Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ow!” Elliot hissed and slapped Sesa's chest while rubbing at the painful spot on the side of his head.

Sesa, who had still been sound asleep next to him, woke with a startle, looking at him in groggy confusion. “Ouch! Why the hell did you do that?!”

“You did it again!"

“Did what ?”

“Stabbed me.” To emphasize his point, Elliot sharply flicked the tip of Sesa's horn. He made a strange face at that, squinting one eye shut as the vibration traveled through his skull, before shooing Elliot's hand away.

“No, I didn't!”

Elliot shot him an angry glare as he climbed out of bed.

“Ok, sorry ,” Sesa sighed in dramatic defeat. “I told you not to wiggle around so much,” he tacked on in a half-mumble.  

“I do not …wiggle.”

Sesa snorted a laugh as he spread himself in a slow, indulgent stretch. “You do.”

“Fine. If I wiggle around so much I suppose it would be better if I slept somewhere else," Elliot snapped back, as he approached the open window of their hotel room. He could feel a warm breeze blowing in, carrying with it the sounds from the street below as well as the persistent, quiet droning of the waves.

“Oh my god, you drama queen… Sorry, okay?” he huffed in annoyance. “It's not my fault.”

Elliot half wanted to keep arguing, but taking in the view from their window seemed like a better use of his time. The Sieastan seaside was laid out in front of him, with the sea - turquoise-blue and glittering in the sun - just a row of buildings away from where they were staying. He could see that the streets were already busy: with how long they had slept in, it was slowly approaching noon, and cafes, stores, and the beach itself were becoming crowded with vacationers and tourists. All of it was terribly picturesque, Elliot thought, like a scene from a postcard come to life, though how long he could stand this almost cartoonishly idyllic view he couldn't begin to guess. Thankfully, he wouldn't truly have to find out - they were here for only a day, having arrived late last night and scheduled to leave again for Rhodes Island the next morning. The ship itself was docked just on the border of the city, some operators' urgent business here that required the organization's involvement being the reason they had the opportunity to enjoy this short impromptu break.

Elliot looked back at Sesa, who had finally sat up. His hair was a ridiculous mess, red strands stretching in all cardinal directions. It almost made Elliot laugh.

Sesa was watching him in the same manner he did every morning they spent together - pensively and suspiciously, as if he had to first go through some mental exercise or checklist to evaluate his relationship with Elliot, to justify his being there, to decide how to act. It was so easy for Elliot to read him, and Sesa's inability to give their bizarre relationship shape in his mind was always vaguely amusing to watch.

“What d'ya wanna do today?” Sesa finally asked, seemingly done with his daily round of mental anguish.

Elliot hummed in thought as he searched for his clothes to start going about his, admittedly, rather long routine of getting ready; most of it spent on his hair, needless to say. “I suppose I'd enjoy simply seeing the city. Perhaps take a stroll to the sea. I haven't had a chance to see it in many years.”

“Alone?” Sesa asked with played-up casualness.

“I don't entirely care," Elliot replied with the same degree of of-handedness as he walked into the bathroom.

They had ended up here in a similar manner: neither one of them had invited the other anywhere, and getting to a hotel together had been a tooth-achingly difficult procedure, consisting of bouts of idiotically roundabout and vague conversations about their plans. Elliot didn't want to invite Sesa anywhere because he, in his own passively sadistic way, wanted Sesa to break first and ask him for permission to join; Sesa was too stubborn and too reluctant to admit he wanted anything to do with Elliot. Sesa accidentally running into Elliot near the hotel he had booked for himself was something straight out of a childish comedy. It had all been so stupid that Elliot had half considered turning around, marching back to Rhodes, and abandoning the idea altogether. He didn't, of course - he did want Sesa there with him; Elliot was much too curious to see what he would be like outside of their normal environment: how he would act, how he would treat Elliot. It was all part of Elliot’s little game, though he preferred to think of it as more of an experiment; pressure here, a prod there - all to see how he would react. Sesa was an incredibly interesting and complicated man, and Elliot was still trying to figure him out, to get to the really deep and vulnerable parts of him, and the challenge was proving to be very entertaining.

--

“How do you feel today?” Sesa asked when Elliot emerged back in the bedroom. He was lying upside-down on the bed, his head half hanging off of the edge as he played something on his phone, the game's rhythmic - and to Elliot's ears annoying - music filling the room.

“Normal," Elliot responded as he sat down by the dresser, looking at himself in the large mirror.

“That's good. Took your meds?”

Elliot clicked his tongue. “Quit trying to babysit me. It's insulting.”

Sesa was quiet for a few seconds; Elliot could feel his gaze on his back. “Did you?”

Elliot hadn't, so he stayed silent.  

“Right-” Sesa drawled as he leaped out of bed and rummaged through Elliot's belongings until he found the small container of pills, which he then haphazardly tossed on the table in front of Elliot. The gesture ticked him off so bad that Elliot turned to scowl at him, but Sesa slipped into the bathroom at just that moment, leaving whatever sharp insult Elliot had to say to die on the tip of his tongue.

Elliot sat by the dresser and combed his hair while Sesa scurried around the room as he got ready. Sesa was a livewire of a man - loud and twitchy, fire-bright, whip-sharp. It felt like he was always in motion even when he was sitting perfectly still, which he did practically never. And even when he was, it was almost as if Elliot could hear his mind running at high speed, like an incessant, barely-there mechanical whirring of gears. Elliot had grown somewhat used to it, to the stark contrast between being with him and the quietude of being alone, so when Elliot watched him in the mirror, he did it with something almost akin to fondness.

