Chapter Three #2
The look that crossed his face made Victor’s breath catch.
Interest—heated and unmistakable—flared for half a second before it vanished, replaced by something sharp and furious.
Victor took a reflexive step back.
Was he about to come out swinging?
“Fuck,” Tane muttered, already moving toward him. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
The anger wasn’t at Victor he realized, it was at the fact that he was hurt.
“I’m fine,” Victor said automatically.
Tane shot him a look that said he didn’t believe a word of that. “You’re not.” He softened his voice, reached for him without touching. “Sit down, ku?u aloha. I’ll take care of it.”
The endearment landed harder than it should have. My love. Said unconsciously, almost without thought as to what he was saying.
Victor nodded once and crossed to the table, choosing his seat carefully so the wound was on the outside, exposed. Old habit. Efficiency over comfort.
Tane moved around him, pulling a first aid kit from a drawer while talking like this was the most normal thing in the world.
“Dinner’s stew,” he said. “Root veg, beef. Something solid.” He cracked open a beer and slid it across the table. “Drink.”
Victor wrapped his fingers around the bottle, took a slow pull. Cold. Bitter. Good.
Tane dragged over a stool and sat, leaning over so that his eyes were level with Victor’s injury. He peeled the bandage back with practiced care.
“Shit,” he muttered, then reached for antiseptic. “Tell me how this happened.”
Victor hissed as the liquid burned. “The night I left here,” he said flatly. “The Directorate didn’t appreciate me retiring myself. They sent a welcoming committee to my motel room to try to get me to reconsider.”
Tane’s jaw tightened. “And you went back there because?”
Victor shrugged. “I wanted my gear.”
Tane slow blinked. “You risked death for gear?”
Another shrug. “I have cool gear.”
That earned him a look. “I know.”
Victor frowned. “How?”
Tane glanced up, eyes amused. “You think I didn’t notice you in that tree? Or what you were using?”
Victor stared at him, still struggling to reconcile that moment—the impossible eye contact, the nod.
“How did you even know where I was?”
Tane’s grin was slow and unapologetic. “A man has to have some secrets when he’s courting another man.”
Victor choked on his beer.
“W-what?”
Tane laughed and stood, dishing stew into bowls and setting them on the table like he hadn’t just detonated Victor’s brain.
“I’ve decided you’re mine,” he said calmly.
“Which means it’s my job to prove I’m a man of my word.
Someone you can trust. Someone who’ll stand with you when you start fucking with the Directorate. ”
Victor stared. “You’re not going to tell me to stop?”
“Hell, no,” Tane said. “Black Tide’s going to help you.”
They ate, conversation drifting to safer ground, but it never quite stayed there.
They talked about music first. Victor admitted he listened to whatever didn’t make him think too hard—instrumentals, old rock, the occasional classical piece when he needed to drown everything else out.
Tane countered with stories of growing up with music always playing somewhere, aunties singing while they cooked, uncles arguing over playlists, rhythm woven into daily life whether you noticed it or not.
Then places.
Victor spoke about cities that blurred together in his memory—airports at dawn, hotel rooms that smelled like bleach, coastlines he’d seen only from a distance. He realized, halfway through a sentence, that he’d never really been anywhere. He’d passed through.
Tane listened without interrupting, nodding occasionally, eyes steady on Victor’s face. When Victor faltered, unsure why he was explaining himself at all, Tane simply said, “You don’t have to justify it.”
That, more than anything else, made Victor’s chest tighten.
Later, when the stew was gone and the dishes were stacked neatly by the sink, Victor watched Tane move around the van with easy familiarity.
Nothing wasted. Nothing rushed. This wasn’t the restlessness of someone waiting for the next assignment—it was the calm of someone who expected to be here tomorrow.
Victor wrapped both hands around his mug of tea, the warmth seeping into his palms. The herbal blend tasted faintly of honey and something floral he couldn’t name. It settled him in a way he hadn’t felt in years.
Tane caught him looking into the cup. “Aunty Leilani makes it,” Tane said. “It’s a healing and sleep brew. Don’t argue. It works.”
“I wasn’t going to. You really trust them,” Victor said quietly, eyes on the surface of the liquid.
Tane glanced at him. “With my life.”
There was no bravado in it. No qualification.
Victor nodded slowly, filing that away.
When Tane finished cleaning up, he turned the lights down further. “Time to sleep.”
Victor hesitated.
Tane smiled, easy and unthreatening. “Jump in the bed. We’re exhausted. You’re injured. When we finally claim each other, it’ll be when we’re both ready.”
Victor lay awake behind the partition, thinking about that.
The bed was absurdly comfortable. Tane opened windows on both sides and switched on a quiet extraction fan overhead.
“The extractor fan draws in fresh air all night,” he said. “In this heat and humidity, it helps.”
They lay side by side in the dark as rain began tapping softly against the van.
“Is that what it sounded like at the orphanage?” Victor asked.
Tane laughed softly. “Hell, no, it was a lot worse.”
Silence fell again.
“What did you mean,” Victor asked finally, “by claiming each other?”
Tane exhaled and shifted closer, pulling Victor back against his chest. “I meant you matter to me, and the more time I spend with you, the more you start to mean to me. The physical part will come—but only when you want it. And when you’re healed.”
Victor lay there, absorbing that, when Tane tightened his hold and pressed a kiss to his neck.
“Sleep, ku?u aloha,” he murmured. “Tomorrow, we plan.”
“Plan what?”
“Taking down more of the Directorate’s bullshit.”
Victor drifted off feeling safe.
For the first time in his life.