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 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.

"We thought you were, were dead with Isard and all that and I, I, knew then, an' it almost killed me and then you weren't and, and I knew. Then."

Hobbie slowly sits up, his eyes locked on Wes' face with all the intensity of a quad-linked laser strike.

"You're my best friend," he says, a hand reaching out to wonderingly touch Wes' cheek. "And I-love-you."

Wes closes his eyes for a second at the mention of Isard, and that mission, and-- "I thought you were dead, all of you, but you, and--" He opens his eyes again, smiling ruefully. "Guess I never realised why that hurt more'n anyone else. Should've."

He lifts his own hand up to rest on Hobbie's, then slowly pulls it down, still holding on, to look at. "Yeah." He covers it with his other hand, and holds tight. "I-- well." And looks up again. A little louder, clearer: "I, love you. As well." Best friend wingmate everything.

"That's... that's real good," Hobbie says, his voice shaking and stuttering. "You-you're my wing. In, in everything, yeah?"

Wes swallows, and nods a few times. He gives Hobbie what he thinks is a reassuring smile. Maybe it is. "Everythin'-- yeah." He hesitates a second, then -- still holding Hobbie's hand -- shifts round the table to sit in close beside him, just sit there. "'Kay?"

Hobbie's staring at their fingers, twisted together as they are, and blinking rapidly.

As if he's trying to wake himself up (this must be a dream this must be).

As if he's-

-crying?

He is, and then in a great rush he's wrapped his arms around his best friend wingmate everything, tucking his face into the cool skin of Wes' neck.

Wes puts his own arms around Hobbie in return, almost before he realises what he's doing, and pulls him in close. He rests his head on Hobbie's and closes his eyes, smiling, and...comfortable, he thinks.

"You okay?" he whispers. "Hobbs?"

"'m gonna wake up," Hobbie mumbles, a hand twisting into Wes' shirt. "An' it'll all go away. Know it will."

"No," Wes says quietly, "no, 's not a dream, it's real, it's-- me an' you." Then he grins, a little ruefully, and his voice is muffled by Hobbie's hair. "If it was a dream, y'think we'd be stuck here?"