____

“You look ridiculous," Elliot declared when he saw that Sesa had put on a pair of shorts, something Elliot had never seen him do even during the hottest days in Sargon.

Sesa threw his hands in the air, annoyed. “What? D'you want me to wear jeans? Should I also put a coat and a hat on for good measure? Aren't we on holiday , you grouch?”

Elliot raised a scolding eyebrow at him, watching Sesa in the mirror as he groomed the feathers in his hair. “No need to be so petulant.”

“You should put some shorts on.”

“I don't own any, on account of me not being a teenager.”

“Shame," Sesa drawled as he rummaged through his things, looking for a shirt. "You have nice legs.”

Elliot minutely shook his head with a tired sigh.

“What? You do," Sesa muttered.

Elliot took a while to braid his hair, more intricately than he usually did, putting half of it into a complex up-do. He knew it was going to be a terribly hot day, and he wanted to keep his hair out of the way as much as possible to keep himself at least a little cool. After he was done, he stood up and started to walk away from the dresser, but Sesa plopped down on the little chair with a stupid grin and a plead of, “Do mine too?”

“...Fine," Elliot sighed in acceptance. His hands had already started growing tired, but he did truthfully quite enjoy the process, something about the simple, mechanical nature of it being comforting.

Sesa's hair was thick and terribly unruly, cut at bizarre angles and lengths, the strands fire-red between Elliot's pale fingers. It was also full of tangles, so when Elliot ran his comb through it, Sesa hissed with a yelp, “Ow, be careful!”

Elliot scoffed. “Oh, shut up, you big baby. It’s your own fault.”

“I forget to comb it, okay?” Sesa huffed, brows furrowed in discomfort as he absentmindedly toyed with a hair-tie Elliot had left on the dresser. 

Elliot watched his face in the mirror. It was one of those moments when it struck him how different Sesa was from anyone else he'd met in Sargon. So different that it was sometimes hard to believe that the person he was looking at was really him , really Bridge, a black market veteran like Elliot himself. To him, most people in Sargon, and especially in Reefstep, were rough and unpleasant, both in looks and personality; they aged quickly and often terribly - a result of the unforgiving desert climate and a hard life. But Sesa looked young; he looked many years younger than he really was, and often acted like it too. Much of it had to do with his face: it was youthful and expressive, sharp canines flashing when he smiled or laughed, which he did often, and eyes that constantly darted from one place to another. He had peculiar eyes - upward-slanted and clever, attractive in an exotic way. They were a strange, rich red, miniature explosions condensed and contained, lively and bright. Naturally red eyes were a rarity; Elliot had met only a handful of people over the course of his life who had them. (Thorne had been one of them. It was one of the many things that sometimes made Elliot wonder just how much of his interest in Sesa was based on those glints of similarity between them. But it was disgustingly unpleasant to think about, so he did his best not to).

After he was done, they were ready to leave, and Sesa walked over to his bag and rummaged through it to get whatever things he needed for the day. Elliot could see him freeze when his hand closed around his gun.

“Leave it," Elliot said.

“Yeah. Of course." Sesa was quiet for a moment, before looking up at him. “It's kinda hard. You know?”

“I know.” He did know - voluntarily stripping away that bit of security and comfort that their weapons gave them was somewhat terrifying. “Let us keep a low profile today and at least try to enjoy ourselves. Pretend we’re normal people.”

“Normal people? That’s some fucked up role-play for us," Sesa snorted a laugh. "Like playing Sims with yourself as a character.”

“What?” Elliot muttered in confusion, fixing his earring in the mirror.

“Wow, you’re really clueless sometimes," Sesa drawled. "You need some sort of a ‘Modern Culture 101’ crash course. I can give you one for free, if you want.”

Elliot turned around to glare at him - Sesa stared back, and suddenly, the almost negligible height and build difference made Elliot feel small and childish, so he scoffed and turned back around to get the room key.

“So, what kind of normal people are we today? What’s our cover?” Sesa asked as he followed Elliot around the room.

“ Cover ?”

“Yeah. What flavour of normal are we?”

“You manchild…” Elliot sighed. 

“You're no help at all,” Sesa huffed, trying to peer down at Elliot over his shoulder to get his attention. “They always discuss this shit in movies.”

“Sesa, put that imagination of yours to good use if this drivel is so important to you,” Elliot grumbled as he tried to unlock the old, creaky lock on the door. “Whether you want us to be colleagues or husbands or second cousins, I could not care less. It's completely unthinkable that someone is going to care about who we are if we act properly.”

Elliot finally managed to unlock the door, and walked out, expecting Sesa to follow; when he didn't, Elliot turned to him. Sesa was looking at him with an expression of mildly offended disappointment. He then mumbled, "Killjoy...", before finally following Elliot out the door.

Despite the sun not having yet reached its peak and their proximity to the seaside, it was already incredibly, oppressively hot. It was a different heat from the one in Sargon, where the sun was sharp and biting, like flames on your skin - a dry desert heat that Elliot had long grown accustomed to. Here it was heavy, wet, and nauseating. Elliot briefly paused by the hotel exit and considered turning around and spending the day in their cool, dark room. But Sesa had already strolled ahead, seemingly completely uncaring of the temperature as he always was, so turning back seemed somewhat embarrassing, and Elliot braced himself for a day of discomfort as he followed him.

