❝ you need someone right now. and i’m the one that’s here. let me be what you need. ❞
IT’S BEEN WEEKS SINCE THEY’VE SEEN EACH OTHER ALONE, LET ALONE IN TRISTAN’S MODEST ROOM. in all reality, weeks since @k4ssa has let them be alone, distracted as he’s been in the arms of another, sharing what they should be sharing, doing what they should be doing. it’s agonizing, in a way tristan thinks perhaps it shouldn’t be. it only makes matters worse that cassian has insisted on parading the situation around in front of his very eyes. even if that isn’t the intent, it’s the effect, an effect which has driven young tristan half mad since, such that he’s taken to avoiding the main ferrix streets altogether, sticking to rooftops and the alleyways he knows cass frequents least in an effort to avoid them as much as possible. it was either that or do something drastic to snatch cassian’s attention back, which seems likely humiliating, in the end. doesn’t he know how thoroughly it drives tris out of his mind? doesn’t he know how it kills him little by little? not that tris expected anything else but abandonment. he’s the little rat of ferrix, a creature that nobody really wants around, except for the moments in which cass has chosen not to ignore him. ( those became less frequent practically the moment they first shared exploratory kisses, touches, first shared a bed, swearing in an inch of shared breath that they could have a little fun and make each other feel good as friends and it would change nothing, even though it instantly changed everything. ) to think that anybody, let alone ferrix’s golden boy, would want him for keeps would be ridiculous. cassian andor, the one everyone loves no matter how much he fucks up. it doesn’t matter that they are so much the same, that whatever souls live within them are forged almost indistinguishably ; tristan will never receive the same grace as his companion. it is as much a reliable pattern as the rising of the sun.
and now he’s truly alone. seneca certainly wasn’t much for company or comfort or family, and tris is certain he won’t actually miss the man. in fact, there’s a chance his life will be much improved by his absence — and an equally potent possibility that he isn’t nearly as dead as the reports claim. but he had been something, someone who at least spoke to him, who provided some semblance to tris of being human even though tris had always been aware he didn’t fully think of him that way. the news of the criminal’s death has surely spread throughout ferrix and is likely being quietly celebrated by many ; he expects that rumor mill is why cassian’s here at all. perhaps tris should feel grateful that at least one person in the galaxy has bothered to make sure he’s all right, but it turns to sickness in his gut to know this is what it took to bring him back.
the lamp at tris’s bedside hums and glows, the light catching on the planes of their faces, although tristan only spares a glance for his friend who lingers in the middle of the room, determined to mostly keep his back turned as he stands beside his own cot, uncertain how to proceed. you need someone right now, cassian says, and tristan wants to scream. I don’t need anybody! his instincts howl furiously. not anybody, not him, and certainly not you! but he says nothing, not even as he hears the other man’s footsteps grow closer behind him. and I’m the one that’s here, he continues as he hovers over tris’s shoulder, bending his head near to his ear, two hands tentatively lifting to trace careful fingers over his waist. tristan wants to lash out, to remind him that he hadn’t been, that he’d avoided him, that he’d rejected him again and has no right to say this to him now. it’s a sharp, cruel reminder that tristan has no one else, not really. unless cassian’s whims bring him here instead of to some new distraction, he is alone. let me be what you need. it is these last words whispered against the shell of tristan’s ear that cut like a knife, pressing into some part of him reserved solely for the other man, some part of him that is already all agony.
“ cassian, ” he protests weakly, shaking his head and lifting his hands to cover his own face, even as his head tilts back to meet cass’s solid shoulder. the other man’s mouth finds his neck, kissing a sensuous line from the hinge of his jaw downward, pulling a frustrated yet keening groan from him. resentment. desire. yearning. hated. so many ravenous emotions spring against the bars of their cages in his chest at his lover’s touch. cassian’s hands explore the familiar angles of his hips and torso, slipping beneath his shirt to trace over his abdomen, prompting a shiver that travels to the base of tristan’s spine. “ you have someone waiting on you. ” equal parts stubborn and breathless, although for all he knows, cassian’s most recent tryst is over with already as they often are, which would have eventually led him to tristan’s doorstep anyway. it is more confirmation of what tris knows than actual fact, the subtext clear as day — I know you left me to chase greener pastures again, I know you’ve been warming another bed, I know these hands have most recently brought another to wordless pleasure, I know you took away what I need only to bring it back at my lowest moment as though you are somehow benevolent. he hates him for it. he hates himself for it more.
tristan feels the other man pull him back against him fully, one hand spread on his abdomen just under his sternum while his other arm holds him shoulder to shoulder, his forearm firm and warm against tristan’s collarbone. he pretends to struggle, enough to make clear he’s still upset about what happened, yet certainly not enough to convince his lover he actually wants to be let go. his hands fall from his face, hooking on the arm restraining his shoulders. the bitter truth lies in the overwhelming relief he feels, the one emotion louder than all the others, although his shame for it runs a close second. he knows his expression must be mutilated with distress as he closes his eyes, pulls a breath through his teeth, lets cassian suck hungry marks into the skin of his neck as he guides him closer to the cot. I want to hate him, tris thinks bitterly, achingly. everything would be easier if I could just hate him. but he doesn’t, he couldn’t, not this man who he’d grown up with, who knows and understands the bitter beating heart of him. he wears that weakness like the brand of a curse, the outline of cassian andor’s fingertips burned into his skin, into the very core of him, in a way he’s beginning to think he’ll never escape.
“ I don’t forgive you, ” he says, managing to sound sharp, almost scathing despite his slight breathlessness, even as cass’s mouth against his jaw makes him gasp. the hand beneath his shirt retracts to find his belt instead, undoing it skillfully, and tristan decides he doesn’t really care if his lover still has someone waiting on him after all. if he fights, it is for himself. if he resists, if he makes cassian work for it, then it is to pay the penance for leaving him again. “ you’ll have to make me. ” a challenge — something neither of them have ever been able to effectively ignore. his fingers sink further into the arm anchoring around his upper body, almost deep enough to bruise. with that same arm, cassian flips him around to face him in an instant, backing him up against the cot until he has no choice but to sit heavily. still, tristan’s eyes burn, all willful defiance and righteous anger. “ you’re an asshole, andor, you’re a fucking asshole, I don’t forgive you, I … ” but he’s cut off as cass cups his jaw in his hands and leans down for a bruising kiss, purposeful, as unrelenting as they both are, and tristan meets it with every ounce of his own fury as he can muster, reaching up to pull at cassian’s shirt so abruptly that he tears the base of the hem an inch. his teeth find his lover’s bottom lip and he bites, just hard enough to taste metal. it’s against his mouth that he speaks next, as the other man presses him down to the cot with rough hands and rougher kisses, and while tristan’s voice wavers through the heat of it, the fierceness remains: “ so, make me. earn it. ”
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