Chapter Text
Commissar Quincy Bentley and Commissar Arden Ward had been talking for hours, catching up on 15 years worth of details. They hadn't noticed the sun go down or how they had opened a third bottle of Amasec. The room was warm, just like everything else on this desert planet. The lights were low and outside the reinforced window, one could see the dim points of light across the military base that were a constant sign of activity. At some point they had moved from Quincy's overstuffed, cramped office to his attached quarters and lost their great coats and tall hats in the process.
Arden sat on the edge of Quincy's bed while Quincy himself sat on a stool he had dragged in from the office. They each had a glass in their hand which Quincy currently topped up with the last bit of spirits from the Amasec bottle. Arden grinned as he continued the story he had started in the other room.
"So that's when the East flank came around the corner and, bam! The bastard realized he fell into a classic Pincer maneuver. I've never seen a heretic look so crestfallen."
"What an imbecile." Quincy laughed and shook his head, setting the empty bottle on the ground. "It's such an obvious maneuver, how did he miss it?"
Arden chuckled and shrugged. He took a gulp of his drink and absent mindedly loosened the red Sasha around his waist. Quincy sipped his own drink, eyes locked on Arden's hand.
"How do you stand the heat?" Arden asked abruptly. Quincy looked surprised.
"The heat? It's rather pleasant right now." He said. Arden shook his head.
"It's 30 degrees* in this room." He replied. As if to emphasize his point, a single bead of sweat trailed down the side of his face. Quincy watched it and swallowed hard.
"I supposed my time here has changed my perception of what I consider hot. We're in the middle of Autumn now, it gets much hotter." Quincy shrugged. "Feel free to take off some layers if you need to cool down."
"Why can't you just adjust the thermostat?" Arden asked, putting his glass on the hard floor. He removed his belt and sash then immediately started unbuttoning his uniform.
"Well," Quincy stared, distracted by the scene in front of him, "The generators are under a lot of strain already from the heat and generator three went down in the last skirmish, so to lessen the load, we're reducing our electricity usage."
Arden nodded as he cast aside his uniform's outer layer. He undid a few of the buttons of his red dress shirt, exposing the white undershirt and the uppermost part of his broad, dark chest. It took every ounce of Quincy's willpower not to throw himself at Arden, to feel his curly chest hair under his cheek.
Quincy sipped at his drink.
"It makes sense, but what a misery." Arden said. He leaned back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. "It's explains how dim the lights have been across the base."
"We all must make sacrifices." Quincy made the comment with an noncommittal tone and a vague hand gesture. He wouldn't admit it to Arden, but he's bent the rules of the restrictions a few times to suit his own needs. A modest refrigeration unit was being powered to supply him (and the officers) with a steady supply of iced recaff.
They fell into silence that with anyone else would have felt awkward. Between the two of them it was comfortable, reassuring. It gave a moment for observation and observe they did.
Arden saw how much Quincy had aged, fine wrinkles around the eyes, white hair barely visible in the platinum blonde, and perpetual frown lines. He noted that Quincy didn't smile nearly as much as he used to. He grinned, he sneered, but his youthful smile seemed to have vanished. This made Arden's heart ache. But despite that, he still saw the same warm brown eyes staring back at him.
Quincy took in how beautiful Arden had stayed. A few grooves on his forehead, laugh lines and crows feet. The beard was a new treat and Quincy wondered why Arden hadn't grown it sooner, it suited him so well. Quincy's eyes inevitably went back to Arden's chest to ogle but he was startled by the sight of a thin silver chain. His chest tightened.
It looked very similar to the chain around his own neck, a chain that carried a very dear piece of their history that he couldn't bear to part with even after he had called off their marriage. Quincy swallowed.
"Quincy," Arden said, "you're making me feel under dressed."
The blonde man was snapped out of his reverie and looked down at his own complete uniform. He looked back at Arden who gestured as if to say 'Go on.'
Quincy rolled his eyes and set his drink on a nearby side table. He unbuckled his belt and noticed how Arden seemed to perk up. Grinning internally, Quincy dropped the belt to the floor. He slowly undid the red sash and let it join the belt.
Arden's gaze was fixed and a small smile played on his lips. Quincy stood up and undid every button on his uniform jacket, he shrugged it off and draped it over the stool. He looked Arden in the eyes as he unbuttoned the red shirt completely, untucking it and a tossing it aside. He stepped closer to Arden, standing at the end of the bed so his knees almost touched the other man's.
The blonde stood in his white undershirt, black uniform pants, and heavy leather boots. He stared down at Arden, placid and serene Arden. Quincy had seen him in this exact pose a thousand times before. He knew what would have happened if this had been over a decade in the past. He knew the straddle, the positions of the hands, the sweat, every motion was an instinct and no matter how many times they had played out the motions, it had always felt new every time.
Quincy was frozen. Things were different now. He felt like he was misreading something, that they couldn't possibly be right back to where they were before. Quincy had done everything he could to demolish their relationship, a self destructive act wrapped in a veneer of self preservation. He had wanted to unburden himself from attachments. But here Arden was, returned to him.
The dark skinned man slowly, quietly reached out a hand. Before, Quincy would have taken it and been pulled into a freny of limbs and gyrations. Quincy took the hand but Arden didn't pull. He just held it.
Warm and calloused fingers wrapping around each other. With his free hand, Quincy reached up and tugged on the thin chain around his neck. It pulled up the gold ring that had been hidden under his shirt. The sound of the ring bouncing on the taut chain sounded like a soft bell chime. Arden sighed, like he was relieved.
"Oh, Quincy…" Arden's voice was tight with an edge of tears. He pulled gently on Quincy's hand and Quincy straddled him to play out those familiar motions.