Work Text:
Weeks passed almost unnoticed aboard the Dijiang.
Routine had a way of disguising change, until one day, someone looked up and realized things had simply… become different. Or more accurately, they had looked inside the Endmin’s office.
No one remarked anymore when Camille appeared in the Endministrator’s office, carrying another stack of reports and books from the archives. No one questioned why a second teacup had become a permanent fixture besides the kettle, or why the new-ish lounge in the office had not only a red blanket, but now also a rather soft looking red pillow. It was simply how things were, now.
Perlica and Fiona noticed long before either of the men did, even Chen did.
Somewhere along the way, the line between “temporary Operator” and “trusted companion” had gradually blurred, until it was but an invisible smear.
The Endministrator, however, remained characteristically unaware.
He had always treated those around him with the same quiet consideration, remembering everyone’s preferences, checking in after difficult missions, and making time for even the smallest of concerns, despite the mountain of responsibilities resting on his shoulders.
To him, nothing about his interactions with Camille seemed particularly unusual, much less more favoured than any of the interactions he had with other Operators.
And Camille knew better than to mistake kindness for invitation.
The Endministrator had given him a place aboard the Dijiang, trusted his judgement, respected his boundaries, and never once asked him to reveal more of himself than he felt comfortable with. Camille had no intention of repaying that trust by overstepping it, much less making the other man uncomfortable.
So, he settled for the little things.
If the Endministrator had skipped lunch again, Fiona would somehow receive a message suggesting that, perhaps, someone ought to interrupt the commander’s paperwork with tea and something warm to eat.
If reports began piling too high on the command desk, Perlica would receive a quiet reminder that the Endministrator had been working far longer than was advisable, especially if he began looking closer to unconsciousness than to awareness.
Once, after noticing the commander hadn’t stepped off the Dijiang in nearly three days, Camille even contacted Chen, suggesting another tour around Wuling might be “beneficial for mental wellbeing”.
On one singular occasion, he had even sent a politely worded message to Viceroy Zhuang Fangyi, claiming the Endministrator had expressed “considerable professional interest” in Wuling’s Xiranite production methods and fitting them into a few mechanisms on the Dijiang, and how he “might appreciate an invitation to perhaps develop some plans on the matter”.
Fangyi had replied with nothing more than a short: “Operator Camille, you are becoming quite transparent.”
She extended the invitation anyway. Camille never mentioned it. Neither did she.
For a while, these quiet interventions were enough, until everyone else became busy.
Perlica and Fiona found themselves buried beneath correspondence with the Order of Steel Oath regarding emergency supplies Endfield had pledged to provide. Chen had returned to Wuling for an extended training exercise, along with Li Feng. Fangyi, unsurprisingly, had little time to entertain Camille’s increasingly creative excuses for removing the Endministrator from his own desk, even if it was for his own well-being.
Which left only one person to notice when the commander began overworking himself again.
As much as he was content keeping his distance and wanted to avoid overstepping any boundaries at all cost, there was also the Endministrator’s health on the line.
It happened on an otherwise ordinary evening.
The office was as quiet as ever, broken only by the scratching of a pen across paper and faint tapping on a display, along with the occasional turning of a page from the lounge where Camille sat reading.
Hours slipped by.
Outside, the lights of the Dijiang gradually dimmed as the night shift took over, the hallway’s bright lights turning into a soft, yellow glow.
Inside the office, neither man spoke.
Eventually, the scratching and tapping stopped.
It took a minute for the sound to register - or, rather, the missing of the sound.
Camille looked up from his book.
The Endministrator looked… uncomfortable.
One arm was folded beneath his head at an angle that promised a stiff neck by morning, while the other still loosely held the pen he’d evidently fallen asleep writing with. His mask had slipped down the bridge of his nose, resting on his arm, dark lashes resting softly on his cheeks, eyes closed. The terminal on his desk remained awake, the display casting a pale blue glow across his face.
Camille frowned as the silence lingered, the only sound the soft tap of the book Camille had closed and put to the side.
