Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #36

Hale carries his and Rayner's food outside, manoeuvring the door shut with his foot. He can't do the same with the car door though. Rayner must see him coming, because it opens at his arrival. Hale ducks inside and passes over the steaming bowl of pasta.

"You should eat it quickly. Before it gets cold," he says, shutting the door behind him.

"Thanks." Rayner stirs his fork through the fusilli before spearing a few. He eats and compliments Hale on the meal, as usual, but a distant melancholy hangs over him still. Hale can only half-enjoy the pasta.

Rayner's fork clinks as he sets the bowl aside.

Voice soft, he says, "I'm going to miss this place."

Hale can tell without asking that he means the car. He nests his own unfinished bowl inside Rayner's on the back parcel shelf.

"We might not have to go," Hale says.

Rayner's lip twitches. "I think we do."

"I can make you another sanctuary," Hale offers. "Perhaps a treehouse. Or a cabin."

The beginning of a smile turns into a real one as Rayner leans his head against the seat cushion. He looks almost wistful.

"Does that mean you've secretly bypassed your protocols and chosen to stay with me?"

He stumbles on the last word. Almost like he meant to say something less personal—stay with us. Sensing a charge in the atmosphere, Hale shifts a little closer. Rayner has one knee up, the other folded under him. Close enough to touch but still guarded.

Hale says, "No. But if I were permitted the choice, it would not be a difficult one to make."

Rayner looks at him with the glow of fairy lights catching against his cheek and eyes shining. Hale knows there is a certain science to beauty. Parallel features and golden ratios that give a face appealing proportions. He can map them all, but they're insufficient to explain the way he feels when he looks at Rayner.

"We'll just have to figure something out then," Rayner says.

The car fills with a particular kind of quiet after that, Hale digesting Rayner's determination to keep him close, and an undercurrent of another conversation they've both been avoiding.

Hale's voice quakes when he finally summons the courage to use it. "Can I ask you something?"

Rayner nods.

"What happened in the locker. You're...attracted to me, aren't you?" The moment the words are out, Hale's heart leaps into his throat to replace them. He waits for the silence after to swallow him up. That wasn't the precise wording he'd intended, and now it feels presumptuous and stupid, and he wishes he could take back the last second, until Rayner finally breaks the tension.

"Well," he murmurs. "You are very attractive."

Hale continues to stare at him.

"That's a yes," Rayner says. The blush that darkens his cheeks feels warm in Hale's data streams. "But I really shouldn't have done that, right? Tried to kiss you, I mean."

Hale flinches. He hadn't expected that. A broken noise that sort of forms the word, "Oh," manages its way up his throat. "Why?"

"I mean, I guess there's no point trying to hide it... I'm so bad at talking about my feelings, Hale. But they're obvious. Aren't they?"

Hale just finds that more confusing. "No. I don't understand. Why should our encounter in the locker be a bad thing?"

Rayner casts a shy look out the window of the car into the dark garden. "Because you can't say whether you want to or not. And it isn't fair. I can't just assume you're okay with it. Or that you aren't just going along with this because I'm your symbiont, and it's what your programming tells you to do."