They crash into the hotel room.
621 bounces off the doorframe, tethered to Rusty by their fingers digging new wrinkles into his jacket. Rusty drags them against the wall by the hips and slams the hard line of his cock against them, and 621 rolls their hips right back, grinding their sexes together with an urgency that thunders right through their veins. His fingers curl to claws, ten perfect blooms of pain in their skin that makes them moan into his mouth as he holds them hard against him, and they have half a mind to ride the so-good friction and rut against each other until they both cum— they know they could, they know he could make them, so so easily— but they know it'd be less satisfying than peeling all those clothes off each other and feeling him drive into them again and again and again and again.
And that fucking jacket.
621 shoves that-fucking-jacket over his shoulders, not realising how much importance they'd attached to it until right then, and Rusty backs off just long enough to shrug it onto the floor. One tiny, sensible part of their brain that hasn't been lost to the heat of him has something to say about that, but it's not steering right now, and the rest of their willpower is overwhelmingly focused on fisting Rusty's shirt to pull him back in for another bruising kiss. Whatever that sensible part was compelling them to say is smothered by a gasp as Rusty grabs them by the hair and yanks their head back.
"Don't have to leave yet," he whispers, arms closing around them so his thumb brushes the sensitive skin where their prosthetic arm meets their chest. The motion is so idle, so sentimental, that they suddenly feel like imploding all over again. "I paid for the whole night. Might as well get our money's worth."
They focus on his heartbeat. The rhythm of it imparts some of that easy confidence of his into them, chasing out tension they didn't even know they were holding. Losing shape against him. Trying to sink into him, all boneless warmth.
"Walter..." they begin, but don't finish. Walter what? He might own them, but not in a way where he capitalises on it. It's not like he asks what they do when they're not strategizing between sorties. They'd told him they were going out with the Vespers purely in case it was a setup for something more dangerous.
"He keep your leash that tight?" Rusty asks. It's faintly sceptical, already rebuilding that casual veneer he wears so well, but there's something more genuine to it too. Like he cares. Like it matters.
They think about what Rusty had said at the Wall, how he'd called Walter infamous. How Sulla said he pitied them for being his Hound. How Carla felt sorry for them. How the CYNOSURUS has space for three ACs but it's only holding theirs. How they woke up in the LOADER 4.
"No," they decide. They kiss one of the faint pink lines on his chest. "But I like keeping it that way."
Rusty's whole chest rumbles when he hums. "How bad is it?"
"Sixteen billion COAM. And my CCCD key's on the black market."
His hand tightens. He doesn't speak.
"Yeah," they say. The wistfulness of it hangs for just a second before they decide they hate it, and instead rise to gently push Rusty onto his back, laying their head and arms over his chest. They smile, mischievous. "So I mean, if you're looking to buy me out... that's the price."
He breathes a laugh. "I think gen four keys might go for a little less than that."
"Says who?"
He shrugs, liquid and effortless, somehow not disturbing them resting across his pectorals. "I've got friends."
"Your friends looking for a gen four?"
The idea of buying their own key and locking Walter out of their brain for good takes up more space in their mind than it should. They're caught up in it, testing the emotions it stirs in them like checking on a bruise. Does it hurt here? Here? They're so focused on the thought they miss the twitch of Rusty's brow, the way his breathing shifts, becoming precise and deliberate. Measured.
"If they were, would you say yes?"
He floats it easily, curiosity as lazy as the rest of him, a soft, pillow talk, shooting-the-shit kind of question that would scan as casual if not for the keen edge of his gaze that betrays him. Studying them. Searching for something beneath the surface.
They swallow.
"I don't know." 621 shifts against his chest, their body fitting more snugly into his. "A year ago, if the RLF offered me an out, I would've taken it, no questions asked. Now… I'm starting to remember why we stayed independent on Ganymede."
Rusty shifts slightly, his head resting against the pillow as his body angles towards them, the weight of him folding into theirs in a comfortable sprawl. His thumb still strokes lazy patterns along the smooth curve of their prosthetic arm, like he's forgotten it's there. "What changed your mind?"