He stood.
Sat back down.
Rose once more.
After a brief moment of hesitation and internal debate, he quietly crossed the room until he stood beside the desk. He simply watched the sleeping man, uncertain what exactly one was supposed to do in a situation like this.
“... This will not do.” he spoke so quietly that even he, himself, barely heard the words.
Carefully, he reached over and saved the report before the terminal went into sleep mode by itself. The pen was eased from the ENdministrator’s relaxed fingers without disturbing him. His mask was neatly placed on the desk where it couldn’t fall off the edges accidentally. One by one, Camille organized the scattered documents into neat piles, setting the most urgent ones aside for the following morning, without disturbing the sleeping man.
Only then did he return his attention to the sleeping figure before him.
“... Endmin.”
Nothing. Only soft breaths.
His voice remained steady as he tried once more.
“... You should rest, Endmin.”
Still nothing.
The Endministrator merely shifted slightly, brow furrowing for a brief moment, before relaxing again.
Camille hesitated.
Waking him now would only leave him groggy enough to insist he was perfectly awake, before immediately returning to work. He had seen the cycle on enough occasions already. But leaving him to sleep, like this, would not supply sufficient rest nor a comfortable enough posture for the Endmin to have enough energy for his daily tasks the next day.
The office was warm, quiet, safe. Comfortable enough that the Endministrator had finally allowed exhaustion to catch him.
Camille sighed, almost imperceptibly.
“... Forgive me.”, he whispered to no one at all. Or, perhaps, he hoped the Endministrator would hear him in his sleep.
He crouched beside the chair, slipping one arm carefully beneath the Endministrator’s knees and the other around his back.
There was a brief pause in his movements.
Not because the Endministrator was heavy or anything alike - in fact, he noted with displeasure, the man felt a little too light, too thin, where his hands could touch, even though the thick coat he always wore - no.
He paused because he had never done anything quite like this before, never freely touched someone like… this. Not someone he…
Cared for.
The realization settled strangely in his chest, something warm and heavy at the same time, his own breath catching.
He dismissed it.
With ease born from his fieldwork and training, he lifted the Endministrator from the chair.
The man barely stirred, safe for a soft breath he let out.
Camille froze, however, when the Endmin’s head instinctively tilted sideways, until it came to rest against his shoulder.
Silence stretched for a while where he stood, unmoving, scared of rousing the man, before he let out a breath that was entirely too unstable for his usual poise and almost stoic-like way he held himself.
“... I suppose this is acceptable for your own comfort.” The words came out soft as a breath, slipping from his lips before he could stop himself. And if he tried to convince himself more than the sleeping form in his arms, then that was between him and his Vesperwings.
The command deck was unusually quiet by the time Camille stepped into the corridor.
Most of the night shift had already begun.
A handful of technicians offered polite greetings in the form of soft nods of their heads, once they saw the sleeping Endministrator in the Sarkaz’s arms, some even beckoning for others to be quiet so as to not disturb their commander’s rest.
None questioned why the vampire was carrying him through the halls in the first place. Perhaps it was because Camille simply looked composed to them, that everyone thought of it as a somewhat normal occurrence. Or it was due to rumours of their commander’s hard work and weight on his shoulders fuelling their will to have him rest as much as he needed to.
“... Operator Camille?” came the soft voice of Perlica, just as she rounded the corner carrying another handful of reports.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Looked at Camille. Looked at the sleeping Endministrator. Looked back at Camille.
“... Is the Endmin alright?”, was her only question.
“Exhaustion.”, was Camille’s simple answer.
“... That’s…” she pinched the bridge of her nose, “.... unfortunately believable.”
“I judged sleep at the desk to be unsuitable.”
“... You’re taking him to his quarters?”
“Yes.”
Perlica smiled, something briefly passing over her face that Camille didn’t even want to begin analyzing. “Thank you.”
Camille inclined his head, keeping his voice quiet. “It’s only logical.”