Elliot could notice people watching them as they made their way down the pier, searching for someplace quiet to have breakfast. It was no surprise: Sesa was a walking exclamation mark with his bright hair, tall frame, and unusual features; Elliot himself was used to attracting stares - whether on account of his long hair or his good looks, he wasn't always sure, but it didn't matter either way.

The entire walk, Sesa kept glancing over his shoulder at seemingly nothing and unconsciously fiddling with his hands.

“Relax,” Elliot said quietly, just for Sesa to hear. “You look like a teenager who pickpocketed a pack of gum and is expecting to get caught.”

Sesa shot him a side-eyed look as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You're not much better yourself.” He nodded towards Elliot's hands, which were balled into tight fists, resting tensely by his sides; he hadn't even noticed. Elliot forced himself to relax with a quiet exhale. He understood how Sesa felt - strangely exposed. Without their weapons and their gear, they looked and felt just about as capable as any civilian here, and it was not a pleasant feeling. There was a persistent, nagging feeling in the back of Elliot's neck that made him think that any second now someone was going to take one look at them and instantly tell just what kind of people they were - the dangerous kind, with many valuable secrets and a lot to hide.

---

After a few minutes, they found a comparatively quiet place right on the shore, with a terrace that offered a clear view of the sea. They sat down in the corner, as far away from everyone else as possible. It all felt incredibly bizarre: after months and months of dining in the grey, steely Rhodes Island cafeteria or some sandy place in Sargon, this was unbearably nice and normal, to the point that it felt unreal. As if Elliot and Sesa were part of some elaborate skit or practical joke.

After they had ordered and the waitress had departed with a cheery promise of their drinks arriving soon, Sesa opened his mouth to say something but closed it immediately. He then looked around the establishment while absentmindedly playing with his napkin, as if expecting the staff or the cutlery to give him some clues on what to do or say. Elliot sat still and watched the sharp, almost unpleasant contrast between his hair and the bright blue sky. 

“What are we supposed to talk about?” Sesa finally asked.

Normally, they hardly ever ran out of topics to discuss, but none of them - work, Sargon, Rhodes Island, their plans, or any of their typical arguments - were appropriate for the setting, for the white tablecloths, parasols, and smiling college-age waiters. And since that covered just about the entirety of both of their lives, not many options were left.

“Normal things," Elliot responded.

Sesa laughed at that, teeth white in the sun. He did have such a nice smile - wide and playful, like he was always in on the joke. He had an incredibly expressive face overall; to Sesa, it all seemed to come so naturally - big smiles and frowns, looks of surprise and anger, all written clearly over his face and posture. It was terribly interesting for Elliot, who himself sometimes felt like his own face was a strange mask; like he had to think about what muscles to activate to make specific expressions, as if he were piloting some device. Sometimes it was easier not to bother, so his face was often blank.  

“Fine. Normal things. How are we supposed to do that?”

Elliot shrugged one shoulder, the movement slight and elegant. “I don't know. I am no more versed in this than you are.”

Sesa sighed, blowing away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. “Ok. I'll ask you a normal question and you ask me one in return. And we'll have a normal conversation,” he said with an air of amusement.

Elliot almost dismissed him. He would have been perfectly content sitting in absolute silence, but it seemed quite impolite to completely ignore him; he knew that Sesa liked to talk, even when it wasn't necessary, so he agreed with a slight, begrudging nod. 

The waitress delivered their drinks - black coffee for Elliot and a strawberry milkshake for Sesa, in line with his childlike palate. Sesa sipped it for a while, pensive. “Uh… Can't ask what you do for a living... Can't ask where you live... Can't ask if you're married…”

“You can ask me if I'm married,” Elliot responded as he took a sip of his coffee - it was unpleasantly hot and sour.

Sesa froze, his eyes widening. “You're married ?” he blurted in disbelief.

“No.”

Sesa let out a tense breath, his shoulders dropping before shooting Elliot a glare - he smiled an innocent smile in response.

“Uh, what's your favourite colour?”

“ Really ?” Elliot deadpanned.

“What? Don't like that one?” Sesa asked with a laugh. “…Then,  what's your favourite food?”

Elliot sighed.  “Are we in kindergarten?”

"Hey! I'm trying my best, okay?" Sesa pouted, playing with his straw. Elliot could see him barely containing a laugh in light of the strangeness of the situation.

“Cherries,” Elliot answered after a moment.

“Really?” Sesa asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. Why are you surprised?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I assumed it'd be like... grey mass or... purified helium, or something like that."

"What exactly do you think I am? A robot?" Elliot asked with a glare.

He could hear Sesa quietly mumble 'sometimes', before nodding at him. “Ok, your turn.”

Elliot crossed one leg over the other and smoothed a crease in his pants. “What's your real name?”

Sesa immediately tensed, and clandestinely looked at the people sitting closest to them, making sure they weren't listening. “That's not a normal question, Elliot," he hissed in a whisper. “You suck at this,” he muttered with a disappointed sigh.

“That was obviously a joke.”

Sesa huffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Totally, obviously. Super funny too.” He sipped his milkshake again. “Don't worry, one of these days I'm sure you'll say something funny for the first time in your life.”

Elliot hummed, running his fingertips over the porcelain-white rim of his cup. “Thank you. I am sure you will too,” he said flatly.

