Chapter Text
The thing about Spoke is that he never asks. He doesn’t knock either, not really — just kind of shows up, bruised up and bone-tired, throwing open the door to Planet’s room with the sort of casual recklessness that should be annoying. It isn’t. It should be. But it isn’t.
Tonight is no different. Planet’s mid-scroll on a datapad, base logs glowing softly in the dark, when the door creaks open again.
“Seriously?” he mumbles, not looking up. Spoke’s voice is quiet ....quieter than usual. “Didn’t wanna be alone.” Planet glances up. He sees the scuffed armor, the cut on Spoke’s jaw, the shadow behind his eyes. He should tell him to go back to his own quarters. That this isn’t normal. That people are starting to talk.
Instead, he just shifts to the side of the bed and mutters, “You left the medkit out there again.”
Spoke grins, tired. “Oops.”
They fall into the rhythm easily, like always. Planet sitting cross-legged, wrapping gauze with precise hands. Spoke watching him like the pain doesn’t even matter — like it’s more about being here, with him, safe.
It’s… intimate. It always is.
And Planet hates that his hands tremble slightly when he presses the final bandage down. That his voice comes out quieter than intended when he says, “You should stop doing this. Coming in like this. People are gonna think—”
“Think what?” Spoke’s voice cuts in fast, sharp.
Planet swallows. “Think we’re something we’re not.”
Spoke looks at him then. Really looks. There's something unreadable in his face, something wild and quiet all at once. “I don’t care what they think,” he says.
Planet does. He cares too much, actually. About everything. About the way Spoke’s sitting way too close now, about the way their knees keep brushing, about the weight of that look in Spoke’s eyes — like he knows something Planet refuses to say out loud. There’s a beat. The kind of silence that hurts.
“Do you?” Spoke asks.
And Planet almost answers. Almost tells the truth. Almost lets it slip that he waits for these visits now, that he keeps his door unlocked for a reason, that he hasn’t stopped thinking about the way Spoke said his name last mission -- low and panicked and full of something sharp and real.
But then--
Click.
The door opens.
“Yo—uh. You left the base logs running?” Bacon freezes mid-step, blinking at the two of them on the bed.
Spoke shifts back. Planet straightens up. “We’re just friends,” Planet says too quickly. Too easily. Spoke doesn’t say anything.
Later that night, Planet lies awake long after Spoke’s breathing evens out beside him. They're facing opposite directions. Not touching. Not saying a word.
But Planet can feel it — the weight of what they’re not saying. The tension stretched so tight it’s almost unbearable. The space between them whispering all the things they’re pretending not to know.
We’re just friends, he tells himself again.
And this time, even he doesn’t believe it.