Work Text:
Reciprocity is easy for Mason. The art of equitable give and take is ingrained in him, part of some baser nature that he can’t explain. Something he must have learned before the abrupt edge of his memory--something human, maybe.
Fighting, fucking, being a part of a team: these things require him to hand over pieces of himself in exchange for a piece of someone else. Sometimes the exchange is temporary. Other times (like with his unit) it’s irrevocable and constant, jigsaw parts of them jumbling together until there’s no use keeping score.
He doesn’t mind with them. After all these years, he hardly even notices.
He notices with Alma; the annoying checking in, the reassuring glances, how each one of her smiles has a different meaning and she just expects him to know which is which.
But something about her touch gets to him the most. A hand on his arm or his knee; the gentle, almost weightless way she leans into him; the stroke of her thumb on his neck when they kiss, like she knows there’s some unfathomable pain to soothe.
Mason takes these pieces of her, given willingly and with some degree of permanence, and before long he’s memorized the seven versions of her smile.
He walks her home without giving (much of) a thought to sex. He throws a resolute look when her heart rate turns frantic. Things he offers with reluctance, but exchanging them feels right. Necessary.
When the millstone of his senses threatens to grind him to dust, her delicate touch on his wrist clears the worst of it away.
And when Alma thinks her fear is hidden, even though her hands shake, he reaches for her wrist and covers the faint crescent scar. Each time, her body stills at his touch and, each time, he gives her another piece.