Title: Reconciliation
Series: This story is the second of a three-part series. This is a sequel to "Wanting," but you do not necessarily need to read that one to understand this one. To summarize "Wanting," they had emotional sex, and that's really all.
Author: Hephaistion's Thighs
Timeframe: Pre-Movie
Rating: R
Pairing: Mace/Capa
Warnings: violence, angst, profanity, length (3,421words)
Reviews: Very, very loved. 3
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The dying sun glinted off Capa's sunglasses. The young physicist was sitting in the park adjacent to part of the Project Icarus complex, sipping on a drink.
Mace approached, coming to sit beside him. "What are you doing out here?"
"Nothing," Capa answered, "absolutely nothing." The crew had very little time that wasn't filled with officially scheduled activities, so sometimes he didn't want to do anything at all with his free time.
"So I see." Mace joined him in this non-acitivity. Capa tilted the drink toward him and Mace accepted a sip.
Mace knew the physicist was prone to some strange behavior, like sitting out in the cold doing nothing but staring up at the diffuse light in the sky, and he just accepted Capa was unusual without trying to normalize him. He didn't typically take well to people's idiosyncrasies - if people were doing something weird and he couldn't understand why, he wanted them to fucking quit it - but he kind of liked Capa's. His affection for Capa was atypical in a lot of ways.
Since they had first shared a night together, they hadn't been able to just leave it at that. One night wasn't enough for them, and they were now seeing each other regularly. No one else knew. They acted the same as always with each other in official settings. They might have even been acting less friendly in public to compensate.
Being with Capa intimately made Mace a little uncomfortable when he worked with him. It heightened his awareness of Capa's separation from the rest of the crew. He considered all of the crew to be his friends to different degrees - he kind of had to for the sake of the mission - but now Capa, who never fit in properly to Mace's interpersonal schematic because he wasn't really an astronaut and didn't have a rank, had become his lover.
Mace took one of Capa's gloved hands into his own. Capa's eyes fell from the sky to the joined limbs, then he smiled up at him. Mace leaned in and kissed him. Capa set the drink aside and cupped Mace's face, kissing him more deeply.
"You should wear a hat," he said as their lips parted for a moment.
"I wasn't expecting to be out for this long," Mace explained. His ears were definitely feeling the cold now. "Can we relocate inside?"
Capa gave the heavens a parting look. "Okay."
Mace could understand Capa's desire to be outside. They had completed most of their Earth orbit training now, they were only back on solid ground for a week to see their families and friends. They were leaving again for space in two days, and once this last four-week session of Earth orbit training ended, the mission would begin. No more outside for years.
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The couple made their way back to their quarters hand in hand. Mace flinched back suddenly as brick shrapnel exploded in front of him, but he wasn't able to react any further before the second bullet hit.
Pain shot through his shoulder. It all happened so quickly; he heard Capa gasp and caught a glimpse of wide blue eyes. The first thing he could think to do was to push the other man between himself and the wall, shielding him.
The sniper's next bullet imbedded in Mace's thigh. He collapsed, and his heart skipped as adrenaline rushed through him. "Capa, run!" The entrance to the building wasn't far.
But Capa didn't. Mace felt an arm wrap around him and Capa pulled him up and forward. Bullets continued to penetrate the wall around them. The leg that had been shot refused to hold any weight, but with Capa supporting him, they were able to stumble forward together in a rush to the nearest doorway.
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The gunman was part of a terrorist organization that believed the Icarus mission was in defiance of the will of God. The individual had been tracked and picked up by authorities, and he was now being questioned. Once they were both finally done talking to the many various officials about the incident, Capa came in to see Mace.
"How are you feeling?" The bullets had been removed and the entry wounds had been treated, Mace was recovering now.
Seeing the concern in Capa's face, the naïveté there, pushed Mace's simmering anger over the edge.
"You idiot!"
This obviously wasn't what Capa had expected.
"You could have been killed!" Mace shouted.
"We both could have been..."
"If I die, there are other engineers. But there is a huge drop in competence between you and he next best guy they have in training!"
"So, what, you're expendable?" Capa asked, incredulity warring still with surprise and confusion.
