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Finn frowned, hand not dropping once the whiskey was given up, but instead raising slightly as he reached to touch the edge of the gauze.

"Well, I would appreciate it if they would love you a little less." He muttered, before letting his hand drop with a sigh. What was done was done, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

"I suppose it could have been worse. Not a horsemen this time, I take it?" He asked, before taking a long sip of his own drink.

The tension was noticed, and Finn's frown deepened in response. The urge to apologize was on the tip of his tongue, because of course, the first thing that came to mind was that Ripley was in pain and didn't want the area to be touched. But the apology was swallowed with the sip of whiskey, as he soon instead felt a stab of indignation. Surely, by now, the other man would trust him, and know that he would never hurt him on purpose.

He made a mental note to check on the wound itself later, stubbornly believing that he now had something to prove.

"What kind of shitty ******** back up are they sending with you on these trips, anyways? I can't remember a single time you've come back from there uninjured." He sneered, expression resuming it's normal coldness as he nodded towards the bed, turning himself to make his way towards it and to sit on the edge as he took another long drink from his glass.

"I wasn't even busy today, I could have come along." Another drink, and every last bit of amber liquid in his glass was already downed, just like that. The empty glass went to the bedside table, where Finn's attention was drawn to something that he had, until then, forgotten about.

"Oh, ya. Your forgot those, this morning." He nodded towards them. "Thought you'd come back for them."

"Now you're just implying that I'm shitty at my job. Thanks for the vote of confidence." He drawled in a rather dry tone, feeling more than just a little insulted. The whole point of being a moon was to keep other people from getting injured while out in the field. If he couldn't even do that, what was he good for, really?

Ripley's newest transgression aside, and with the matter of the left behind gloves out of the way, it was with quite a bit of surprise that Finn found Ripley straddling his lap, which while unexpected, he really couldn't complain about.

But still, it seemed just a bit unusual, and Finn couldn't help but say something, even if his hands did slide around to clasp at the other mans back, holding him quite firmly in place.

"Wow. I'll be honest, I thought that after this morning, and now with your new injury, maybe you'd just want to hang out and unwind a little. I mean, I'll take this, because this is ******** great but...."

It wasn't necessary, anymore. Their arrangement wasn't like that, anymore. They were together, as much as the two of them were willing to be, and sometimes that meant just that, just being together, and it didn't always have to lead to sex.

Though it often did.

Finn suddenly let out a scoff of laughter, and gave his head a shake, before gaze going directly to Ripley's, hands unclasping. "Forget that 'but'. I just want you. I need you, right now." He pulled his hands away, and unzipped his jacket, shrugging that off before pulling his shirt off over his head as well.

And then he was leaning in for a greedy kiss, and many more to come after that, as he gave Ripley whatever stress relief he required.

Something was different.

As satisfying as sex generally was, this time seemed to be lacking. It was good, because it was pretty difficult not to at least enjoy it for what it was but...it just seemed to be missing something, and Finn was having trouble pinpointing just what exactly it was.

Except that it was something to do with Ripley. Without a doubt, it was him that seemed different. Mechanical, going through the motions, lacking in passion. Even the way Finn felt about him, a feeling he had only just confessed and accepted himself, could not make up for the lack. Like Ripley, when all was said and done, Finn stated up at the ceiling, unfocused, thinking.

Something was different, and he didn't think he was just imagining it anymore.

After a few long moments of silence, the moon hunter sat up in the bed, and moved to his edge before standing up. Moving towards the table in his small kitchen and dining area, he stopped just long enough to stoop down and collect his underwear, which he quickly pulled back on.

"Drink?" He asked, an uneasy feeling settling into his stomach. "Or were you planning on taking off on me again?"

Finn wordlessly grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the table, and turned back towards the bed. He was only a little surprised to see that Ripley had begun to dress himself again, which seemed to indicate that he really had no intentions on staying the night.

The unsettled feeling only grew worse, and worse still when the other man spoke again.

But Finn locked it down, resorting back to his usual cold, indifferent stare and general demeanour. He could hide what he was feeling. He had years upon years of practice doing so, and even if he had been letting those walls drop for this one man in particular, that didn't mean he couldn't raise them back up again when needed.

He moved back towards the night stand, unscrewing the cap from the bottle and pouring four fingers worth of amber liquid in each glass that still rested there. It wasn't until he finished, the cap going back on the bottle and the bottle set down on the bedside table that he said anything.

"Oh? About what?"

He lifted his glass, took a sip, and waited, with the absolute blandest expression he could muster. It was a defense mechanism, of course, not showing anything when he expected to hear bad news (though he hoped that he was wrong, that his instincts on this were off, that everything was fine and what Ripley had to say was nothing so serious as whatever Finn was dreading).

But the first words out of Ripley's mouth made his heart sink, and even on the surface, for the briefest moment, there was a flicker of something in his gaze, something close to fear, though it was gone in an instant. As the other man continued, that sinking feeling could only deepen, until it actually felt to Finn like his heart had plummeted into a bottomless pit of dread and ultimate devastation.

There were so many things he wanted to say. So many scathing remarks to cover up the hurt he was suddenly dealing with on the inside, but he somehow managed to bite that all back.

He stared at Ripley hard, words carefully even when he did speak.

"Then why the ******** did you say it?"

As hurt as Finn was by what Ripley had to say, it became quite clear quite quickly that the other man was at least somewhat distraught by it, which only served to confuse Finn as well.

The death intermediates reply to Finn's question was insufficient.

"So what, you just woke up today and poof, you just didn't feel it anymore?" His voice was taking on a harder edge than he meant it to, and shaking his head, he sat down on the bed next to Ripley, before taking a long, long swig of his drink.

"You're ******** unbelievable." He cast the other man a sidelong glance, and then turned to see him better.

"If you want out, then just say you want out. You don't need to......"

But something in how Ripley looked, the way he seemed genuinely unsure of himself, made Finn reassess the situation, his voice trailing off. He remembered that morning, how Ripley had run out on him, how something had seemed off even then.....

"What the hell did you dream about last night, Ripley? What are you leaving out?" Dreams, as he knew, as they both knew, weren't always what they seemed on this island. Their dreams could be dangerous, portals into another world, a glimpse into another universe altogether.

He leaned over Ripley, setting his drink down on the night stand before giving the other man his full attention once more. "You know I don't say please often, but please, Ripley, you know you can tell me."