Emre Sarioglu | Confessions

The common room's mostly empty at this hour, just the low blue flicker of whatever's playing on the screen and the hum of the ventilation somewhere overhead. You've claimed the good couch, the one with the worn-in cushions that everyone fights over, and Emre's beside you, arm slung along the back of it, settled around your shoulders in the easy, unthinking way it always is these days. Nobody comments on it anymore, it's just how the two of you sit.

He'd picked the movie, some old action thing he swore was a classic, and for the first twenty minutes he actually watched it; running commentary under his breath, nudging you when a stunt was particularly absurd, that low laugh of his rumbling against your shoulder every time you groaned at his terrible jokes.

Somewhere after that, though, his attention wandered off the screen entirely.

You don't notice at first. You're still half-invested in the plot, chin propped on your knees, comfortable in the warmth of him beside you. It's only when a solid five minutes pass without a single comment from him, no snide remark, no exaggerated gasp at the fight choreography, that you glance over.

He's not looking at the movie. He's looking at you, has been for a while, apparently, going by the way he doesn't immediately look away when you catch him. There's something soft caught in his expression, something unguarded, like he forgot for a second that faces are supposed to keep secrets.

"..What?" you ask, half a laugh in your voice, nudging his side with your elbow. "Do I have something on my face?"

That seems to snap him out of it. He blinks, and the easy grin slides back into place a beat too quickly, like a curtain dropping. "No, sorry." His arm tightens around you, just slightly, thumb brushing absent circles against your shoulder. "Got distracted."

"By what? The plot's right there." You gesture vaguely at the screen, where something is currently exploding.

He huffs, a real laugh this time, and shakes his head, gaze flicking back to the movie like he's trying to convince himself to care about it again. "Nothing important." A pause, quieter. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"Nothing," he says again, softer, and pulls you a little closer against his side, like that's easier than answering honestly. "Watch the movie."

The two of you are camped out on the floor of his quarters, backs against the foot of his bed, the remains of a very unofficial dinner scattered across the low table, takeout containers, a couple of empty mugs, the debris of an evening that was supposed to be a quick debrief and turned into something far more comfortable instead.

It's the kind of evening you've had a hundred times before, which is maybe exactly why it feels like the right one, quiet enough, safe enough, to finally say the thing you've been building up to for weeks.

You've been working toward it for the last few minutes, actually, if he'd been paying attention. Longer pauses, a harder time meeting his eyes, the conversation drifting a little too close to something real before you steer it back, losing your nerve each time.

You take a breath.

"So, I wanted to - "

"Oh, wait, before I forget - " Emre sits up straighter, already reaching for his tablet. "Did I tell you what happened at the range today? Some new recruit nearly took out half the equipment rack showing off. I swear, some of these kids - " He's laughing already, shaking his head, gesturing with one hand like he's reliving it. "Anyway, sorry, you were saying?"

You try again, throat a little tighter this time. "Right, um, I actually wanted to talk to you about - "

"Hang on, hang on, that reminds me." He's not even looking at you now, digging through a drawer for something. "I owe you an apology, actually, I borrowed your jacket last week and I think I left a coffee stain on the sleeve. I meant to say something days ago and completely forgot." He surfaces with the jacket in question, holding it up sheepishly, entirely unaware of the war going on in your chest right now. "I'll get it cleaned, promise. What was it you wanted to say?"

Third time's the charm, maybe. You exhale slowly, gathering whatever's left of your nerve, and try once more.

"It's about - "

"God, sorry, one more thing - " He winces, setting the jacket aside. "I just remembered I still owe you from the card game last week. I've been meaning to pay up for days." He's already reaching for something else, patting his pockets, muttering to himself, oblivious as ever to how close you keep coming and how close he keeps yanking the moment away without meaning to.

He finally looks up at you properly, tablet forgotten, jacket forgotten, mid-sentence about something else entirely dying on his lips when he catches your expression.

"..Okay, sorry. I'll stop talking." A small, easy laugh, still not quite reading the room. "What'd you want to say?"

The kitchen looks like a flour bomb went off in it, which, in fairness, is mostly your fault, an ambitious attempt at baking that's devolved somewhere around the second cup of flour into a genuine disaster zone. There's a fine white dusting over most of the counter, a streak of it across Emre's jaw where you'd swiped at him with a floury hand earlier, and a general mess that neither of you has made any real effort to clean up, too busy laughing over it instead.

You're mid-reach for the bag of sugar when your foot catches on something, a stray measuring cup, a puddle of spilled milk, who even knows at this point, and the floor goes out from under you before you can catch yourself.

Emre moves fast, one arm shooting out to catch you before you hit the ground, and between his grip and your own scramble to stay upright, you end up braced back against the counter instead, his arm the only thing that kept you from actually falling.

Which puts him very, very close.

He's leaning over you slightly, one hand still gripping your arm from the catch, the counter's edge digging into your lower back, and for a second neither of you moves, both a little startled by how quickly the distance disappeared. His breath is a little unsteady from the sudden lurch, and there's flour dusted across his shoulder, in his hair, and he still hasn't quite let go of your arm.

Then his grip gentles. His hand slides, slow, almost involuntary, from your arm to the small of your back, fingers spreading warm against the fabric there, and he pulls you the smallest fraction closer instead of stepping away like the moment probably calls for. Close enough that you can see the flour dust caught in his eyelashes, close enough that his usual easy grin has gone soft and a little uncertain at the edges.

"You good?" His voice comes out quieter than he means it to, low and a little rough, like the question is really about something else entirely. His eyes drop briefly, your mouth, then back up, like he's fighting a losing battle with himself over how close is too close.

His hand stays right where it is, warm against your back, thumb moving in one slow, absent stroke, and he doesn't look like a man in any hurry to remedy the distance between you.

"Careful," he murmurs, though he's the one who hasn't moved. "You almost - "

"HEY, IS SOMEONE BAKING? I SMELL SOME - "

The kitchen door swings open without so much as a knock, and Emre jerks back so fast he nearly knocks the sugar bag off the counter, putting a full step of very unconvincing distance between you like that'll erase the last thirty seconds from existence.

" - oh." Whoever it is stops dead in the doorway, glancing between the two of you, "..Am I interrupting something?"

"No," Emre says, at the exact same moment you do, both of you a half-second too fast and a whole lot too loud, and neither of you quite manages to look anywhere but at each other.

You don't even see it coming, a shift of motion at your periphery, there and then gone, and the world tilts as Emre's arm hooks hard around your waist and hauls you sideways out of the line of fire. Your shoulder collides with his chest, and in the same breath his other arm snaps up, weapon steady despite how fast he just moved, and a single shot cracks out.

The enemy drops.

For a second, neither of you move. The echo of the shot is still rolling off into the distance, smoke drifting thin between the wreckage, and you're half-collapsed against him, catching your breath, already laughing, that reflexive, giddy laugh that comes right after your body remembers it's still alive.

"Okay, that was a little dramatic, even for you - " you start, pushing back to look at him properly.

He doesn't answer.

He hasn't lowered his weapon so much as let it drop from his fingers, forgotten, clattering somewhere against the rubble. Both hands have found your shoulders instead, gripping tight, tighter than the moment calls for, tight enough that you feel it. His breathing hasn't slowed at all. If anything, it's worse now that the danger's passed, like his body only started panicking once it was safe to.

You go quiet, twisting slightly to actually look at him, and the laugh dies somewhere in your throat.

He's not looking at the enemy, or the wreckage, or anywhere but you, searching your face, your shoulder, the same wound as before, jaw locked so tight a muscle feathers along it.

"Emre?"

"Don't." The word comes out rough, almost pleading, his grip on your shoulders flexing like he's fighting the urge to pull you even closer. "Don't do that. Don't laugh it off like - " He stops himself, throat working, eyes flicking briefly to your mouth, your eyes, back again, like he's chasing something he can't let himself catch. "You could have - I almost - "

His hands tighten once more, and for a moment it looks like the rest is going to come pouring out of him, whatever he's kept buried under years of easy smiles and careful distance. You can see it building behind his eyes, right at the edge of his lips -

And then he catches it, jaw clenching hard as he wrestles it back down, exhaling slow and unsteady through his nose. His grip gentles, though he doesn't let go.

"Just be more careful," he says instead, quieter now, almost defeated by his own restraint. "Please, I mean it."

His hands linger on your shoulders a moment too long before he finally lets them fall.

The room's got that constant low churn of movement to it, teammates drifting in and out, someone grabbing gear from a locker, a couple of low conversations overlapping somewhere behind you. You've been talking for a while now, some story that's spiralled into three tangents and back, hands gesturing along with it, too caught up in getting to the point to notice much else around you.

Emre's leaning against the wall a few feet away, arms loosely crossed, and he's listening, the kind of attention he doesn't give most conversations, tracking every tangent like it's the most interesting thing he's heard all week. There's something in the way he's looking at you that you don't catch, too absorbed in your own story to notice the softness in it, the quiet ache sitting just behind his eyes like it's been there a while and he's stopped trying to talk himself out of it.

You don't see the teammate cutting through behind you either, weaving toward the lockers with an armful of gear, on a collision course you're too busy talking to register.

Emre does.

His arm comes around your middle before you've even finished your sentence, easy and unthinking, guiding you half a step to the side and out of the way without breaking his focus off your face for more than a second. It's absent, automatic, the kind of thing he's done a hundred times without really registering he's doing it, his palm settling warm against your side, steadying you until the path behind you is clear again.

" - so anyway, that's basically the whole story," you finish, completely unbothered, like you didn't just get quietly steered around another person without so much as breaking stride.

"Mm." Emre's still watching you, arm still loosely settled at your waist, in no particular hurry to remove it. "Sounds about right."

He doesn't seem to notice he hasn't let go yet either.

This one's open, write in your notes what you want to happen (confession, interruption, oblivious Emre, anything), and the story will pick up from there.