"Compared to you I am!" Mace replied. A breath passed, and Mace continued before the other could argue. "You don't get it, do you? You could have just fucked the whole Earth, killed us all, because you were too stupid to run when a goddamn terrorist sniper was shooting at you!"
"You were shot in the leg, I wasn't going to just leave you there!" Capa said.
"You should have!" Mace was furious.
"Neither of us died-" Capa tried to protest.
"You took an unnecessary risk that could have killed you! If you had died, it could cause the whole mission to fail!" Mace was right; there was a huge number of scientists involved in the Payload, but not one of Capa's peers or understudies could handle the dark matter bomb as well as he could. He wasn't really replaceable.
"We're both still alive," Capa said placatingly, "We can both still go on the mission."
"We're lucky." Distantly, some part of Mace didn't like yelling at Capa, but those personal feelings became marginalized in a situation like this. "We're damn lucky that shooter was such a lousy shot. He probably wanted to kill you more than me, and I just happened to get in the way. It is nothing but pure dumb luck that you weren't hit!"
Capa had been hit. A bullet had grazed a long, deep gash across his upper back. He wasn't going to tell Mace about this.
"I may have made a mistake," the physicist said, "but it's done now. And our situation makes the choice of leaving you there to die a little more complicated, don't you think?"
"Our relationship, you mean?" Mace looked at Capa. He really did love him. He loved Capa. He loved him.
He hated the words that were about to come out of his mouth. "Maybe we need to consider how our relationship complicates things."
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By the time the crew of the Icarus II was preparing to launch into space for the last time, Mace had started closing Capa out of his heart and exiled him from his bed.
When Mace had ended their relationship four days ago - the launch had only been delayed two days by the attack and investigation - Capa had protested and argued. He'd been hurt. But Mace's mind was made up and he wouldn't budge. Not even the beautiful sadness of the man he loved could move him.
The way he saw it, the sooner they got past their feelings for each other, the better. Their intimacy obviously compromised them, and it was going to get Capa killed. It could get them all killed.
Capa approached him in what would literally be their last few moments in open air.
"I love you."
Mace looked at his shoes and at the far horizon, anything to ignore Capa until he went away. The wind swept between them.
"I love you," Capa said again.
The silence was roaring. When Mace saw Capa's face finally turn away from him in his periphery, he risked a glance at him. He wondered what damage he was doing to Capa.
But then the physicist's countenance and stance changed subtly, and he looked strong again. He had a Payload, and his duty to it meant that nothing Mace did or didn't do could affect him.
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"Jesus Christ Capa, can't you just get out of the way?" Mace snapped.
"Harvey's sleeping, so you're going to have to deal with it." Capa glared back.
"I think I'll just wait for him to wake up."
"This has the be fixed!"
It was one of the rare maintenance repairs that Mace could not perform alone. Harvey was the one who normally might assist him on this particular operation, but the communications officer had the night shift the evening before. Captain Kaneda had asked Capa to help Mace instead.
Unfortunately, it didn't take much to get one of the former couple pissed off at the other these days. Mace only had to see Capa show up, and now he was irritable and convinced that the scientist was just getting under foot and making the process take longer than it had any right to. At the same time, Capa resented having to be around Mace at all and the other man's moody nature.
"Fuck it, I'm getting Trey," Mace announced, and began to leave.
"Fine. Great." Capa left in the opposite direction. "Fucking child," he muttered under his breath.
"What did you just say?" he heard barked down the hall at him. He startled a little; he wasn't expecting Mace to have heard him.
He kept walking, but apparently Mace wasn't going to just let this go. "Hey!" Capa heard him coming toward him, and even his footsteps sounded angry.
The smaller man dashed into the nearest room, a small laboratory Corazon used. "Icarus, lock door!"
"Yes, Capa."
The command went through just in time to stop Mace, who slammed into the transparent door separating them. "What did you call me?" the bigger man seethed.
"You can't even get through a standard part replacement with me without stomping off in a tantrum!" Capa replied.
"Right, and locking yourself in a lab to avoid a conflict is much more mature!" Mace shot back.
"I'm sure I would feel very adult if I opened the door so you could pound on me."
Mace cocked his head. "Icarus, unlock the door."