"Don't get me wrong: I've got no love for Balam and, no offence, even less for Arquebus."
"None taken."
"It's not about changing my mind, exactly." They nuzzle deeper into his chest, their voice dropping softer, more intimate, as if speaking too loudly might break this delicate moment. An absentminded kiss touches his collarbone, and Rusty's breath hitches, almost imperceptibly. "It's about remembering the benefits of staying independent. I get my pick of the contracts, and I get to execute them however I want. It's harder, sure, but simpler. It's just my own reputation on the line, my own two legs I'm standing on." Their lips hover near his skin, but they don't press in for another kiss, not yet. "As long as I'm taking the jobs, someone else isn't. I get to decide how hard I hit RLF installations or PCA supply depots."
"Or Arquebus survey bases," Rusty adds, his voice a little lower, a little too knowing.
Hjalmar— that was Squad IV. Those were his people they were shooting.
Still, they know better than to feel guilty about it. "You picked your side."
They know they should stop, making lean up to kiss him, pull him towards the shower where the steam and water can erase this conversation. Let the gentle patter dissolve into something easier, something that doesn't press into either of their wounds, but Rusty's arm is wrapped around them like an anchor, and his hand stroking their back glues them in place.
So they keep talking. The words feel like they're tumbling out, unpolished and rough, like the rocks they've only recently been turning over in their mind. "But I can't convince myself that's true either. During the Jupiter War, Arquebus wanted the same thing we did: to keep Ganymede safe. The people shelling us were Balam and GA."
He hums. "GA?"
"Global Armaments. Earth corp. Arquebus wanted the technology and the knowledge of the people on Ganymede. They wanted the food supply to the whole belt and outer planets." Their fingers tighten in their arms. Their voice drops, low and soft, like they're afraid to say it and force them both to acknowledge it. Acknowledge what 621 is doing, claiming to help while taking Arquebus jobs. Acknowledge what he's doing, a Rubiconian working for Arquebus, and one with a heart that still bleeds Rubicon's red. "They don't want that here."
Rusty watches them for a long time. They don't know the exact composition of the storms in his eyes, but know it rhymes with their own, the one that sounds like they want to hollow out Rubicon and leave the shell to rot.
"I know," he murmurs. No matter how quietly he says it, it's still laden with the weight of everything they're leaving unsaid: every line they're toeing, every truth they both know but won't speak aloud.
Against 621 feels the light in the room drain away. They feel the weight of the conversation pressing on them like a heavy fog, thick and suffocating. It's too close. Too heavy for right now. Rusty's quiet admission only makes it worse, the unspoken words settling between them like lead.
So instead they sit up. They shake the gloom off like it's something physical caught in their hair, and they smirk once more.
"So, that jacket..."
Their eyes dart to the floor where it's fallen. Rusty's brow twitches, and for a second, he's silent, then he closes his eyes and lets out a thin, hissing laugh, like letting steam out a kettle. "You don't give up, do you?"
"I'm not known to," they reply. It's smug, and they know it, and they haven't done a single thing to earn that smugness except for preventing either of them from killing the mood — which, okay. Given the circumstances, that is a feat worth being smug over.
Rusty shakes his head, a hint of that easy grin coming back to his lips. It makes their heart beat loud against their chest all over again.
"You can have it. If—" he presses the syllable down hard, all gleaming eyes and mock seriousness, "you promise you'll take care of it."
They pause, confused, and then remember what they had said at the bar and laugh, sheepish. "I didn't mean what I said. At the bar."
Rusty hums, a two-tone note of tepid belief. "Don't wear it out in any storms if you can help it."
They think, it was never going to leave my quarters, but choose to nod.
"Don't stretch the sleeves."
"Promise."
"And condition it, too." Rusty adds, as if the whole exchange is a little contract of their own. "Once a year."
"That cow will be more pampered in death than it ever was in life," they tell him. They mean it.
Rusty's arms snake around them, rising to sit with them at the edge of the bed. Their breath hitches as he easily glides his lips over theirs, grounding them once again with the warmth and taste of him.
"And..." he pulls back just enough to murmur against their lips. "Don't put it on until we're done showering."
They smile. "Deal."