Sesa flinched at that, as if physically wounded. “Ouch. Punching below the belt, huh?”

Silence settled over them, and Elliot assumed Sesa had given up on his little game. But then he suddenly asked, head cocked, “What's something you'd like to do if you had more free time?”

Elliot considered it for a moment as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “I don’t know anything besides engineering, nor does anything much interest me besides that. So, work and read, I suppose." Sesa looked terribly bored by his answer, so Elliot huffed, "I don't know, alright? I haven't even entertained the idea of having free time in three decades. This," Elliot gestured vaguely at their surroundings, "is terribly unusual for me."

"I get it, I get it," Sesa mumbled, throwing his hands in the air.

“And you?” Elliot asked, lifting his cup to his lips.

Sesa thought for a moment, chewing on his straw. “I'm kinda the same. There are many things I wanna try building, but there's never enough time," he said with a dramatic sigh. "Hmm… maybe learn how to play the drums,” he tacked on.

“Oh, god," Elliot mumbled.

“What?"

"Just think of the noise..."

"How is it any of your business?! It's not like we live together," Sesa huffed.

Elliot rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Just thinking about it gets on my nerves.”

It was Elliot's turn; Sesa rested his cheek in his hand and watched him, waiting, his tail flicking from side to side behind him.

“What were you like when you were young?” Elliot finally asked after a minute of silence. Sesa was somewhat of a master when it came to avoiding topics he did not want to discuss, him being able to talk in long, confusing circles about absolutely anything, including his life before his brother's death. Elliot had always been quite curious about what had been like and what had made him into the man he is now.

Sesa practically flinched at the question, before staring at the tablecloth for a while, as if in defeat, with no way to squirm out of answering this time. “A bit of a loser,” he finally said with a sigh.

“So nothing has changed?”

“Yeah, exactly," he deadpanned sarcastically.  “I'm serious though. I didn't have a lot of friends. Besides my brother, I guess. But that's... you know," he waved his hand dismissively. "I was always studying, so I didn't really know how to talk to people. Kind of just… a… nerd.” He scratched his cheek in something akin to embarrassment, the gesture uncharacteristically cute. “You?” he quickly asked, nodding at Elliot, trying to get the attention away from himself.

Elliot leaned back in his chair. “Hmm… Prissy, I suppose."

" So nothing has changed ?" Sesa joked, parroting Elliot's earlier words in his best attempt to mimic his voice - he actually did a surprisingly good job, somehow nailing Elliot's slight accent that he had when speaking Sargonian.

He lightly kicked Sesa's calf under the table for that comment. "Being labeled a genius at the age of thirteen and only spending time with adults, who also happen to be your colleagues, will make a person like that," he hummed. "But I was also polite, smart, curious. Quite sociable."

“ You ? Sociable?” Sesa huffed in disbelief.

“I wasn't always like this.”

Sesa leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, his eyes on Elliot. “Damn," he finally said. "I wish I could have met a young you. Sounds like a young Elliot was a lot easier to deal with,” he snickered.

Elliot lowered his eyes. “I wish you had.” He had thought about it many times before. It was a useless thought, of course - they were who they were, but sometimes he wondered if the two of them would have found common ground, and cared about each other at all had they met under different circumstances, as different people.

"Uh, speaking of... Maybe this is a rude question or something," Sesa mumbled, fiddling with the tablecloth, "but do you remember your childhood at all?”

"With my parents?"

"Yeah."

Elliot closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to recall. It was hard; even remembering his younger self was difficult, much less anything else. It was as if he was trying to recall the memories of a different person, not his own - the line between who he was now and who he had been felt so stark that it blurred his past into something hazy and inaccessible like he was viewing it through a thick layer of frosted glass.

"Some things, just barely. Hazy snippets…” he finally responded.  “There's really only one clear memory I have. The backseat of my mother's car. Her driving as the radio played." Elliot ran his hand over his face. "I'm not sure why I remember that."

“What was she like?”

“My mother?” Elliot tried to recall her face, but couldn't. All he could see was a vague shape and only brief, confusing fragments of anything else. “Thin. She had these frail wrists."

“Like yours," Sesa hummed.

“Like mine.” Elliot was silent for a moment, his eyes trained on the waves lapping at the coast. “Sorry," he finally said quietly with a soft exhale. "It's hard. It's been many years too long. I am not sure if those are even my memories or something my mind has fabricated to fill in the gaps.”

Sesa was watching him pensively, with something that looked something like sympathy on his face.

“What about your parents? When was the last time you saw them?” Elliot asked. 

Sesa leaned back in his chair. " Years ago. Over a decade now," he huffed.

"Are they alive?"

Sesa shrugged one shoulder, his eyes trained on the napkin he had just started folding into a flimsy origami bird. “I think so. Were last time I checked,” he said quietly. He froze for a moment then, before shaking his head. “God, they're old now. I wonder what they look like."

“Do you wish to see them?”

"I..." he trailed off in thought. "No. I don't think I could ever face them again."

"Why? Realized the cruelty of what you did? Leaving them after their child had died, both of their sons now gone?"

" Don't ," Sesa uttered. "It was not an easy decision to make."

Elliot shrugged. "Decisions are never easy. But it's still the one you made."

Sesa held his gaze for a moment, tense, before lowering his eyes. "I can't see them. Not until I..." he whispered quietly. He didn't need to finish - Elliot understood.

