Title: Personal Insight Is Something That Happens to Other People
Author: upsidedownbutterfly
Summary: Though very occasionally it happens to Wes Janson as well. Wes/Hobbie.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: This is my magnum opus. I've been editing this for like a solid year. Too bad you can't fucking tell.
For Wes Janson, personal insight had always been something that happened to other people.
Now there were some individuals – including unfortunately most of his superior officers – who might have been tempted to call that a flaw. Possibly also a failing, or even a personal shortcoming. Wes however had certainly never thought of it that way.
For one thing, Wes had always been deeply skeptical of the idea that he might have such a thing as flaws to begin with. Of course even if Wes had been willing to entertain such an incredibly absurd and profoundly unlikely possibility, that particular character trait still wouldn't have made the list. Quite the opposite in fact. On of a scale of one to driving Wedge Antilles to the seething edge of homicide, Wes tended to rate ignoring uncomfortable self-revelations just slightly behind piloting an X wing when ranking skills he took greatest pride in.
That was probably why when the attraction started creeping up through his subconscious with what – if Wes was going to be realistic about it – very likely amounted to all the stealth and subtly of a Noghri assassin, Wes Janson very definitely did not notice it. Oh sure, there might have been a stray thought here or an unexpected, ah, physical reaction there. Nothing however that Wes and his powers of willful ignorance couldn't write off as stress or sleep deprivation or the product of a prolonged dry spell. Or all three.
It went on like that for months – probably. Even in retrospect Wes could never be certain. After all, it could be somewhat difficult to pinpoint the start of an attraction you were committed to pretending didn't exist. What Wes however could be very certain of was the moment he finally became aware of the attraction. The moment his vigilant ignorance waned and the carefully constructed stalemate between his unconscious yearnings and intrepid denial shattered like durasteel meeting a vibroblade.
It was the middle of the night, a few hours before local dawn, when Wes awoke sweat-drenched and panting from a surprisingly erotic dream. Not that the eroticism itself was particularly surprising. No, Wes had few reservations about admitting that that was a fairly regular – and completely normal and healthy so shut up, Antilles – occurrence. What was most very definitely surprising was the very, very familiar face – not to mention, ah, other body parts – that had been the subject of said eroticism.
Surprising, and distressing.
Wes lay immobilized in his bunk – paralyzed half with horror, half by the mess of sticky sheets tangled about his limbs – as memories of the naked and writhing form of his best friend's dreamland doppelganger flooded back into his consciousness. He tried to stop them. Oh, he tried. Only the images came anyway, as violently and vividly clear as an X wing heads-up display and painfully resistant even to Wes's practiced powers of denial.
Still the images weren't even the worst part. Not even close. No, that particular if also insanely dubious prize went to the strange tightness those images kept conjuring in his chest. An unfamiliar squeezing sensation that Wes wanted to believe was gas but suspected with deep and abiding consternation might actually represent something not strictly un-akin to feelings.
He never made it back to sleep after that. Instead he spent the next several hours staring up at the ceiling and thinking to himself, kriff. Because indeed tried as he might, this was apparently one personal revelation that even Wes Janson wasn't going to be able to ignore.
Of course just because Wes could no longer run from this particular piece of personal insight didn't necessarily mean he was obligated to actually do anything about it.
So naturally he didn't.
Instead Wes chose to quietly nurse his embarrassing little crush for an equally embarrassing length of time in a manner that absolutely did not resemble pining. Maybe he was still clinging to his long-held conviction that anything you ignored long enough would eventually go away. Maybe he was just a coward. (Wes personally liked option one more.) Regardless of the motivation however the end result turned out to be somewhat less than what Wes would have hoped.
By the end of the month waking up hot and sticky and with Hobbie's face taunting him from behind closed eyelids had become a bi- to tri-nightly event. Before two months were out, he and the cold shower were on a first name basis. Once he even caught himself wishing they were all back at Echo Base so that Hoth's frigid surface temperature could at least save him the time.
He was fairly certain Wedge had to have noticed something was going on. It was difficult to say for certain though. After all askance looks had been an integral part of Wedge's Wes repertoire for over a decade now. Wes would need to crunch some heavy numbers if he was going to determine whether they were actually increasing in frequency or he was just becoming increasingly paranoid.
Not that it mattered. Not really. Although Wes was certainly braced for the inevitable mockery once Wedge finally did put all the pieces together. What mattered was ensuring that Hobbie didn't find out, and with that in mind, Wes threw all his efforts into making absolutely certain that his ridiculous crush didn't affect their friendship.
So Wes stuck doggedly to their routine, which was to say he continued to approach their bickering like the fine art form he was always insisting to Tycho that it was. If anything their squabbling actually got more intense, which Wes vaguely suspected someone a modicum more inclined to self-reflection might recognize as overcompensation.
