Work Text:
Xar couldn't sleep.
That wasn't particularly odd, considering he was trying to sleep on the ground, but it wasn't discomfort that was keeping him awake. His mind was just too busy tonight. It was full of nagging thoughts about the leader of the menagerie of humans he'd found himself tagging along with. The gorgon's wheezy, strangled laugh replayed in his head, and so vivid was the memory that he almost couldn't hear the crickets that were chirping somewhere off in the distance. His laugh was so loud and took so much effort, you'd think he was choking up a hairball. Xar was pretty sure he'd heard it turn into a coughing fit at least once.
… He needed to think about something else. Since he clearly wasn't going to get some sleep any time soon, He decided to get up and find something to tinker with. Furthering his endeavors as an inventor would be a better use of his time than sleep anyway.
Xar picked himself off the ground, and lurked away to another room of the decrepit building the group was camping in for the night. He did his best to ignore the thoughts in the back of his head about how disgusting the place was, covered in dirt and mildew and who-knows-what-else. Not to mention how many people might have passed through here like they were, carrying all sorts of bacteria from the wasteland outside. He was going to have to wash his gloves and boots thoroughly the next time they encountered clean water.
His brain was freed from his snowballing concerns when he caught the muffled sound of radio interference. Following the sound to one of the few shelves that hadn't been tipped over or collapsed, he found what looked like a mostly functional radio. Pleased with this find, Xar hauled it over to a similarly abandoned table and got to work. He fished around in the inner pockets of his lab coat, producing the pair of gardening sheers he used in place of wire or cable cutters, and a screwdriver he'd been lucky enough to find just a few days prior. Getting into the radio was a fairly simple matter, but he realized he'd been so eager to get to work, he hadn't figured out what to do with it yet. Perhaps he'd just dig through its components for now, and an idea would come to him that way.
As he carefully examined the machine's inner workings, snipping wires he deemed negligible, his mind started to wander again. First to Gordon's laugh of course, just as it had while he was trying to sleep. Sometimes the only way he could tell it was a laugh at all, and not some kind of death rattle, was the way his face crinkled and he broke into a wide, often manic grin. He probably laughed like that a lot, considering his prominent smile lines. Was the breathlessness in his laugh due to weak lungs? Perhaps he had smoked in the past. The image of him with a cigarette between his teeth was… distracting. He mustn't linger on it, think about something else.
His mind's eye wandered up to Gordon's hair. It was long and medium-brown, with streaks of silver contrasting with the rest of his locks. Xar wasn't sure how old Gordon was, but he had a feeling the graying was more to do with stress, if his neurotic demeanor was anything to go by. he wondered what it would feel like to run his claws through it. the curls seemed loose, and probably wouldn't pose much resistance. Would his hair be soft and thin, or was it thick and shiny with oil? As much as the idea of feeling that consistency bothered him, he couldn't help but speculate.
He realized the way that sounded in his internal monologue and shook his head, as if he could physically shake the thought from his mind. Couldn't he think about anything else? Good grief, what was wrong with him…
He dropped the sheers and held his face in his hands, in a combination of frustration and shame. He sat in silence, trying to clear his mind. But of course no matter what he did, thoughts would come anyway. At least this time he wasn't mentally ogling a physical feature— instead he remembered how hard Gordon had been trying into be friendly, seemingly in an attempt to atone for how disrespectful he'd been when they first met (not to mention his actions before they met). The attempts at banter, the long-winded apologies, the compliments of his prowess in both engineering and combat. Something about it all made his stomach churn. How dare he infest Xar's brilliant mind. That was a luxury the gorgon didn't deserve.
He remembered a time where Gordon had offered to help him up, after he'd been downed in a particularly rough skirmish. As he looked up to the man looming over him, they made eye contact. He'd seen Gordon's eyes before of course, but the man had a habit of averting his eyes often when he was speaking. Now, he was staring Xar down, eyes wide with concern. Big brown pupils bore into his memory, the light bouncing off them looking like flecks of gold. It rendered him speechless and unable to move, sitting there on the ground, captivated. it was as if he really had been turned to stone.
When he regained his composure he slapped the hand away, making some snide comment he couldn't remember and scrambling to his feet as fast as he could. But after that, Xar couldn't help being painfully aware of Gordon's eyes. The way they reflected different light. The way they were usually looking around worriedly. Where they were looking. If they were looking at him.
Something deep in his chest ached for Gordon stare at him like that again. To be admired like a marble statue.
God. What a frivolous, vain, idiotic want. He should be above this. Damn it.
He picked his head up and reminded himself what he had gotten up to do. By now the radio was long-abandoned for the second time in its life. At some point he must have cut a wire connected to the speaker, because it had gone completely silent, there was no humming static like when he'd first found it. Inspecting his work, it seems that in his distraction he'd cut nearly all of the wires, save for a few stragglers. If he was careful maybe he could still scrap it for parts?
Try as he did, Xar did not sleep that night.