Silence settled over them, somewhat strained and charged. Elliot turned to look at the water, watching the small shapes of people in the distance. Sesa looked at him for a while, unusually still, a strange expression on his face. He then rested his head against the railing of the terrace, also turning his eyes toward the sea.  

“Elliot, what did you think your life was gonna be like?” he suddenly asked, his voice strangely flat.  

“Better," Elliot answered as he emptied his cup, the last dregs of his drink thick and unpleasant.

"Yeah. You and I both," Sesa muttered. “ I thought I'd get to go to Columbia with my brother." He minutely shook his head with a silent, bitter laugh. "Thought I'd invent something genius and become rich and famous. Awards and a big house and something named after me. The whole thing.”

Elliot almost laughed at the childishness of the thought and how much it suited him. “You wanted to leave Sargon?”

“Of course. Who doesn't?”

Elliot looked at him then - he looked uncharacteristically wistful. Elliot catalogued the expression in his mind. “Then perhaps in another life, we would have met in Columbia.”

Sesa sighed quietly. “...Yeah. In another life.”

He then shifted, resting his head against the back of the chair, watching the sky. “So much for a normal conversation.”

“Let’s stay quiet, then. Maybe we are incapable of that.”

They wandered the city aimlessly for many hours - down the boardwalk, through crowds of tourists wandering slowly from shop to cafe to shop; through the city center, loud, busy and bright; through quiet residential neighborhoods, with green yards and convertibles parked in driveways.

The whole time, Elliot felt as if he was watching the world unfolding around him from some far-away place, not through his own eyes. He couldn't place himself in the absurd normalcy of everything - the warm sun, surfboards and swimsuits, silly souvenir shops and lemonade stands, families and couples going on about their day without a care in the world. The contrast with the life he had known for the past decades - sand, steel, and blood - was so stark that it felt completely surreal, like he was a strange outside entity, unseen and immaterial, observing some elaborate simulation.

Elliot wanted to ask Sesa whether he felt the same, but he couldn't quite understand how to put this bizarre feeling into words. Sesa was good at acting, used to pretending, but despite that, Elliot would sometimes notice how Sesa's fingers would instinctively reach for where he usually kept his gun holstered on his belt. For a brief second, a small tension would overcome him when they closed around nothing until he relaxed again and stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep them still. A few times, Elliot saw him momentarily freeze with a strange look on his face - a deep confusion, as if he was unsure where he was or what he was doing. He would shake his head and it would pass then, gone in an instant, but Elliot knew that he understood.

The midday heat was suffocating. When they were in direct sun, it would warm the small, black crystal in Elliot’s forehead, making the edges of it where it met his skin feel like small veins of fire. Everything was blindingly bright, reflecting off the pale buildings, the sand, and neon-bright signs; it was quite dizzying, and at times Elliot would find himself blinking blurry spots of light from his eyes, having suddenly grown lightheaded from it all. Sesa would, much to Elliot's chagrin, notice and would hold onto his wrist with a look of poorly veiled concern until it passed.

Much of the day they spent like this: slowly and confusingly, with both of them doing their best approximation of things a normal person would do on holiday. Elliot mostly simply trailed after Sesa. He watched him play stupid games on the street (he actually won a small felt eel in a shooting game, but lost it almost immediately after and was quite sad about it the whole day); him trying to pet every stray cat he came across, with little success; him pretending to be interested in the ugly, cliché souvenir shops on every corner. In one of them, Sesa accidentally knocked down a cup with "IT'S MORE FUN IN SIESTA" on it in neon pink letters with his tail; it, of course, broke with a loud crack, making everyone in the store stare at them. Sesa was so embarrassed by the whole ordeal that, after paying for it and profusely apologising to the shopkeeper, he suggested they take a walk in the forest to get away from the crowd so he could silently wallow in shame.

They were aimlessly walking down a trail in the small, damp seaside forest when, suddenly, Sesa bolted from Elliot's side to run into the tree line. He walked back to Elliot, holding something between his enclosed palms, and when he reached him, Sesa placed the thing he was carrying in Elliot's hands. It turned out to be a large frog, green, slimy, and gross; Elliot let out a strange, high-pitched yelp of surprise and disgust and instinctively threw it away, nearly into Sesa's face, who was standing next to him bent over in laughter.

Elliot furrowed his brows in annoyance as he wiped his hand on Sesa's shirt before pinching his arm and sending a small shock of electricity through him as revenge - not enough to hurt him, but enough to be uncomfortable.

At that, Sesa flinched and batted Elliot's hand away with a huff of, “Don't cast at me, crazy bastard!”

“You deserved it, you idiot,” Elliot hissed as he stomped away, Sesa following him, still quietly cackling.

Afterward, they sat under the shade of a large, blooming tree in the corner of a quiet park and ate ice cream Sesa had bought them on a whim. Elliot crinkled his nose after tasting it, complaining that it was much too sweet; Sesa sighed and took it back to eat both of theirs, but it quickly melted in thick, sticky drops over his hands.

The buzzing of cicadas hummed in the air, and the wind gently rustled the leaves above them. The whole scene was so picturesque that it ticked Elliot off - he felt wrong and out of place, and suddenly realised what a wasteful use of his time all of this is. Sesa was unusually quiet next to him, watching him, and that annoyed him too. He felt tired, and hot, and morose in a way he could not explain, and wanted simply to return to Rhodes Island, to the comfort and solitude of his cool, grey room; to be done with this strange charade and lock himself away for a week straight, not to be disturbed.   