He valiantly ignored that suspicion however. Additional episodes of personal insight were the last thing he needed right now.
So the months wore on. The Rogues fought and flew and tried not to die – and were surprisingly successful at all three. All the while Wes told himself that as long as he remained bastioned in the fortress of his own inaction eventually this ridiculous crush would pass.
Which of course it didn't.
It was at Luke's wedding of all places that things finally came to a head.
Well, it was the reception really, when Wes found Hobbie alone on a balcony staring out into the twinkling Coruscant night with more pensiveness than Wes would have thought him truly capable of. He was nursing a glass of Corellian brandy that, knowing Hobbie and his feelings on the concept of open bars, Wes was willing to bet wasn't his first. Or second. Maybe not even his third.
"Getting a little pathetic, isn't it?" Hobbie remarked as Wes approached. The slur to his syllables was subtle but there. Definitely not his third then. Wes had had his best friend's alcohol tolerance down to a science for years, and Hobbie never started slurring before the four-drink mark.
Wes opened his mouth to reply, casting mentally around for what Hobbie could possibly be talking about, and then promptly shut it again when he came up empty-handed. Unless it was Luke's dancing, in which case pathetic might be a bit harsh though admittedly the most charitable thing to be said about it was that Leia had certainly tried.
Finally he just said, "Huh?"
Hobbie turned to fix Wes with that shit-eating grin that had been recently leaving Wes feeling an uncomfortable combination of exasperated and aroused. "Even Skywalker's settling down. It's just the two of us left now. Rogue squadron's perpetual bachelors. Married to our X wings."
It was an old joke and a bad one. One that Hobbie and Wedge and Tycho and even Wes himself had all made a thousand times before. Except this time Wes couldn't help but think that something felt off. Something in Hobbie's tone was wrong. The flippancy was too calculated, the lightheartedness too deliberate.
Wes elected not to exam it too closely lest any more self-revelations inadvertently result. Only half a dozen sentences and already this conversation was skimming dangerously close to that one uncomfortable personal truth Wes still resented being forced to acknowledge. He wasn't due – or ready – for any new insights.
"I thought you and Inyri were getting serious," he said instead, intending to nudge the conversation away from himself and more wholly onto Hobbie's romantic entanglements, which was – if he ignored that stupid little twinge in his heart – a subject he was far more comfortable with.
Hobbie however apparently wasn't. His smile faltered only for an instant, but when it returned it seemed even more brittle than before. "It's over," he said and took another swallow of his brandy. Then he shrugged and added, "There was someone else."
"Sorry, Hobbs," said Wes and mostly meant it.
Hobbie just laughed, and it sounded strained but still somehow genuine in a way the smile never had been. "Not for her," he clarified. "For me."
Wes couldn't help the surprised noise he made in the back of his throat because, no offense, but who? It wasn't exactly like Hobbie's social activities extended much beyond drinking with the Rogues – which, yes, he could admit was the Gamorrean calling the Hutt ugly but that didn't make it any less true. It had to be…
"Someone I know?" he asked, mentally running through their list of mutual acquaintances and crossing off those who were either dead or – giving Hobbie the potentially unwarranted benefit of the doubt – married.
Which… didn't leave all that many actually.
Besides him.
Wes regretted that thought as soon as he had it.
"You really are an idiot sometimes," said Hobbie in a tone that left Wes with the niggling suspicion that he really was missing something vital here. Another revelation dancing right on the edge of consciousness, fueled by a head full of whiskey and this blasted romantic mood lighting he was fairly certain he had Iella to blame for. Wes made a mental note to whine at her about it later.
He should walk away, Wes knew. Metaphorically, and probably literally as well. Turn, saunter off, and continue to allow personal insights to happen strictly to other people. And yet for what was very definitely the first time in his life Wes was finding that he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to.
"Who?" he asked again against all better judgment.
Something flashed across Hobbie's face faster than an A wing piloted by a glitterstim junkie, but it was enough because suddenly Wes Janson was suffering from the second major personal revelation of his life.
"I am an idiot," he groaned, because he really, really was. Then he kissed Hobbie before he could agree too emphatically.
As kisses go, it was not a particularly romantic kiss. Not at all in fact. Instead it was desperate and sloppy and decidedly brandy-flavored – not that Wes cared about that. It was also far too short, which Wes did in fact care about a great deal. Luckily, there was another after that and then yet another, followed by an unfortunate but necessary interlude as they snuck out of the reception hand-in-hand.
Several minutes later, as they tumbled through the door of Hobbie's Coruscant apartment, Wes couldn't help but think that maybe – just maybe – he could get used to this whole personal insight thing after all.