"No, Icarus-"
"Yes, Mace."
The door slid open between them.
Shit. Capa backed up and raised his hands almost unconsciously to protect himself.
Mace glared at him for a moment, then turned and left again. He wasn't going to wail on him, but he wanted Capa to know that he could if he wanted to. Plus, seeing him all flushed and wide-eyed had made Mace very aroused, and he had to get away from him quickly.
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"We have a long way to go. How long do you think you and Mace can keep this up?"
Searle was right, there was almost a year left before they reached the Payload delivery point. Capa dreaded the continuing escalation of tension between himself and his ex. At the rate things had gone thus far, Mace would likely kill him around the time they approached Venus, forget making it to the Sun and back home in one piece.
"Believe me, I would like to keep absolutely nothing up with Mace." Damn it, why did everything have to be subtextually sexual like that when it came to him and Mace?
"Capa, you both obviously get something out of your conflicts. We should address this," Searle said.
"There's nothing to talk about."
The psychologist let him be. After a few minutes, Capa picked conversation up again. "You're spending a lot of time in here." The two were sitting in the Observation Room, gazing into the ball of fire before them.
Searle just nodded.
"Here, you need them more than me." Capa offered the doctor his sunglasses.
Searle accepted them, but looked at Capa curiously. "You won't need them?"
"No, I don't look at it much." He kind of hated it a little. He wished they could look at the rest of the stars sometimes. The light of the Sun, even at this distance, blocked the visibility of everything else.
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"Where's boy genius?" Mace asked a week later when the man in question didn't show up for a meal.
"A bad blizzard hit the Midwest," Cassie said. "Power and transportation are out. Capa's sister hasn't been able to get in contact with his parents."
Mace paused before returning to his meal silently.
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Capa was gradually vanishing from sight. That was true in a couple of ways; the physicist was making himself scarce and avoiding the rest of the crew, and Kaneda was enforcing Capa's presence at meals as mandatory after he dropped out of his barely-healthy weight margin.
The next package of messages had arrived, and there was still no word about Capa's parents. Mace was sick of him moping - Capa had the unique talent of annoying Mace without even being around him - so he was going to hunt him down and beat the self-pity out of him.
He finally found him in one of the two unoccupied patient rooms of the ship's medical bay. The brunet was just standing there and staring at the wall.
It took Capa a long time to realize Mace was in the room. He finally turned toward him, and his face could have read as blank to someone who didn't know better, but Mace could see the deep sorrow there.
"They're probably dead." The blizzards that would tear across the frozen Earth were horrible; there had been high casualties since the Sun began to fail.
Mace no longer had the urge to give Capa a lashing to snap him out of his state of inertia. Seeing the physicist sad caused the feeling to echo inside himself.
"It doesn't matter if I live or die," Capa confessed quietly.
"What are you talking about?"
Capa shrugged and Mace felt himself wanting to wrap his arms around those slim shoulders. He wished they weren't fighting. Even before they had started sleeping together, they had gotten along. Now they didn't even have friendship.
"Under many conditions, Icarus would be able to activate the Payload without me. My sister has her family. My parents were the only ones who had reason to notice I'm not on Earth and care if I ever come back." It was instinctive for Capa to confide in Mace, as if the last many months hadn't happened and he still trusted him.
"Yeah, but... What do you mean?" Mace asked again. He shook his head. "The mission needs you."
This reaffirmation didn't lift Capa's expression at all.
"The Earth can't rely on the probability of 'many conditions'. It needs you, mankind needs you - isn't that enough?" Mace questioned as he came closer.
"Of course it is. It's the only thing that matters. I wouldn't have come if that weren't enough of a reason to live or die," Capa said. After a moment, he continued slowly, "But it really doesn't matter which of those I experience. That bomb has been my whole life. It has to successfully detonate, and that's it."
In the big picture, he was right. But this wasn't the big picture, this was just the two of them alone together in the middle of space. Mace didn't know what to say. He touched Capa's arm hesitantly. "It matters to me if you live or die."
Capa looked at him again. They held each other's eyes and Mace could still feel the sadness and loneliness just radiating off Capa. Slowly, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to his.
