Work Text:
“Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.”
- HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Tumultuous wind wrapped the house in snow, each rough gust dragging a thin, tenorous whine in behind it.
The waning moon’s light slanted through the flurry and in through the window. Having long since ceased its falling, the snow briefly accumulates in a soft layer on top of the more established pile, before the night's harsh wind buffets it back up into the air.
This abundant amount of snow had been novel initially, the way it could clump into piles taller than himself, far different from the wet, brown-slush filled winters he’d lived through in the past.
When he first arrived in Unalaska, it had been a clear day, out of necessity. A blizzard had torn through the city and grounded his first three flights.
The gleam of the sun off the snow had been so bright that he kept his eyes in a permanent squint. The transport truck he and the rest of his team had been put into upon landing plumed thick white exhaust with each gear change, matching his own breath in the frigid air.
The novelty of such a harsh winter had brought back memories of his first one in America. The years had stripped many of his earliest memories of clear detail, but the sheer delight of catching a snowflake on his tongue and feeling it melt for the first time had stayed with him through and through.
Whatever joy he’d once found in the cold had been tempered since.
Snake’s house was nothing like the underground dorms or concrete installations he had haunted during his last stay in Alaska. It let air in, leaked when the thaw began, froze when it didn’t, and warped with the movements of the outside world. Each creak and groan seemed alive, the building responding to the wind, the cold, the snow.
Hal had adjusted faster than he expected. After months of constantly humming air recirculators and audibly buzzing fluorescent lights, he had come to welcome the off-tempo rhythm of this shifting house. Yet tonight, even in familiar surroundings, something tugged at him from the edge of sleep.
In the surrounding noise of the house settling, Hal stirred awake. But it wasn't at the wind.
Though Shadow Moses had left him a light sleeper, Hal always had a vague idea of what yanked him from REM sleep- a creaky floorboard, chunks of snow sliding off the roof, the occasional stuttering snore Snake made when lying on his back. More often than not, a familiar warmth beside him would reach out and anchor him, easing him back into sleep.
Tonight though, he wasn't sure what exactly had woken him up.
Other than the aforementioned snoring, Snake was a conscientious bedmate, and a highly trained one at that. Midnight piss-breaks were executed with all the professionalism of a stealth op; he didn’t wake Hal.
(Well, except for the time he tripped over the jeans Hal had haphazardly thrown across the room earlier that night in his haste. Hal hadn’t let him live down the squeaky yelp he let out for weeks.)
Blinking against the darkness, he slid his hand toward where he expected the warm mass of Dave’s body to be.
Instead, his hand landed on the still-warm fitted sheet; his arm felt off, like taking an extra step at the top of the stairs.
His partner sat on the edge of the bed, bare back gleaming like iron in the moonlight, muscles coiled tight, as if bracing against something unseen.
A chill shot through Hal. This wasn’t just Dave getting up for a smoke, agonising over the cold he’d have to brave outside. He sat too still, too tight. The sight snapped Hal fully awake, his chest constricting.
He hadn't seen Dave like this before- twisted up by the kind of nightmares that followed those in the military, those who’d seen and done all that Dave had.
Hal himself was no stranger to the dark images a sleeping brain conjured: Wolf’s blood pooling out from under her, Grey Fox’s horrid, screaming cries, red-painted nails pressed up against his skin…
A part of him had anticipated this happening months ago, back when he first arrived on Snake's doorstep, when they started sleeping together in both the literal then the metaphorical sense. But the longer the nights went by without incident, the more he let the weight of it slip from his chest.
At some point, the wind had eased. Not all at once, but in slow increments, each gust a little weaker than the last, the house settling into an unfamiliar quiet. The snow no longer hissed against the siding or rattled along the roof, laying quietly where it fell. All that remained was the soft creak of cooling wood and Hal’s own breathing, suddenly too loud in his ears.
Slowly, he sat up, moving closer to get a better look at Dave in the dark room, made doubly hard without the aid of his glasses. They sat forgotten on the bedside table, their lenses reflecting an impassive moon, a matching set of white dots.
The moment Dave heard the rasp of sheet on sheet, a horribly visible shudder ran through his body, leaving the already tense muscles taut under the strain.
Hal felt his chest freeze, his heart turning to ice.
His traitorous heart spurred him forward, moving before his exhausted mind could catch up. He reached out in one motion, driven by a desperate need to fix, to repair whatever had broken.
He was only an engineer, after all.
Voice coming out more reedy and strained than he had expected as he called out to the other, hand outstretched, reaching, “Dave? What’s wrong?”
