[this would be a hell of a lot easier if he could read minds, or if embry would stop being so goddamn nihilistic about himself and what his own presence means in the context of this - thing they've yet to define. safe to say it's long since passed a simple one-off or even just meaningless sex to stave off the stress of the job. no it isn't love, and it's sure as shit not a relationship in any sense of the word...but it's some purgatory between having caught real feelings and actually giving a shit what happens to embry when he's not around. thinking about him behind closed doors, and when he's sharing a bed with the guy past just fucking. it's funny he's maybe met the one person more emotionally constipated than hawk's been told he is by marcus - wouldn't he have a field day writing about this one.
so maybe the way he sets down his glass is a little louder than it needs to be. maybe his motion to grab a second one is faster, more agitated in the way he does it. it might be petty or telling on himself, but he thinks he has every right to be a little pissed off at the way embry's picking and choosing when to let ash be the light of his goddamned life. maybe the part he's most bitter about is that he has a sneaking, sinking suspicion that's something that will never go away, and it's not like he wants to replace it, but it'd be nice to know that the first person he's opened himself up to in any capacity since tim laughlin actually gave a shit about what that means. at least, before he screws his head back on straight and realizes how stupid it is anyway. embry could have his pick of anyone, the way hawk sees it. ash, probably greer, the woman at the conference - majority of the attendees too, while they're at it.
fuck, he feels a headache coming on. this is why he hates entanglements, why he should have just fucked him once and maybe let lyonesse slide and never let himself get in this deep.
(he'd started reading the book, knowing it wasn't left behind on accident. the highlighted pieces don't seem like coincidence, and it might have been foreplay tonight if - )
hawk turns smoothly, even though there's something sharp in his eyes as he slides the second tumbler of scotch across the surface of the bar with the indication that embry can come get it himself.]
I'm the one that warned you, if I recall.
[not a told you so - not by a long shot, because he doesn't like the thought of embry getting cornered or whatever the fuck happened that secret service apparently didn't have the sense to keep her at arm's length. unless embry let it happen on purpose, which is a very real possibility. even so, it doesn't really rankle hawk the same way thinking about him spending his entire goddamn privileged life pining after a man that may very well want him back if those lingering looks in the hallway are anything to go by.
but then his excuse sinks in, and - huh, he hadn't expected it to sting that bad. hawk plasters on his very best smarmy smile, the kind that doesn't reach his eyes, in which the sharpness has died out, and is reserved for homophobes, general annoyances, and the old windbags without a sense of reality who make life miserable for the rest of their constituents.]
All's well that ends well, then. Not a big deal.
Don't suppose you remember her name. Just to dot all the i's and cross our t's.
[strictly business, and whenever embry comes up to retrieve his glass, hawk will shove his own in a brusque clink against it without pretense to drain his own.]
[ it's past noon when he's lucid enough to take in the flurry of missed calls and texts, his head throbbing with the most overwhelming hangover he's had since the day he had to watch ash say his marriage vows to someone else. there's a bottle of macallan 12 on the nightstand, two mismatched glasses from his bar. his sheets are soaked with sweat. he feels, literally, about three breaths away from giving up the fucking ghost.
he tries to sit up, but abandons the endeavor when pain spikes through his skull. no go. he's clearly not making it into the office today, which hawk has probably noticed by now. hawk also has a key to his place — which embry needs to fucking take back — but there's no evidence he's been by, and that... hurts, in a left field kind of way. he should, professionally, care if embry lives or dies, even if he personally does not.
[ it happens as he’s putting on his shoes with an overpriced croissant hanging precariously from his mouth, trying to make sure the crumbs hit the floor and not his blazer. his phone starts buzzing, which isn’t new, but then it doesn’t stop, which is sort of new and definitely fucking annoying.
it’s hawk. embry is actually going to pick up and tell him that he’s not late to the meeting, everyone else is just early, and yes, he’s walking out the door now, but then his phone buzzes again. it’s the white house publicist, and then it’s an aide, and then it’s his goddamn mother. embry crunches into the rest of the croissant, trying to decide which fire to face first, and then morgan sends a text that only says what the fuck is this? with a link to a video.
morgan doesn’t text him for small talk or casual pleasantries. something begins gnawing in the pit of his stomach as he dodges another one of hawk’s calls to tap on the link, a grainy video popping up on the screen. his bedroom. a girl with dark lipstick, most of her face obscured by the angle. him.
he watches in eerie silence, barely breathing, hearing his easy laughter on the video, watching himself kiss and bite and fuck a girl from his past to a bruising orgasm. she tumbles him to the bed after, using his tie to bind his wrists together as she rides his cock, her hair a veil shadowing her face. he only realizes that time is still passing when he registers hawk’s name continually popping up at the top of the screen, missed call after missed call that turn into demanding texts. call me. where are you? pick up the goddamn phone.
he has to remember how to breathe before he walks out the door. his lungs feel too tight, like he’s being held underwater, like his head is about to fucking explode. his night of poisonously bad decisions had been weeks ago, and he hasn’t thought of it since, more than happy to forget all the things he can’t seem to remember — but this is a punch in the gut, a shock to the system, and he realizes abruptly that the reason his phone won’t stop going off is because it’s all over the internet.
the world found out the same time that he did.
