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The rattling of the door immediately sets Hakon on edge. He’s already bleeding and sore from a chase he’d accidentally started , he knows he isn’t ready for another fight. But the door swings open and Aiden is there. Somehow it seems Aiden is always there and it melts stress off his shoulders like no other person has ever done for him. He supposes, given his vast and tragic interpersonal history, that’s not fair to his past friends or lovers, but he can’t stop it from being true. From the first day he’d seen the younger man, something in him had instinctually known that Aiden was good. Was worth any and all effort. Did it make his life harder, almost too much to bare. Would he change his decisions since then, not for anything.
Aiden is speaking, fussing over his bleeding leg, but it’s either blood loss, fatigue or whimsy that keep Hakon unhearing and just able to feel the others warm hands as they pull at his pants, as they clean the wound with biting alcohol, as they wrap the raw meat of his thigh. He feels like shit and knows he looks worse, ragged as he is, and yet, it doesn’t stop Aiden from taking his face between slightly damp palms, nor does it stop Hakon from closing his eyes and leaning into the contact. Aiden speaks again, but his mind is elsewhere, thinking on how easy it’s always been. Thinking on their first hesitant touches that bloomed into a casual reprieve from loneliness they both cling too. Once again, Hakon thinks that might not be fair to his past, but once again he can’t help it. There’s so much with Aiden, with their unknowingly shared situation, but at the same time, his touch is a drug Hakon will gleefully and gratefully cling too until the absolute moment he is no longer allowed.
Then he’s laying on his side, his pants have been replaced which he only knows because Aiden’s legs tangled with his own feel deft. This time he hears it when Aiden says “sleep you big baby” like Hakon is worth something, like he’s worth being taken care of. His stomach twists at the easy affection in the tone. He’s a monster.
It’s still dark when he blinks into wakefulness. Or as dark as it can be with the constant need of UV rays sinking into their skin. Aiden is asleep, curled into his chest like a cat, like he usually does, Hakon holding around his waist like a claim, as he usually does. He shifts just enough to watch the younger man pillowed on his arm and wonders how this became their norm after that first time. In this very safehouse no less. He wonders how this will all play out, if he’ll make it out with anything let alone his life. And Aiden is kind, so fucking nice even though his words can be biting, helping everyone he can even past his desperation to find the only family he's ever known. Hakon thinks he’s a fool, a naïve child who’s only going to get his heart broken, Hakon also thinks he might be the one to do it. Or, at the very least, be the one who could hurt him the most.
As he’s slipping back into the abyss, Aiden shuffles somehow closer, as if there were any real space between them to do so, and it aches. It aches because Aiden lets him have this, trusts him so wholly and honestly. He thinks, just before fully succumbing, Aiden is going to break his heart too, and if he’s honest with himself, that might just kill him.