Work Text:
It's routine. Etho coming to bother Tango, the usual praise and bickering, giving in and apologising. Beyond that, they work in silence, sounds of machines communicating everything they need to know.
It's inevitable, their collaborations bringing them together. For the two whose lifeblood is invention, proposing a joint project is equivalent to opening your heart and mind to the other. It's scary, allowing others to see these delicate inner systems so precious to oneself. Yet there is the small unsaid desire to lay down defenses and bare it all.
So if they still cling to each other after the day's work is done, who can blame them? The feeling of being known sincerely, understood without words, it's addictive. Wishing to live in it forever, wishing it was more than just outside of their work. Their routine continues into the evening - dinner, drinks, order the usual, talk about everything except each other. It's still silent on that front, even if they drink a little more than they should.
And should they later fall into bed together as does the night descend in quiet gracefulness, it is again a soundless routine. They don't question it all. Laying with each other in their arms, they each wish for just one more routine - to wake up knowing they belong to the other.
The second occupant of a once crowded but cosy bed always untangles himself from that sleepy embrace, stealing away in the dark just before sunrise. And should the room's owner be awakened, he always lets the other go wordlessly. Never asking for him to stay, never asking for more. Later as the sun rises, the morning light makes the room so much emptier, no shadowed corners for desires to hide.
They each start their day alone, content with whatever usual routines that will begin yet again. Or at least, contentment is what they interpret in the other's silence. Whatever happened yesterday is left in the uncertainty of a dark night. Maybe it's for the best that it's this way, keeps the mechanism known as life running smoothly.
If you ask them whether they'd ever want something more, they would look away and say, "As long as he's happy, I'm happy."