She wisely chose not to comment on the fact that there had been at least a dozen other logical decisions available, especially those that didn’t involve holding the sleeping figure like he was made out of glass, but who was she to judge. She simply let him carry on with the self-imposed task he seemed to have given himself.
The Endministrator’s quarters were only a short walk away.
Camille had never entered before.
He simply knew the access code only because the Endministrator himself had insisted all senior operators be given emergency access in the unlikely event that something happened.
The room was… personalized, he realised. And yet, simple.
A bookshelf with little trinkets and baubles.
A desk that held even more paperwork, which seemed to follow the poor soul in his arms even into his own quarters.
A neatly made bed.
A door leading to an en-suite bathroom.
A wardrobe that was shut.
Camille carefully crossed the room, before lowering the Endministrator onto his knee as he knelt down, then pulled the blankets to the side. Softly, he lowered the man onto the mattress, then.
The commander shifted instinctively as Camille pulled the blanket up over his waist, as though his body had immediately recognized the difference between his office chair and his actual bed.
His breathing, however, remained slow, peaceful.
Camille stood there for a moment longer than necessary.
He reached down almost absentmindedly, hands hovering for a second over the soft, black strands of hair that laid a little too close to the sleeping man’s nose, an itch in his gloved hand to push them aside carefully. To not disturb his rest, he told himself.
His fingers shook ever so slightly, as it made contact with the Endmin’s hair - just his index, like a gust of wind. With a gentleness he didn’t think himself capable of, he pushed it aside, then slowly retracted his hands with a heavy weight settling in his chest.
Wordlessly, he stepped back from the bed. Turned towards the door, one hand close to the pad to open it.
“... Camille.”
His hand stopped just inches away from the pad. His body going still. His ears twitched slightly as they picked up the sound easily.
“... Thank you.”
A look over his shoulders told him that the Endministrator hadn’t opened his eyes. Though there was a faint tug on his lips, almost like a smile, but softer, gentler.
“... You’re welcome, Endmin.”
He waited another heartbeat. The Endministrator had already fallen back into a deeper sleep. Only then did Camille quietly leave the room, letting the door close behind him with barely any sound at all.
The following morning, the Endministrator arrived in his office, carrying a mug of tea and looking far more rested than anyone had seen him in weeks.
He stopped dead in his tracks as he entered.
His reports had been sorted into orderly stacks.
The unfinished application still sat open on his terminal, activated not too long ago.
His pen was resting exactly where his hand would naturally reach for it.
His mask was sitting neatly atop the desk, something he had already looked for when he had woken up.
Nothing appeared missing, just… different. More organized than how he remembered his desk to look like yesterday.
“... Perlica?” his voice carried out into the hallway, the woman standing nearby perking up from her conversation with Arclight and coming over in an instant.
“Good morning, Endmin.”
He pointed at his office, her gaze following his finger. “... Did someone…. Tidy this?”
Her lips pulled into a smile she tried, and failed, to swallow down. “Operator Camille mentioned you finally fell asleep.”
“... I don’t remember going back to my quarters….”
“He carried you to bed.”
Silence followed.
The Endmin nearly dropped his cup of tea.
“.... What?”
Perlica nodded as though she was discussing the weather report for Wuling. “He said sleeping at your desk was not logical.”
The Endministrator stared into his office at seemingly nothing.
“... I owe him tea, it seems like.”
From somewhere down the corridor, Fiona’s muffled laughter echoed just barely loud enough for the Endmin’s ears to listen, much to his own dismay.
A few days had gone by since the little incident of Endmin falling asleep at his desk. Perlica and Fiona had brought it up with the Endmin in private, Chen even asking him bluntly if he was interested romantically in Camille, earning her a smack on the back of her head from a smiling Perlica.
Neither he nor Camille had mentioned it.
He had simply brewed a special blend of tea he came to use on special occasions, leaving it on the small table in front of the lounge where Camille always rested.
Camille had looked at him with something akin to a soft smile.
Then, they went back to their usual routine.