Sesa then bumped his shoulder against Elliot's in a move he supposed was to be seen as comforting, as if he had been reading his thoughts.

Elliot sighed and closed his eyes. He hated this part of Sesa - he was strangely observant and good at reading Elliot sometimes, and always at moments when he least wanted it. Sesa was smart - much smarter than he let on, Elliot knew that; he sometimes wondered just how much Sesa really knew about him, what he really thought about him, but, of course, asking that was unthinkable.

Elliot prided himself on being a calm, unshakable man, but Sesa really knew how to get on his nerves when he wanted to, how to hit where it hurts. He would sometimes say something to him with that off-hand intonation of his, something truthful and painfully exposing in a way that cut right to the bone. Like he saw all the terrible, disgusting parts of Elliot and was putting a magnifying glass to them. Those times Elliot barely held himself back from turning around and slapping him, anger bubbling in him, blindingly hot and suffocating - something he hadn't felt in decades. Of course, Elliot himself was much worse - he loved to push his buttons. It was so simple too: Sesa was terribly easy for him to read, something that Elliot enjoyed and also made full advantage of.  He sometimes toyed with him just to see what he could get away with, how far he could take his little experiment.

They were truly both sadists, he sometimes thought. They could have kept their relationship simple, washing their hands off of their shared past after meeting in Ibut on that windy day, and simply treat each other as no more than strangers. It would have been so easy too. But they both chose to engage with each other, to intertwine their lives, all while knowing perfectly well that it was best not to and that it would only end poorly.

And Elliot couldn’t fully understand why he cared about him quite so much and so personally - why he spent so much time with him, did so much with him and for him. Sometimes, it all made him feel like a child - he was a smart man, a man who understood and analyzed his actions thoroughly and clearly, never acting on impulse. But he could not explain, justify, quantify, many of the thoughts and feelings he had towards Sesa, and at times it made him mad at himself, made him feel weak and stupid.

Sesa's sharp exhale pulled Elliot out of his reverie, just as Sesa shifted, suddenly lying down in the grass and resting his head on Elliot's thigh. Elliot didn't know what to make of it or where to place his hands, so he sat still and simply stared at him. For a moment, Sesa looked equally confused about what he'd done, as if he'd acted entirely on impulse, but he forced himself to relax. "Hey. Don't be weird. All of this is not so bad. 'We should try to enjoy ourselves' and all that," he said, looking up at Elliot.

Elliot sighed, long and loud. "Don't talk to me like that. I hate that condescending tone of yours," he muttered.

Sesa laughed then, his eyes crinkling. He looked young and handsome, and Elliot wanted badly to kiss him then, to bite his lip and see him squirm. But the whole scene seemed so cliche, embarrassingly so, that he did nothing and simply looked at the way the sun played in his hair.

"Elliot, you're fucking unbearable sometimes, you know that?"

They had dinner at a remote seaside restaurant, sitting on a small balcony overlooking the coast. They sat there for a long time, long after they had eaten, nursing their drinks - Elliot, a simple glass of wine, and Sesa, something served in a coconut, which he loudly sipped through a twirly, pink straw. Elliot alternated between reading the one book he had with him and watching darkness set over the water. Sesa scribbled something that looked like notes and crude diagrams on the backs of fliers he had pilfered from a milkshake parlor due to a lack of paper. When he'd get stuck, he'd play some strange, flashing game on his phone until inspiration would strike him again and he'd turn back to the papers.

After they were done, they started to make their way back to their hotel. They chose to walk on the shore - it had gotten dark, and now that it was much cooler and almost deserted, the beach was a lot more bearable. They had walked for a few minutes, when Sesa suddenly stopped, his hands on his hips.

“I wanna swim," he declared.

Elliot sighed. “Fine. I suppose I can wait for you.”

Sesa didn't waste time, taking his shirt off in a fluent motion, before pausing. ”I forgot I don’t have a swimsuit," he grunted.

“Swim in your shorts ," Elliot mumbled.

Sesa shot him a glare, pointedly taking his shorts off and stripping down to his underwear; Elliot watched him - the flex of his hamstrings, the curves of muscles in his shoulders.

He had a nice body, surprisingly so, considering that Sesa had many of the bad habits engineers often had - sitting too long without moving, posture awkward and tense; not eating enough, or only eating junk; not sleeping enough. Part of it was certainly racial: all Vouivre were naturally inclined toward slimness and strength, hardy people that put on muscle easily and rarely got sick. Under the many thick and often confusing layers of clothing, he was lean and wiry, all in an effortless way Elliot liked. Elliot especially loved his forearms - the thin, long muscles in them defined and strong from decades of working with his hands. Elliot liked to watch them when Sesa worked, liked to watch the shift of tendon and muscle under his sand-toned skin; liked to think about the blood cells and the nerves and the bone underneath it all; about him, a living, breathing human being, all cells and tissue, so complex and vulnerable. Sometimes, when he watched Sesa work, when he saw him focused, fingers dextrously dancing over complex mechanisms, bolts, and Originium cores, he would think about all the knowledge contained in the confines of his skull - knowledge that could start wars and change the world, knowledge people could and would do anything for. And Elliot could simply reach out and kill him, destroying it all in an instant in a flick of his wrist and a flash of his Arts. It would be as easy as that. But he didn't, and deep down he knew he never could, and the realization of that, that he had a weak spot like this, was terribly uncomfortable.

