"Something It's Not", Spooks, Adam/Lucas
Title: Something It’s Not
Fandom: Spooks
Pairing: Adam/Lucas
Present For/Prompt: doctor_who_rulz | We’ll sleep on the floor
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1000
Genre: Slash
Summary: It’s one of those days where there’s no winning, just surviving.
Author’s Notes: I was about to go this is all self-absorbed and melodramatic when I realised that a) if you’re going to read this then you know my Spooks writing style already, and b) Spooks itself is pretty melodramatic. Although this fic may actually be style over substance; ah well. Oh how I love these boys; they even have a playlist on my ipod. *facepalm* And I’ll continue with the Half The Truth series soon, I promise!
Adam is counting hours, and Lucas is mostly silent but for occasional words that slide out onto the strained skin between Adam’s collarbone and his shoulder. Lucas is speaking Russian, disjointed, he sounds angry and Adam can speak French and German and Arabic and enough Russian to deal with well don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you and while you’re at it where the hell have you hidden the bomb but he doesn’t know what Lucas is saying and that worries him.
After a moment, it occurs to him that maybe Lucas doesn’t know what he’s saying either; they haven’t slept in days and anything but coffee is a distant, unreal memory, and Adam’s clothes smell of despair.
A genuinely surprising number of people seem to recognise Lucas, eight years shoved out of sight in a prison or not. He’s in danger or he’s dangerous or something along those lines. Whichever way you put it, Lucas has spent today having eight kinds of shit kicked out of him by men who seemed to know too many details about the operation that got him taken in Moscow in the first place; and Adam just happened to be an unfortunate bystander.
He’s getting a headache.
It’s one of those days where there’s no winning, just surviving, and Adam would say that he’s getting increasingly disillusioned but for the fact the illusion, if it ever really existed, fled years ago. Lucas is more pragmatic about the whole thing, probably because most of his personality was ripped away from him in prison; the pieces he’s managed to reassemble have no expectations and no hope whatsoever. From the outside, it’s an horrific fate, but Adam suspects that it must be somewhat peaceful in Lucas’ head, if you sift between the pieces.
The black lines of the tattoos are interspersed with deep, ugly purple; Lucas’ skin looks paler than ever beside it, and Adam forces himself not to think vulnerable because that’s one thing Lucas is definitely not. He’s too broken to ever be vulnerable; his entire being is scarred over, irreversibly warped but still thick and whole. His blue eyes are tired; but then when are they not?
Seven hours ago, Adam was getting to the point where he genuinely believed they were going to die. Seven hours, with blood spattered across the concrete and Lucas’ determined silence for company, although if that was meant to save him or if it was just Lucas’ less-than-helpful way of dealing with things, Adam has no idea.
Now, the silence has become shreds of incomprehensible Russian, and Adam curls his fingers in the back of Lucas’ hair - cut recently, to keep up the façade of respectability - gritting his teeth. Harry sent them off to get some rest and instead they succumbed to blind need and blinder inevitability, but Adam suspects it wasn’t sensible. Every inch of Lucas tasted like coffee and blood and despair, though he was cleaned up five hours ago, and Adam’s fingers tighten, just slightly.
Lucas swears in Russian against his collarbone, chapped lips barely moving. The lower one is split, and Adam knows the damage on Lucas’ body almost better than he knows the damage on his. Possibly because Lucas’ state is far worse than his own.
“You should get some rest,” Adam suggests, futilely, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Still dividing the world into hours and Lucas is curled battered beneath the sheets, refusing to communicate in anything but fragments of Russian. Adam presumes that this is about as close to a breakdown as Lucas will ever get, and tomorrow they will somehow get themselves into a headspace where this won’t have happened.
“I should,” Lucas agrees, finally, on the breath of a sigh. He shifts.
It’s dark; Adam turned the lights off when he could no longer stand watching the angry crusted blood on Lucas’ cheekbone shift every time his jaw moved. Everything reduced to shadows, and to a certain extent it’s easier like that. To a certain extent it isn’t. But Lucas is no longer mumbling strings of Russian and when Adam closes his eyes to blot out the grey expanse of the ceiling he no longer sees spots of blood imprinted onto his vision.
Lucas is lying so still that Adam finds himself impelled to… check on him. He can’t help it. When he tips his head to look, Lucas is staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open.
Maybe there are too many pieces in Lucas’ head for it to ever be truly peaceful.
“You need to sleep,” Adam says quietly.
He thinks he sees the corner of Lucas’ mouth twitch, but it’s hard to tell. He knows Lucas will never say I can’t; not in English, not in Russian, not even inside the safety of his own mind.
Adam looks away, sighing. “Lucas…”
“I know.”
There’s a moment of the purest silence, and then Lucas moves. Adam watches, wondering what he has to do, but all Lucas does is lie down on the floor beside the bed. For a moment, Adam can’t work out what the hell that means, and then it clicks, and he feels his fingers involuntarily clench.
But it’s cold tonight, and it’s been the kind of day you don’t want to live through, just because having it in the back of your memories is too much to bear. Adam reaches a decision.
“Alright then,” he says quietly. “We’ll sleep on the floor.”
Lucas glances at him, confusion and something else Adam can’t read fleeting across his face in the half-light; Adam concentrates on dragging the blankets off the bed and covering them both up. He doesn’t touch Lucas, knows not to risk that, and his back will be screaming at him in the morning. But he lies there anyway, floor cold against his skin, until he finally hears Lucas’ breathing even out and flatten.
