milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Hobbie, in a booth, sitting with his back up against the wall and his legs stretched out on the bench. Two mugs are on the table in front of him, one empty, the other half full of what is by this point stone cold caf.

Beside the mugs are his platoon of yellow army men, all arrayed in a desperate battle against the looming evil of the salt and pepper shakers.

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Wes, coming from...somewhere. He stops and leans over the back of the booth beside Hobbie's, studying the battle carefully for a moment.

"...why is the enemy always so much bigger?"

Hobbie cranes his neck up and back so he can see Wes.

"Way things work," he says easily. "If we were bigger'n the enemy, they wouldn't be an enemy, see? They'd just be something to step on. Only that doesn't hold true all the time, lucky enough for us Rebels."

"Stepping on them would be fun," Wes muses, "but... 's always nice to see a big explosion." He smiles. "Lucky us, huh? Must be all the Corellians we've got."

He steps away and round, sliding into the booth opposite Hobbie, careful not to disturb any of the army men. He pauses a second, then searches his pocket and pulls out an action figure, holding it up. "Want an Ewok for back-up?"

"I think my men can... handle that," Hobbie says happily. "Force was with us. Don't know if you can call that luck, though. S'something, at the very least."

"Yeah, somethin'." Wes studies the Ewok figure for a moment, remembering when he got it, who he got it from-- then he stuffs it back in his pocket and smiles suddenly.

"Guess there's always something. Luck, the Force. Ka," he adds, thinking of Susan, though he still has no idea what ka really is. "Always somethin'," he repeats, trailing off into a not-quite-awkward silence.

"Alwas something," he echoes. "Always... I got the note," Hobbie whispers, some of his earlier happiness vanishing. "I... I, kiff, Wes, why don't you hate me? She left because... because of me."

Wes swallows and fixes his gaze on the table between them, on one of the triumphant little yellow army men. "She left you a note, too?" His hand unconsciously goes to his shirt pocket, where his own note still is.

He shakes his head, still looking at the toys. "Can't hate you, Hobbs, even if I wanted to. 's impossible." And there's a faint rueful smile.

"Yeah." Hobbie smiles, or at least tries to. "Says... says that I better make you happy. An'... yeah."

Wes looks up at that, chews his lip for a second, stares at Hobbie. "She said that to you?" What else did she say? But that's everything anyway... "Told me to tell you--" He stops and shakes his head. He can't say it and he's not sure why.

"Tell me what?" Hobbie prompts, not certain he wants to know the answer even as he's asking the question.

Wes shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, then looks up again. "That--" He grins a little, entirely failing to pretend that he thinks this is all a joke. "That you... deserve me. More than she does." And he wants to look away, but he can't, and he's watching Hobbie closely.

"She said-she said the same thing. To me." Hobbie's bright red and staring at something evidently of great interest on the backs of his hands.

"Oh, right."

Now this is awkward.

Part of Wes wants to laugh at Hobbie's apparent embarrassment, and part of him wants to tell him to snap out of it, tell a joke, do or say something to break this tension. Part of him wants to just run.

But he sits there, watches Hobbie for a second, then says, "You-- um-- think she's... right?"

"I don't know," Hobbie says, almost inaudibly.

"...me either." Except he thinks he does know, in some part of himself, and it scares him. So he grins. Because that's a perfectly normal reaction when he's terrified. "Never would've thought, 'fore this place, that Inyri could actually be right about anything," he jokes, which is another perfectly normal reaction.

Then he realises what he just said, even if it was a joke.

"She, she, she was right?" Hobbie stutters.

"No-- I mean--" Eyes wide, Wes tries to backtrack, and he suddenly realises that maybe thinking is good, if only before he speaks. "--maybe--"
yes yesyesyes right very right just say it
Then he closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, tries to stop this, but can't think how.

"Okay." Hobbie nods stiffly and curls in on himself, drawing his knees up to his chest. "Okay. I, I, understand. Right. I'll just leave you. Be. Right."

"No--" Wes opens his eyes again, stares at Hobbie desperately. "Don't, don't go anywhere, I--" hateloveneed--

And then his past few days of whitetext aren't really whitetext anymore.

"--I need you. Here. With me. She's right, they're all right, it's not different, Hobbs, not different at all, me and her, me an' you, not different, just-- more."

That's as close as he's going to get right now.

Hope is the feeling of your X-wing soaring out into the heart of vacuum and Hobbie-

-is hoping, wishing, praying that this isn't all some dream (some nightmare?).

"You need-" want love "-me? Not her?"

"I-- yeah," Wes whispers. "Need you." And need probably encompasses more than the dictionary definition. "Always did. Never-- realised so much--"

He breaks off, swallows, and smiles a little. "Sorry," he whispers, "'m starting to sound all...stupid."

[ooc: and mun apologises for not even signing out before collapsing. *facepalm*]

And Hobbie smiles in return, happily, a bit dazedly, but it's a real and true one.

Maybe, just this once, it doesn't look out of place on him.

"Never stupid. Never- I never meant to, to fall for you. Something. It, it just sort of happened and I-- lo-"

Too fast, too close, but for some reason, it doesn't feel like he's going to crash at all. He doesn't feel as...afraid.

"You-- what?" Wes whispers, and he might be smiling, might be grinning a little, watching Hobbie and his smile and feeling very pleased about it, among other things.

"I, I lo-like-something. You. Have for years now. And. Um."

Hobbie's gone almost sheet white with this admission that's waited such a long time (forever and a day) to be said.

"I,I,IloveyouWes."

Wes can't breathe, but it's a good sort of not-breathing now, and he's trying to control his grin. "You-- do--?" And he never realised how much he was doubting himself about it until now.

He swallows and leans forward over the table, not paying attention to the little army men he knocks down. "Yeah, I--" But he can't say it. But he can. Because he knows it. "--the same-- I think-- I love you."

And now he's terrified.