********
a combination of washington traffic and needing to hide out in the car before making his way inside means it takes him an hour to get to the office. an hour in which he doesn’t answer any of hawk’s calls. an hour for embry to spiral into his worst self, so when he does walk in, he doesn’t go to the person who would bury a body to solve this for him. he ignores hawk entirely save for a scorching look and a rude brush by, stalking with purpose to ash’s door instead, striding in without knocking, trying to look as poised as possible while his heart threatens to hammer straight out of his chest.
ash will know what to do. ash will always know what to do. embry is on the very brink of panicking, his eyes wide and skittish, and he just needs — something solid and familiar, something that hasn’t been ruined by his touch. he wants ash to put his hands on his shoulders and wrestle him down to his knees so that embry doesn’t have to think and doesn’t have to feel anything except for ash’s overwhelming presence, and everything will be okay after that, because ash will take care if it. ash will take care of him.
the look ash gives him drives something sharper than a blade through the softest part of his heart. before embry can even open his mouth, ash levels a question at him.
this is what you wanted instead of what we had? that sort of life — that’s good enough for you?
it eviscerates him. embry feels every argument evaporate, every reason he walked in here fly out the window. he feels footsteps at his back — hawk, lurking in the goddamn doorway. embry looks at ash and fights the prickle of tears in his eyes, keeps his composure like he always does. ash’s disappointment is crushing, like his bones are being physically squeezed to breaking. ash doesn’t know. embry realizes then that nobody knows, and that’s the only power he has left here — that he can pretend that he wanted this, that he remembers any of this, that at least it was a good night, and he was just being his usual careless, rankly promiscuous self. ]
Yeah. It’s good enough for me. [ embry straightens his shoulders but has the grace to look slightly ashamed. ] I didn’t know she was gonna leak the recording, okay? It was just supposed to be fun. I’m sorry. It was stupid, and I’m sorry. That’s all I came to say. I’ll do whatever needs to be done for damage control.
[ then he turns and walks out, needing to escape ash’s presence as quickly as possible, though it doesn’t help feeling hawk’s eyes raking over him, as intimate as a lover — or an executioner. they make it to embry’s office, and embry grabs the first thing off his desk — a box of pens — and hurls it at the wall with a curse. the pens go streaming across the floor as embry scrubs a hand down his face, heaving out a breath. he reminds himself to breathe, that no one knows, that he’s lied with fucking excellence before, and he can sell this one, too. planting himself on the corner of his desk, he grips the edges of the wood to keep his hands from shaking. ]
So, did you watch it? Did you rub one out to me? [ casually, he crosses his ankles. ] Where’s my coffee?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
— VISUALS.
➤ 𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑
so maybe the way he sets down his glass is a little louder than it needs to be. maybe his motion to grab a second one is faster, more agitated in the way he does it. it might be petty or telling on himself, but he thinks he has every right to be a little pissed off at the way embry's picking and choosing when to let ash be the light of his goddamned life. maybe the part he's most bitter about is that he has a sneaking, sinking suspicion that's something that will never go away, and it's not like he wants to replace it, but it'd be nice to know that the first person he's opened himself up to in any capacity since tim laughlin actually gave a shit about what that means. at least, before he screws his head back on straight and realizes how stupid it is anyway. embry could have his pick of anyone, the way hawk sees it. ash, probably greer, the woman at the conference - majority of the attendees too, while they're at it.
fuck, he feels a headache coming on. this is why he hates entanglements, why he should have just fucked him once and maybe let lyonesse slide and never let himself get in this deep.
(he'd started reading the book, knowing it wasn't left behind on accident. the highlighted pieces don't seem like coincidence, and it might have been foreplay tonight if - )
hawk turns smoothly, even though there's something sharp in his eyes as he slides the second tumbler of scotch across the surface of the bar with the indication that embry can come get it himself.]
I'm the one that warned you, if I recall.
[not a told you so - not by a long shot, because he doesn't like the thought of embry getting cornered or whatever the fuck happened that secret service apparently didn't have the sense to keep her at arm's length. unless embry let it happen on purpose, which is a very real possibility. even so, it doesn't really rankle hawk the same way thinking about him spending his entire goddamn privileged life pining after a man that may very well want him back if those lingering looks in the hallway are anything to go by.
but then his excuse sinks in, and - huh, he hadn't expected it to sting that bad. hawk plasters on his very best smarmy smile, the kind that doesn't reach his eyes, in which the sharpness has died out, and is reserved for homophobes, general annoyances, and the old windbags without a sense of reality who make life miserable for the rest of their constituents.]