Capa put a hand on his chest. It seemed like it had been a long time since they'd had physical contact that wasn't motivated by accident or antagonism. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know..." He kissed him again, and this time Capa leaned into it. He lifted onto his toes just a little, in a way that helped when kissing the taller man.
"I just want to make you feel better," Mace murmured.
This did not elicit the reaction he was hoping for, which would have been Capa wrapping his arms around him, fisting his hands in his shirt, and holding him close. Instead, the hand on Mace's chest was joined by the other and the touch became aggressive, pushing him away hard.
"What?" he asked stupidly.
"I don't want your pity!"
"I'm not pitying... I'm just..." Mace wasn't sure what he was doing. He cut himself off; for eyes so icy in color, Capa's glare could burn.
"We're not going to do this just because it's been months and we're horny," Capa said.
"I know." Mace crossed his arms across his chest defensively. His voice softened further, "Do you think there's a chance we could try again, after we deliver the Payload?" Can we start over once we're free?
Mace felt cool disappointment sink through him at the slow shake of Capa's head. "It doesn't work that way. Either we have a relationship or we don't, we can't just put it in a box until a time when it's more convenient."
At least Mace had pushed Capa out of his sadness a little; Capa was still sad, but he was also angry now. Or maybe the anger was just more hurt, and Mace hadn't helped at all.
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Mace stayed in the room after Capa left. Stupid Mace. Stupid Mace! He was mentally chastising himself for kissing Capa, and mentally beating himself over the head for not following through and making Capa stay and making sweet, dirty love to him.
Things could not continue this way.
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Several days of thinking and aborted plans passed. The two plans that seemed the most doable were 1.) Ignore Capa and 2.) Continue getting into physical altercations every time being around Capa rubbed him the wrong way. But his mind kept turning away from those ideas now.
Mace caught Capa unawares, pulling him into his small bedroom as the younger man passed.
He was sorry that Capa immediately prepared to defend himself. He was sorry that their turmoil had become so bad that their fights had become physical. Their fights were never brutal - Mace couldn't imagine hitting Capa in the face with a closed fist, he'd probably break him - but Capa always gave as good as he got, and they'd given each other a fair number of scrapes and bruises.
"I'm glad your parents are okay," Mace said before Capa could ask why he had been waylaid.
"Thank you," the other said a little uncertainly. A message had finally arrived from them; they had survived the blizzard and things were improving in their area.
Mace got to the point. "I want a relationship," he said, "A real relationship, not this 'working relationship' that isn't working."
"I thought our other relationship didn't work either."
"Didn't it?" Mace took Capa's hands, and Capa didn't pull away. "I thought it was okay."
Capa gave him an odd look. "I think the phrase 'almost fucked over the entire Earth' was used..."
"We know what we're doing. We know our priorities. That was one mistake, and there aren't terrorists out here," Mace said.
"Can't you just admit you shouldn't have left me in the first place?" Capa replied.
Mace's brow drew together. "You should have run from that gunman."
"I did the right thing. Because I cared about you, because of our relationship, we're both still alive and the mission didn't have to settle for the second best engineer," Capa insisted.
Here was the juncture in which Mace had to make a decision. He could argue his point again and insist their relationship had been a mistake, or he could have Capa.
"Fine. You were right. Thank you for not leaving me there. Can we just go back to how things were?" The surrender came out quickly and slightly begrudgingly, but now that it was over, Mace couldn't remember why he had been fighting with Capa at all.
Capa smiled. "Okay."
"Okay." Mace felt a little odd just holding both of Capa's hands like he was. He stepped in to him and kissed him to make it better.
Capa breathed in deeply and his thumbs stroked over Mace's fingers. He returned the kiss, freeing one of his hands and wrapping an arm around the mechanic.
They each spared a thought for if they should be doing this or if they could even make their relationship work again after so much conflict. But it was not a small amount of desperation, longing, and their bodies' memory of each other that urged them to not waste any more time.
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Whew! That took longer than I wanted. I appreciate any and all feedback, even if you think this was a big lamefest that ended right before where an incredibly hot sex scene was supposed to be.
The third and last part of this little series is my favorite. It has a pretty cool key concept, and if anyone else happens to write about the same plot idea before I get my story up, I will cry.