pressed together, from knees to chest.

“Perhaps you would,” Nate allows, chuckling. “You do live to surprise me, even after all this time.”

Adam, left feeling overheated, restless, and uncomfortably seen, shifts from foot to foot and decides there has been more than enough talking. They have plenty of time to talk, but for now, he very much would like to make up for lost time. He reaches up and curls his fingers along Nate’s jaw, rubbing at the coarseness of his stubble, and Nate turns into the touch like a flower towards the sun, lips dragging along the tender skin of Adam’s palm. His knees tremble, and before he can lose his nerve, he pulls Nate into another delicate kiss. Nate sighs happily against his mouth, tipping Adam’s head back so that he can more thoroughly steal his breath away.

“You’re right,” he murmurs, always so easily reading into Adam’s gestures. “I think we’ve wasted enough time, talking and not-talking. At least this version of not-talking is productive.”

Adam wouldn’t exactly call it productive in the grand scheme of things, but for once he has no desire to argue.