“Do you even know how to swim?” Elliot asked as Sesa took his necklace off and slipped it into Elliot's pocket.

“Duh.” Elliot couldn't even get the question out - it was a little strange for people from his part of the country to know how to swim - before he added, “My parents took me and my brother to a pool. They were of the firm belief that every person must know how to swim, drive, and cook, or they're a loser.”

Elliot raised his eyebrow. “You know how to cook? I highly doubt that, seeing how the only ingredients in your kitchen are candies and brandy.”

“I do!" Sesa declared. "In theory…” he added a lot more quietly.

Elliot wanted to joke about it, but then Sesa turned to him with an extended hand. “You don't wanna join?”

“No.”

“What? Scared of a little water?” he grinned. “C'mon,” Sesa said as he reached for Elliot’s elbow and promptly started to drag him toward the waterline.

“Don’t you dare,” Elliot said sternly as he dug his heels into the ground, trying to yank his arm away. Sesa quickly decided to change tactics, instead beginning to bend down to pick Elliot up in his arms and throw him over his shoulder. He was very close to succeeding, but then Elliot, kicking around in futile protest, hissed, not unlike an angry cat, “Sesa, one step closer and I’ll show you how I can really cast.”

At that, he immediately let go, placing Elliot back on the ground and tossing his arms in defeat, looking offended. “Damn. I was just playing. No need to kill me over it or anything,” he mumbled, pointedly stomping away and into the water, leaving Elliot alone on the shore.

Elliot sat down in the sand and watched him - a small, dark figure deep in the waves, disappearing and reappearing. Sometimes he'd dive under, and wouldn't appear for a long time; so long that Elliot started to ponder whether he'd be ready to wade into the deep, black water to try to save him, but then he'd emerge again just before Elliot had come to a decision.

--

“That was nice. You're missing out," Sesa announced after getting out of the water, moving the wet hair out of his eyes. It was one of the few times Elliot had a chance to see his whole face - he looked strange with his hair combed back, almost too serious, unlike himself in some way.

He wagged his tail in an attempt to dry it, not unlike a dog, before plopping down in the sand next to Elliot with a satisfied huff.

The air was filled with the sound of the lapping waves, as well as the soft, distant sound of voices and music from the boardwalk. The sky was completely clear and incredibly dark - a perfect backdrop for the innumerable bright stars. They sat in silence for a long time; Elliot could see that Sesa had a small, pleased smile on his face as he looked out at the water.

Sesa suddenly laughed, loud and melodic. “All of this was - is - so fucking weird. What the fuck are we doing here?”

"I know."

Sesa bumped Elliot's knee with his own as he hummed, "But not all that bad. Not bad at all."

Elliot watched him a while longer. He'd never seen Sesa look so content, so relaxed; he'd also never been so at ease around Elliot, as if the physical distance from Sargon and Rhodes island had dulled his memories of who they both really were. 

“Would you like to stay here?” Elliot asked. It was a silly question, of course, but he wanted to hear his answer.

Sesa laughed. "Commit to our normal people bit?"

"Why not?"

"You and I together here? A little house by the beach and flip-flops?" He snickered with a minute shake of his head. "You'd fucking hate it."

Elliot huffed a laugh. "So would you."

"Hey, I kind of like this place, actually," Sesa shrugged. “What would we do if we did?” he asked with an amused tone as he squeezed water out of his hair.

“I don't know. All the things we said we would if we had the time, I suppose.”

“Mmm. Sounds fun," Sesa giggled. "We could think of new names for ourselves. Figure out a proper cover story." He shot Elliot a pointed look, before humming in thought for a moment. "Run a little workshop to make ends meet. You could read and be grumpy like the old, grumpy man that you are and I'd annoy you by playing drums in the living room."

Elliot laughed in earnest then. "Yes. Something like that."

Sesa was silent for a while, leaning back on his elbows, his head hanging loosely between his shoulders as he looked up at the sky. Elliot watched a drop of water slide down from his jaw, down the long, exposed column of his neck, between his pectorals, before it rolled off the side of his torso and disappeared into the sand.

“Welp, no can do," Sesa finally announced. "I don’t have any of my stuff with me. Plus I need to take that titanium alloy I was experimenting on out of the pressure chamber tomorrow."

“That’s the problem?” Elliot huffed with a smile.

Sesa just laughed. He then sat back up, pressing up against Elliot's side, their shoulders touching. He was quiet for a while, looking out at the waves. "In another life."

"...In another life," Elliot echoed quietly. 

He leaned over and kissed Sesa then, long and soft. The water had made his lips cool and they tasted like salt. 

Their hotel room was pleasantly dark and cool when they returned, pale moonlight streaming in through the open windows.

“You should take a shower, you're covered in seawater," Elliot said as Sesa plopped his wet clothes on the ground.

Sesa huffed. “ Stop trying to babysit me. It’s insulting ," he pointedly mimicked Elliot's words from earlier with a mocking tone.

“I’ll join you. If you don't mind," Elliot said without looking at him, his back turned as he unbuttoned his shirt.

At that, he could hear Sesa freeze for a moment, just as Elliot had expected.