Before he'd even done it, he knew it was the wrong move. Had stayed up late reading articles about vets’ personal experiences, clinical case studies, PTSD research, anything to plan ahead for disastrous moments like this. Explicitly read, then re-read, sections about exactly this situation.
But hypotheticals are called such for a reason.
Dave flinched hard. In one heaving motion, his body flung itself off the bed, pressing its back against the wall. One hand making an abortive movement towards Hal, stopped just short, held back.
The shadows try valiantly to hide Dave's face, to protect him from Hal’s searching eyes, but they’d already adjusted to the gloom, baring his face to him.
His jaw was set, molars ground against each other, eyebrows drawn tight. Hal stared at eyes he scarcely recognised as belonging to Dave: the whites of his sclera visible and wet, stretched wide and pinched in terror, his gaze unseeing.
Hal squinted, forcing shoddy, astigmatic lenses into focus, clinging to the hope that poor light and tired eyes were at fault, that what he saw on Dave's face wasn't real.
It didn't change.
Dropping his hands almost as quickly as he had put them up -all the while cringing at his overzealous attempts at comfort- he sat back, for once, at a total loss for words.
Out of desperation, he tried a quiet, “Dave…” hands fluttering uselessly where he’d dropped them.
Dave responded slowly, looking up to meet Hal’s eyes as if this were the first time he’d even noticed him, his gaze distant, his mouth pulling into a deep frown. Apparently, he did not like what he saw; his expression hardening, eyes darting everywhere except to Hal, closing off, his eyebrows pulled into shakily angry points.
He shoved his fingers into his eye sockets and barked, raw and sudden, “Just fuck off, Hal!”
It was made impossibly loud against the now silent, still Alaskan night outside. Powdery snow absorbed everything else, leaving the world quiet everywhere except where Dave’s lungs met his vocal cords met his tongue.
Hal immediately felt the telltale sting in his eyes, his stomach twisting at how pathetic he felt. He bit into the soft flesh of his lower lip, catching a flake of dead skin he’d spent the day worrying at, trying to stifle the rising tide of emotion. The dry, cold air of his temporary home had pulled moisture from his body- except his eyes, which blurred with mist.
Looking back briefly at Dave, he pushed himself the rest of the way out of bed and left the room, bare feet slapping against cold hardwood.
Dave sat himself back down heavily onto the askew duvet and pushed his hands against his temples. He felt out of phase, mind still snagged on the remnants of blood and gore his dream had left behind.
Every time his tired eyes closed against his will, searing colours-reds and oranges, greens and greys-flashed in his retinas, relentless no matter how tightly he pressed against his eyelids.
Instead, he stared at the wall, willing his body back into submission like the well-honed tool it was. Anger broiled deep in his gut, rising up into his chest like bile.
Hal’s face had been so sad -heartbreakingly so- warping further when Dave’s irascibility slipped its leash.
He’d never wanted Hal to see this, usually able to slip down the hall, lock himself behind the bathroom door, sit on the pungently musty floor mat, and try to fight his way back into his body.
Tonight, he’d failed, and in doing so, pulled Hal into his orbit of misery.
He hated himself-wanted to get a grip, run out of the room and apologise to Hal. To beg the other man's forgiveness. To punch him in the nose.
His jaw clenched, tongue heavy in his mouth, saliva pooling like venom. Suddenly a sharp breath caught in his throat as the telltale blur of asphyxiation crept across his vision.
He pitched himself forward, head tilted down towards the floor, nails digging into the back of his scalp. He couldn't let himself be in the past anymore- but he couldn't bear to return to this moment, where he’d gone and made such a mess of things.
His spiral was interrupted by movement: a ceramic mug-his mug, the one with a nick on the rim and a faded cartoon dog on the front-and the hand that held it.
It took monumental effort to lift his gaze to Hal, to pry his nails from his scalp, and finally reach a trembling hand out to take the mug.
Inside was tap-hot water- water, because the only alternative was coffee, and only tap-hot because Hal didn’t want to waste time away from Dave boiling a kettle.
The warmth of the ceramic leached immediately into Dave’s palms. On autopilot, he took a tentative sip, the heat pooling down his oesophagus.
Hal took his place beside Dave, seated a safe distance away on the edge of the bed. They sat there in the near silence as David drank down increasingly tepid sips. The trembling of his hands lessened, just so.
Distantly, the woodstove in the main room crackled, a fresh log Hal had added popping softly. Outside, the wind whistled against the window picking up once more, a small, warbling, shrill sound.
Eventually, Dave finished his drink and set the mug down with a soft thud. There was never a nightstand on this side of the room; Dave had insisted Hal take the side with one, so he’d have a place for his glasses-and the gaming handheld he carried everywhere.
