Work Text:
“You’re what?”
The pitch of his tone rises slightly at the end of his question, his head tipping to the side in time with his words. The hesitant beginnings of a smirk threaten to tug at the corner of his mouth as Orson Krennic peers at the man he’s known so many years, and attempts to read him with a certain doubt that he hasn’t felt since early on in their friendship. This is absurd. It can’t be anything but a joke.
“I said that I’m married, Orson.”
“My hearing is fine. I’m asking what you mean by that.”
“I think that’s fairly clear. I’m married,” Galen repeats, ever calm, his brown eyes soft and honest as they meet Orson’s penetrating gaze. “Three months now. You’ve been away-”
“Yes, I know I’ve been bloody away. I’m the one that was away,” Orson snaps, a bitterness creeping into his voice that he knows is uncalled for. He doesn’t bother to curb it. He simply pauses, chewing on his lip, his stare never falling, as if waiting for this to make sense. “I don’t understand how this is possible.”
“I’m sure you can,” he replies gently. “You’re a smart man. You knew I was seeing someone.”
Of course, he understands how it’s possible, and yet it still doesn’t make sense in his mind. He doesn’t like when things don’t make sense. It makes him feel stupid and Orson Krennic does not handle any sort of embarrassment well. He wants to take that irritating confusion out on the only person that he can, and even that he can’t manage, every cruel word that springs to thought dying on his tongue before he can free it on the undeserving man before him.
Galen is the first to look away in their little staring contest, his expression softening into something regretful that Orson wishes was meant for him in a different way. He wishes that the man in front of him regretted what he’d told him, that it even happened. No, the look Orson reads on his ex-lover’s face is something like pity, but kinder. Galen has always been too kind for his own good.
“I suppose it’s her then?” He spits out the word evenly, and yet it still feels full of venom.
“Who else would it be, Orson?”
Orson’s mouth twitches, lips pursing together, as he’s suddenly filled with the overpowering desire to flee. His instinct to fight flares and dies with every glance into Galen’s eyes and now there is only flight. Like a thief caught stealing or a child caught in a misdeed by a stern father, Orson wants to run and never look back, to never think of this again, and to avoid the consequence he brought upon himself by meeting Galen at all. Why had he done this? So stupid. To think…what he had thought when Galen had first contacted him. What he’s hoped for since they parted ways, but what he’s always been too damned stubborn to ask for, to beg for from the man he’d loved most of his life.
“I don’t understand. Years, Galen. We were together years. You’d never even looked at a woman, and now-” He shakes his head, looking away. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“To you, maybe not. To me, it makes perfect sense.”
“Just explain to me-”
“I don’t owe you an explanation, Orson, not of my marriage nor my sexuality. I just wanted to tell you.”
And it’s the way he says it that breaks Orson’s heart, really and truly. It’s the pitiable kindness in it again, like he feels sorry for him. It makes his cheeks flush and his anger rise. Hot pricks sting at the backs of his piercing blue eyes. It’s as if every part of Orson’s body wants to betray him and let his humiliation and hurt be known to the only man that he has ever loved and he can’t stop it.
“Fine. You've done that.”
A tangible pause lingers between them, neither willing to leave, yet not quite knowing what to say. Finally, Galen reaches out and gently brushes the sleeve of Orson’s coat.
“Orson…I-”
“No,” he replies, tightening his jaw and giving a dismissive nod. “You’re right. You don’t owe me an explanation.” He shoots him a tight smile, the false expression all he can manage to muster. “Congratulations.”
He can’t take another moment, so with that he turns on his heel, hating that he wishes with every retreating step that Galen might call him back.