Adam could go back to bed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he shuts his eyes, and waits for the light.
Fandom: Spooks
Pairing: Adam/Lucas
Present For/Prompt: doctor_who_rulz | We’ll sleep on the floor
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1000
Genre: Slash
Summary: It’s one of those days where there’s no winning, just surviving.
Author’s Notes: I was about to go this is all self-absorbed and melodramatic when I realised that a) if you’re going to read this then you know my Spooks writing style already, and b) Spooks itself is pretty melodramatic. Although this fic may actually be style over substance; ah well. Oh how I love these boys; they even have a playlist on my ipod. *facepalm* And I’ll continue with the Half The Truth series soon, I promise!
Adam is counting hours, and Lucas is mostly silent but for occasional words that slide out onto the strained skin between Adam’s collarbone and his shoulder. Lucas is speaking Russian, disjointed, he sounds angry and Adam can speak French and German and Arabic and enough Russian to deal with well don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you and while you’re at it where the hell have you hidden the bomb but he doesn’t know what Lucas is saying and that worries him.
After a moment, it occurs to him that maybe Lucas doesn’t know what he’s saying either; they haven’t slept in days and anything but coffee is a distant, unreal memory, and Adam’s clothes smell of despair.
A genuinely surprising number of people seem to recognise Lucas, eight years shoved out of sight in a prison or not. He’s in danger or he’s dangerous or something along those lines. Whichever way you put it, Lucas has spent today having eight kinds of shit kicked out of him by men who seemed to know too many details about the operation that got him taken in Moscow in the first place; and Adam just happened to be an unfortunate bystander.
He’s getting a headache.
It’s one of those days where there’s no winning, just surviving, and Adam would say that he’s getting increasingly disillusioned but for the fact the illusion, if it ever really existed, fled years ago. Lucas is more pragmatic about the whole thing, probably because most of his personality was ripped away from him in prison; the pieces he’s managed to reassemble have no expectations and no hope whatsoever. From the outside, it’s an horrific fate, but Adam suspects that it must be somewhat peaceful in Lucas’ head, if you sift between the pieces.
The black lines of the tattoos are interspersed with deep, ugly purple; Lucas’ skin looks paler than ever beside it, and Adam forces himself not to think vulnerable because that’s one thing Lucas is definitely not. He’s too broken to ever be vulnerable; his entire being is scarred over, irreversibly warped but still thick and whole. His blue eyes are tired; but then when are they not?
Seven hours ago, Adam was getting to the point where he genuinely believed they were going to die. Seven hours, with blood spattered across the concrete and Lucas’ determined silence for company, although if that was meant to save him or if it was just Lucas’ less-than-helpful way of dealing with things, Adam has no idea.
Now, the silence has become shreds of incomprehensible Russian, and Adam curls his fingers in the back of Lucas’ hair - cut recently, to keep up the façade of respectability - gritting his teeth. Harry sent them off to get some rest and instead they succumbed to blind need and blinder inevitability, but Adam suspects it wasn’t sensible. Every inch of Lucas tasted like coffee and blood and despair, though he was cleaned up five hours ago, and Adam’s fingers tighten, just slightly.
Lucas swears in Russian against his collarbone, chapped lips barely moving. The lower one is split, and Adam knows the damage on Lucas’ body almost better than he knows the damage on his. Possibly because Lucas’ state is far worse than his own.
“You should get some rest,” Adam suggests, futilely, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Still dividing the world into hours and Lucas is curled battered beneath the sheets, refusing to communicate in anything but fragments of Russian. Adam presumes that this is about as close to a breakdown as Lucas will ever get, and tomorrow they will somehow get themselves into a headspace where this won’t have happened.
“I should,” Lucas agrees, finally, on the breath of a sigh. He shifts.
It’s dark; Adam turned the lights off when he could no longer stand watching the angry crusted blood on Lucas’ cheekbone shift every time his jaw moved. Everything reduced to shadows, and to a certain extent it’s easier like that. To a certain extent it isn’t. But Lucas is no longer mumbling strings of Russian and when Adam closes his eyes to blot out the grey expanse of the ceiling he no longer sees spots of blood imprinted onto his vision.
Lucas is lying so still that Adam finds himself impelled to… check on him. He can’t help it. When he tips his head to look, Lucas is staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open.
Maybe there are too many pieces in Lucas’ head for it to ever be truly peaceful.
“You need to sleep,” Adam says quietly.
He thinks he sees the corner of Lucas’ mouth twitch, but it’s hard to tell. He knows Lucas will never say I can’t; not in English, not in Russian, not even inside the safety of his own mind.
Adam looks away, sighing. “Lucas…”
“I know.”
There’s a moment of the purest silence, and then Lucas moves. Adam watches, wondering what he has to do, but all Lucas does is lie down on the floor beside the bed. For a moment, Adam can’t work out what the hell that means, and then it clicks, and he feels his fingers involuntarily clench.
But it’s cold tonight, and it’s been the kind of day you don’t want to live through, just because having it in the back of your memories is too much to bear. Adam reaches a decision.
“Alright then,” he says quietly. “We’ll sleep on the floor.”
Lucas glances at him, confusion and something else Adam can’t read fleeting across his face in the half-light; Adam concentrates on dragging the blankets off the bed and covering them both up. He doesn’t touch Lucas, knows not to risk that, and his back will be screaming at him in the morning. But he lies there anyway, floor cold against his skin, until he finally hears Lucas’ breathing even out and flatten.
Adam could go back to bed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he shuts his eyes, and waits for the light.