All's well that ends well, then. Not a big deal.
Don't suppose you remember her name. Just to dot all the i's and cross our t's.
[strictly business, and whenever embry comes up to retrieve his glass, hawk will shove his own in a brusque clink against it without pretense to drain his own.]
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— the morning after.
he tries to sit up, but abandons the endeavor when pain spikes through his skull. no go. he's clearly not making it into the office today, which hawk has probably noticed by now. hawk also has a key to his place — which embry needs to fucking take back — but there's no evidence he's been by, and that... hurts, in a left field kind of way. he should, professionally, care if embry lives or dies, even if he personally does not.
to show evidence that he is, in fact, alive — ]
what made you not want timothy laughlin?
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— taking hits every time i play this game.
it’s hawk. embry is actually going to pick up and tell him that he’s not late to the meeting, everyone else is just early, and yes, he’s walking out the door now, but then his phone buzzes again. it’s the white house publicist, and then it’s an aide, and then it’s his goddamn mother. embry crunches into the rest of the croissant, trying to decide which fire to face first, and then morgan sends a text that only says what the fuck is this? with a link to a video.
morgan doesn’t text him for small talk or casual pleasantries. something begins gnawing in the pit of his stomach as he dodges another one of hawk’s calls to tap on the link, a grainy video popping up on the screen. his bedroom. a girl with dark lipstick, most of her face obscured by the angle. him.
he watches in eerie silence, barely breathing, hearing his easy laughter on the video, watching himself kiss and bite and fuck a girl from his past to a bruising orgasm. she tumbles him to the bed after, using his tie to bind his wrists together as she rides his cock, her hair a veil shadowing her face. he only realizes that time is still passing when he registers hawk’s name continually popping up at the top of the screen, missed call after missed call that turn into demanding texts. call me. where are you? pick up the goddamn phone.
he has to remember how to breathe before he walks out the door. his lungs feel too tight, like he’s being held underwater, like his head is about to fucking explode. his night of poisonously bad decisions had been weeks ago, and he hasn’t thought of it since, more than happy to forget all the things he can’t seem to remember — but this is a punch in the gut, a shock to the system, and he realizes abruptly that the reason his phone won’t stop going off is because it’s all over the internet.
the world found out the same time that he did.
********
a combination of washington traffic and needing to hide out in the car before making his way inside means it takes him an hour to get to the office. an hour in which he doesn’t answer any of hawk’s calls. an hour for embry to spiral into his worst self, so when he does walk in, he doesn’t go to the person who would bury a body to solve this for him. he ignores hawk entirely save for a scorching look and a rude brush by, stalking with purpose to ash’s door instead, striding in without knocking, trying to look as poised as possible while his heart threatens to hammer straight out of his chest.
ash will know what to do. ash will always know what to do. embry is on the very brink of panicking, his eyes wide and skittish, and he just needs — something solid and familiar, something that hasn’t been ruined by his touch. he wants ash to put his hands on his shoulders and wrestle him down to his knees so that embry doesn’t have to think and doesn’t have to feel anything except for ash’s overwhelming presence, and everything will be okay after that, because ash will take care if it. ash will take care of him.
the look ash gives him drives something sharper than a blade through the softest part of his heart. before embry can even open his mouth, ash levels a question at him.
this is what you wanted instead of what we had? that sort of life — that’s good enough for you?
it eviscerates him. embry feels every argument evaporate, every reason he walked in here fly out the window. he feels footsteps at his back — hawk, lurking in the goddamn doorway. embry looks at ash and fights the prickle of tears in his eyes, keeps his composure like he always does. ash’s disappointment is crushing, like his bones are being physically squeezed to breaking. ash doesn’t know. embry realizes then that nobody knows, and that’s the only power he has left here — that he can pretend that he wanted this, that he remembers any of this, that at least it was a good night, and he was just being his usual careless, rankly promiscuous self. ]
Yeah. It’s good enough for me. [ embry straightens his shoulders but has the grace to look slightly ashamed. ] I didn’t know she was gonna leak the recording, okay? It was just supposed to be fun. I’m sorry. It was stupid, and I’m sorry. That’s all I came to say. I’ll do whatever needs to be done for damage control.
[ then he turns and walks out, needing to escape ash’s presence as quickly as possible, though it doesn’t help feeling hawk’s eyes raking over him, as intimate as a lover — or an executioner. they make it to embry’s office, and embry grabs the first thing off his desk — a box of pens — and hurls it at the wall with a curse. the pens go streaming across the floor as embry scrubs a hand down his face, heaving out a breath. he reminds himself to breathe, that no one knows, that he’s lied with fucking excellence before, and he can sell this one, too. planting himself on the corner of his desk, he grips the edges of the wood to keep his hands from shaking. ]
So, did you watch it? Did you rub one out to me? [ casually, he crosses his ankles. ] Where’s my coffee?
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