This was something he’d done with E.E. whenever she’d had a bad dream. When she’d push his bedroom door ajar, sobbing nearly silently with fright, big, wet tears leaving silvery tracks down her scrunched up face. On those nights the only remedy was a warm mug of milk, or -on exceptionally rough nights- hot chocolate.
The memory pressed on something soft in Hal, and, looking away from Dave, he thought desperately for the right thing to do next.
All the research in the world wouldn't have been enough to prepare for this. He’d have to do the hard thing; he’d have to trust his gut.
Reaching out slowly, hesitantly, terrified of another violent flinch, he placed his hand over Dave’s, where it rested on his thigh.
Stiltedly, Dave turned his hand in Hal’s, pressed their palms together -still warm from the mug- and after only slight hesitation, squeezed-hard.
With contact made, Hal could feel the micro-tremors that wracked Dave’s body, barley suppressed. Dave had never felt this fragile under his hand.
The single point of contact emboldened Hal. He scooted closer, placing his free arm around Dave's back. It was only when he felt Dave's large body sag into his arms that he felt even a modicum of relief. He wasn't screwing up.
Hal held him close, moving his hand from the round top of Dave's shoulder to the nape of his neck, stroking at the soft hairs there. There was still tension running throughout Dave's body, unable to fully let himself relax in Hal's hold.
Hal tried, “Would- do you wanna… talk about it?”
His response was nearly overlapping, resolute: “No.”
So Hal said nothing, a rarity for him, usually filling the silences Dave left behind with whatever came to mind: ideas for the updated sneaking suit, anime B-plots, sporadic anecdotes, ribbing Dave.
Silence did not come naturally to him, whereas with Snake, it seemed as easy as breathing.
So together they sat in the silence, warmth growing where their bodies connected, Dave’s tremors subsiding into slight shaking, shoulders drooping under Hal’s arms.
It couldn't have been long before Dave spoke again, but Hal felt every second.
His voice was craggy and soft when he said, “M’sorry.”
Hal couldn’t tell whether the apology was for losing his temper, for how the nightmares had gotten to him, or for whatever he had done to have brought them on in the first place. He doubted Dave knew either.
There was the autonomous urge to reassure, to murmur it’s okay, it’s alright, but there was very little about this situation that was.
Not trusting his words just yet, Hal tucked Dave’s head against his shoulder, rested his own atop it, and drew him closer.
He shook his head, a gesture Dave felt more than saw. How desperately he wanted to tell him that he was the one who should be apologising, that the whole goddamn world should be begging Dave for forgiveness. How he wished Dave’s life had been kinder, softer; a life where he wasn't haunted by ghosts, hunted by them.
A life where they weren't just two broken men, desperately clinging to each other in search of salvation.
Instead, he whispered, “I know.”
Slowly, Hal began to untangle himself from Dave, who in response clung tightly to him, as though he were his only tether to the world.
Something clenched in Hal’s throat, forcing a rough swallow before he said, “I’m not going anywhere, just gonna move us.”
He led Dave back into bed, laying them both down before pulling the mussed duvet over them.
Huffing out a small sound, Dave mumbled, “Don’t think I’m gonna fall back asleep, Hal.”
He thought of E.E again, of all the ways he helped her, of all the ways he didn't.
How desperately he hoped he had grown.
“Just… lie here with me?”
He pillowed Dave’s head on his chest, one hand resting on his back, the other threaded through his hair, petting softly, and tried to breathe as calmly as he could, willing Dave’s subconscious to follow suit.
At first, Dave lay there woodenly, arms and legs rigid, unmoving. But between the hypnotic rise and fall of Hal's chest, the hand in his hair, and the heart beating adamantly in his ear, the vestigial brutality of his dreams faded.
Dave wrapped his arms around Hal’s middle and pressed his face into the soft cotton of the faded, oversized, Dragon Ball T-shirt Hal slept in.
Letting his mind wander as he held Dave, Hal scratched at the hair beneath his hand, longer now than it had been at Shadow Moses. He could loosely loop the slight curls around his fingers. Dave had once told him he’d had hair long enough to tie in a ponytail before being dragged into the mess that was Shadow Moses. Hal let himself selfishly hope that he was growing it back out.
Time lost all cohesion. Minutes -or maybe hours- passed before Dave’s breathing evened and deepened, his body finally sagging fully against Hal’s.
Now lost in the rhythm of Dave's chest, diaphragm rising and falling in time with his own, Hal fell asleep.
And when the sun rose the next day, neither man talked about it-nor about the damp spot left on the chest of Hal's shirt.
"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”
- HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey