Work Text:
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
There’s a certain irony to it, him approaching Avon like this, watching him freeze up from behind, when it’s him who’s been avoiding Avon, with every right to be frightened. “Why should I be afraid?” Avon says, deathly still, sounding like he can barely bring himself to move his mouth enough to talk. “Blake doesn’t scare me.”
“Right.” Vila’s sure that’s a lie. Blake could be frightening enough for anyone – Avon wouldn’t be human if he never felt it. Of course, Avon always pretends that he isn’t human, but Vila knows better than that.
Avon still doesn’t turn and look at him. “What do you think I should be frightened of?” he murmurs.
Vila is loss for words for a second. Avon doesn’t say anything directly – of course he doesn’t – but somehow Vila knows what he’s driving at. They haven’t talked about it yet, but all good things must come to an end. “Well, I don’t know. You know me, I’m afraid of everything,” he jokes, awkwardly, but it falls flat quickly. “But if you’re afraid of what I’ll tell him… don’t be. I won’t say a word.”
As if Avon wasn’t frozen up enough already, he seems to come to a stop entirely. Like a vizfilm with a scratch on the disk. “Why not?”
That’s a very good question. He knows he has every right to. Part of him might want to, even – to throw himself on Blake’s mercy, to tell him Avon tried to kill him, and leave it to him to decide what the appropriate justice for such a crime might be. Blake always seemed to believe he had the right to make those decisions – and Vila’s never been good at them.
But Vila remembers Blake, what a righteous fury he could wield, what an ownership he seemed to feel over his crew, and…
“I wouldn’t want him to hurt you.”
Avon seems wounded by that. He tries to hide it, naturally, but he flinches. “You should,” he says. “If anyone did to me what I did to you, I would want them dead.”
Vila, to his own surprise, bursts out laughing, which finally forces Avon to turn around. He looks puzzled by the reaction. Fair enough. “Well of course you would,” Vila tells him. “Doesn’t exactly take much to make you want someone dead. But I’m not like that, I suppose.”
“So what, you’ve just forgiven me?” Avon’s brows furrow together in a knot of confusion. Of course. If he can’t forgive himself, how could he imagine anyone else could ever forgive him?
“I didn’t say that.” And when Vila thinks about it, he decides he hasn’t forgiven Avon. He still feels bitter, angry, hurt; he still wonders what would have happened if he’d turned the tables and thrown Avon out the airlock instead. Probably, he wouldn’t have found the neutron-whatsit and they’d both have died, but that’s not the point. “I’m just saying, I don’t want to do anything to you because of it. That’s all.”
Avon frowns. He seems to be trying to summon his usual level of sardonic contempt, but it’s just not coming. “You’re a fool,” he says, weakly. “If you let people get away with mistreating you, they’re only going to do it again.”
Vila shrugs. Frankly, it seems no matter what he does he finds people mistreating him, so why should he bother to change?
Turning away again, Avon folds his arms over himself. “I’m afraid of what he’ll think of me,” he confesses. “What’s become of me. I’ve become so…”
Even Avon, it seems, doesn’t have the words for what’s happened to him. Vila, not sure what to do, slowly reaches a hand out toward his shoulder. “It’s alright,” he says, and it feels stupid, using such trite, sentimental, cliché words on Avon, who no doubt with have some stinging rebuke sooner than later – but Avon doesn’t say anything. When Vila touches him, he is warm. He’s human like anyone else.
Avon doesn’t respond to his touch overtly, but he does not pull away as Vila slowly wraps his arms around him, trying to dole out some warmth and affection, not sure if he should. He wonders how long it’s been since anyone held Avon like this. Of course, that’s probably Avon’s fault for not letting anyone hold him like this, but even so.
The others are on the other side of the wall, still discussing what they think of a plan they don’t understand. No doubt, if they saw this sudden outburst of soppiness, they’d be very confused. But that’s their problem. They don’t understand; he and Avon, they are bound together, far more than the rest of them, the only two left after so much pain and death and loss. That’s why it hurt so much when Avon tried to throw him aside, like so many people have tried to throw him aside. But it’s also why he can’t just give up on Avon either.
He thinks about Blake, and wonders if, deep in his heart, he’s a little jealous. If they find Blake, it won’t just be the two of them anymore. Blake would have a claim on Avon, same as he has. Avon wouldn’t belong to him anymore.
Oh well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
“What Blake thinks of you is his problem,” Vila says, as soothingly as he can. “You don’t owe him anything. You are what you are, that’s all.”
And just like that, he feels Avon’s façade shatter in his arms, while he’s there to hold him together. “Vila.” He spins around, and Vila is winded as Avon collapses into his arms, tears falling against his neck. Avon isn’t as much taller than him as he always thought, he realises. He only has to bend a little to bury his face in Vila’s shoulder.
“There there, it’s okay.” Vila pats him on the back, awkward, but earnest. “I’ve got you.” In his own way, he has always tried to be there for Avon. He’s got Avon and Avon has him. That will last, well, as long as it will last.