They both knew exactly how this evening would end, but, as always, any verbal acknowledgment of these things, of that narrow, confusing space between them where intimacy existed, was scarce and unpleasant. It was no surprise - they were both people who had spent years building walls to hide themselves away, like machines with layers upon layers of codes and keys and alarms that needed to be cracked until one reached the core. Acknowledging that any room for vulnerability, for weakness existed was admitting that they had allowed someone to bypass it all. It was in some way humiliating to show the disgustingly human weakness that they even felt things like this - desire, attraction, affection. But it was equally humiliating and terrifying for them both, something which they both recognized. It was as if some unspoken agreement existed between them that they could share it without it interfering with how they treat each other otherwise.

Sesa said nothing in response, but he left the bathroom door half ajar, and that was all the confirmation Elliot needed.

________

It was a long while later when Sesa finally collapsed next to Elliot on the bed with a satisfied exhale - they had stumbled back to the bedroom in the midst of everything, still half wet.

Elliot felt light and pleased, felt like he was slowly melting and sinking into the fabric of the mattress. He enjoyed the novelty of the feeling - he could rarely get himself to anything even resembling a state of relaxation. He watched a beam of moonlight cut across the ceiling, with the distant lapping of the waves an incessant, calm companion in the darkness.

Sesa, on the other hand, was restless by his side, and Elliot could feel his eyes on him. Finally, he rolled over and half-heartedly pressed his lips against Elliot's shoulder. “Wanna… again?” he whispered awkwardly, seemingly embarrassed.

Elliot let his eyes slip shut, content, and focused on the faintly ticklish feeling of Sesa's hair falling on his skin. “I am too old for that.”

Sesa clicked his tongue. “No, you’re not.” He mouthed at a soft spot of skin under Elliot's collarbone.  

“Too tired, then," Elliot said lazily, a barely-there smile on his lips.

Sesa paused and looked up at him. He narrowed his eyes as he examined Elliot's expression. “You’re not, ” he declared, done with Elliot's teasing. “Tsk… Just… You can just lie there, you don’t even have to do anything.”

“You certainly know how to make it sound compelling,” Elliot muttered drily. But still, he reached to hold on to the muscular part of Sesa's shoulder, and when Sesa kissed a warm trail down his chest and lower, he didn't object, instead exhaling a soft, trembling sigh.

________

After they were done, Sesa plopped down next to him with a huff of, “OK, now I’m good and exhausted.”

Elliot didn't respond. He was warm all over, tired and satisfied to the bone, and the persistent, hypnotic humming of the sea and the pale darkness of the room had made him feel drowsy and dream-like.

“Hey,” Sesa called.

“Elliot?”

“You alive?” he asked as he poked the side of Elliot's cheek in an attempt to rouse him.

Elliot finally begrudgingly stirred and lazily slapped his hand away, mumbling a groggy, “Quit it.”

"So you are alive."

Elliot settled in more comfortably under the blanket. "Do you really think having sex with you could kill me? Just how inflated is your opinion of yourself?" he muttered.

Sesa huffed, before patting Elliot's shoulder in mock comfort. "I'm just worried about you, you sickly, tired, old man. Who knows, you could croak at any moment."

Elliot pinched Sesa's thigh for that, making him twitch and let out a displeased grunt. He then looked at Elliot for a moment, before scooting closer, settling down right next to him, his head half nestled in the crook of Elliot's shoulder. The casual, unexpected intimacy of it almost startled Elliot into moving away - had he been less tired, he might have.

They were silent for a long while - so long that Elliot already thought he had fallen asleep, when Sesa muttered, “It would be nice to do this kind of thing more often.”

Elliot wasn't entirely sure what he was referring to - the trip itself, the strange, carefree way they'd spent the day, or the present moment of uncharacteristic closeness. It didn't really matter; it was all the same.

“We won’t.”

“...Yeah. I know,” Sesa muttered, his eyes slipping shut.

For a long time, Elliot lied perfectly still, watching the slight fluttering of the white curtains and listening to Sesa's calm, steady breathing.  

There was an ethereal quality to the moment - like he wasn’t himself, but someone light and pure, and if he didn’t move or fall asleep, he could stay in this moment forever, and nothing would matter: his past would become irrelevant, and he could simply exist, forever content, in the darkness and the sound of the waves.

The realization of how badly he wished for it at that moment - to erase and forget about it all, to be someone not entirely himself - struck him with such force that for a second he thought he was going to cry. He didn't, of course; he didn't even know if he could anymore, but the understanding that it would all be over soon, that the moment would pass, was almost unbearable. Elliot recalled the day, the small snippets of normalcy, of quiet contentment. He had hated it then, but for a second, the wish to run away from it all - from everything and everyone who knew him, to not return to the ship tomorrow, to take Sesa's hand and disappear into the crowd - was overwhelming. And they could do it too; they were both smart people, they could easily start everything over again, make a life for themselves.

But he also knew that it wouldn't change or undo anything: in the morning, he would still be the man that he was, and nothing would ever erase that. He knew that it was already much too late for a second chance - the course of his life had been decided many, many years ago.

Tomorrow they would wake up and go back to their lives: Rhodes Island and its long, grey hallways; the humming of the engineering department; metal and electricity; the ever-present sound of voices. Sargon, with its machinations and the suffocating, dry desert. And it would be checkups, medicine, the doctors' mutters of, 'Well, it hasn't gotten much worse'. Sesa would go back to his usual, careful self, and they'd sit in their office, backs facing each other, and at the end of the day, they'd go to their own rooms.

But for a few more hours still, they could be someone else; they could pretend they weren't on an endless trail of sand, blood, and regret. Until the morning came, they could be just Elliot and his lover, on a holiday by the beach. Just normal people.