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There isn’t a lot of time left before the end. They both know it, and yet it feels like the clock stops when they stumble together into the darkness of Amon’s private room. The Lieutenant’s fingers fumble for the lock on the door while Amon’s hands tug at his waist, and he barely manages to light a lamp and peel his goggles from his eyes when he’s grabbed by the shoulders, spun around, and thrust up against the wall.
Amon’s body follows as he presses into him chest-to-chest, then cages Lieu in with both arms. His head lowers and Lieu sees his eyes gleaming from behind the mask.
Lieu's breath chokes in a gasp, and he squirms under the weight of that stare. He furrows his eyebrows and reaches up to cup his palm over Amon's porcelain cheek. “Amo—”
Amon’s hand darts up and his fingers close around Lieu’s wrist in a tight grasp. “Shh,” he says. The air hisses between the mask's lips like a snake.
The order is clear: Lieu's not allowed to speak.
Lieu’s heart pounds behind his ribcage and he can feel Amon’s beating in time with it. Tension tremors run up and down his arms and trace along the length of his spine, and shivers weaken his knees enough to make them buckle; he half-wonders if he'd tumble to the floor if Amon stepped away.
Amon’s other hand traces a tender line up the side of Lieu’s face. “Do you trust me?” he asks, his voice pitched low. He’s still staring.
The question is so out of the blue — so absurd — that Lieu can only gape at first. After all of his failures, his constant injuries, his sleepless nights repairing his broken kali sticks and torn uniform, shouldn't he be asking that question? Self-doubt has been creeping into his thoughts as of late, and no matter how much he pushes himself to train harder, to build stronger weapons, to become better than a bender could ever be, sometimes it's hard to believe Amon still trusts him to get things done.
“…Of course I do,” Lieu finally responds, putting every ounce of conviction he has in him into the words. Amon’s grip on his wrist clenches harder and he bites into the inside of his cheek to hide a flinch; there's a bruise there left over from the polar bear dog's attack that still hasn't quite healed. “Why else would I be here right now?”
Something in Amon’s eyes changes, but Lieu can’t pinpoint what it is, and then Amon is pulling him forward and clutching the back of his neck and pressing the mask’s lips to his forehead.
“Good. Don’t falter.”