Work Text:
Summer buzzes hot outside the window, making the road tar sticky, a thick food fragrant breeze ruffling the light curtains T keeps peering around, squinting into the brightness of the bustling street, can't stop himself. No sign of M, his distinctive square shouldered walk absent from the crowd out enjoying the blistering sun and the blue blue sky. T curses, pretends he isn't looking, paces the room once, again, again, moves back to the curtain. Fingers spasm as he tries to stop himself but it's pointless, twitches the curtains back, scans the street, paces.
Repeat
The stupid fucking instagram shot dances in the darkness every time he blinks, no matter how much he shakes his head. Searing heat, bright sky, wildflowers tiny popping spots of colour and M, laid out in them like an offering, eyes wide and staring back at the lens, white white teeth flashing in the light, mouth stretched up in a smile. T forces his eyes open until they water but it doesn't matter. He blinks and M is there, behind his eyelids, taunting him, smiling wide and joyous at someone else.
Repeat again.
T fingers the pouch he's kept around his neck, for months, since the first night. Full of everything he needs to get rid of his most pressing problem. He just needs one thing, one more addition. He tugs at it, feeling the bite of the string around his neck, then tucks it back into the hot darkess under his shirt, lets the heavy beat of his heart under the pouch shake the items hidden inside.
Repeat again.
It's late, dark out, the sky a cold midnight blue shot through with hazy moonlight, before T hears the rattle of keys in the lock. He sits up, breathes, lays down again, sits up, stands. He's halfway to sitting again when M enters the room, slow like he's trying to hide. T's rage is wild, burning, crackling between them like a beat. He breathes, breathes again, and lets it rush out of him until the distance between them is still.
“You good?” M asks, paused in a half step, cautious.
T snorts and looks away, eyes drawn to the now uncovered window, to the square of night beyond their electric brightness. He imagines he sees the wheeling of fireflies, picked off on the wing by quick stalking bats, the clacking of tiny teeth. He closes his eyes, doesn't think too deeply on it, focusing instead on the noise of M in the apartment, the click of the closet door, the metallic jangle of hangers, the quiet footsteps T always hears no matter how sneaky they try to be. His superpower. To know where M is in any room. T snorts again.
“You good?” M asks again, settling on the sofa next to T, close but not too close. T clenches his jaw, flexes his tongue against his teeth until the urge to hiss dangerous words passes, then relaxes again, keeps his gaze on the window and the dark of night outside. M shoulders him gently and the touch rushes through him like a wild wind, makes his whole body bend like the reeds they used to run through as boys, hands out flat, laughing at the tickling rush across their palms.
“Tr...” M starts but T covers his mouth with a palm still itching for the phantom touch of summer reeds from so long ago. M's eyes are steady, dark and wide, looking back, unafraid.
“Don't,” T says roughly, “Don't...”
He slides to his knees, M letting out a hard rush of breath above his head, grasps thighs in needy, too needy hands. They slide open for him obligingly. M's hand slides across his scalp, familiar, painful. He doesn't say anything else.
(“Names are power,” their grandmas had said, almost in unison, one standing above them, casting a shadow, the other clutching both their sleeves, keeping them close, staring intently into their small upturned faces. “Giving away your names is giving away your life,” the grandmas said, voices mingled, low and urgent, their mothers in the shadows, a respectful distance away, wringing their hands together. “Do you understand? Do you?” They nodded frantically, but they hadn't, not then, not really.)
The sky is a velvet blue swirling slowly into awake, the sun ready to streak the horizon with its morning call. T moves closer to M, lays a hand on his sleeping chest, feels the hot skin under his palm, feels the strong steady beat of his heart thumping thumping with his life blood, with T's life blood, whispers, begs, “what's her name? tell me, tell me,” over and over. M's mouth stays closed as a tomb.
The leather seats stick to the underside of T's thighs, sweat pooling there, making him hotter than he already is, making him squirm.
“Told you not to wear shorts,” M crows, eyes sly and tone lazy as he throws a side glance, mouth turned up at the side. T basks in the attention, pretends not to, turning his mouth down in a frown, keeps his own gaze ahead, out the windscreen to the busy street, heat hazing from the sidewalk like marsh fog.
They've got eyes on the store, cataloguing the shift changes, when the employees lock up, when they leave, noting their quirks. The plan depends on seeing everything. So much hinges on the tiny moments. That's why they're the best at what they do. They notice.
M pokes him, a thrilling point of heat against bare thigh, playful, smiling, like he wants T's attention, like he wants T's everything. T lets himself slap back, lazy, catches the soft underside of M's wrist with the tips of his fingers. M yelps, laughs, a high wild sound that gets into T's bones and tugs the sinews it finds there. T sways closer, helpless to the pull.
M's phone buzzes.
(“It's not like that,” T says into the phone, tugging at the string of his hoodie, agitated. There's a breath down the phone, a slow measured exhale.
“I love you, you know that,” the voice, so like his own, says in his ear and T nods despite knowing he can't be seen. “I love you enough to tell you the truth.”
“Don't,” T says back, almost pleads but he still has his pride.
“Someone has to,” the voice comes back, laced with affection but also with warning, “I know you love him,” stumbles over love.
“Don't,” T says again, sharper. There's a sigh in his ear.
“And what do you think is gonna happen, little bro? He's gonna go on the run with you? Live his life outta shitty motel rooms and beat up cars? Come on.”
They're both silent, breathing recriminations into each others ears, one angry, one hurt.
“You know he's got one foot out the door,” his brother says, sad, almost sorry. “Don't throw your life away for this. He's not yours, not really, not all the way.”)
“Come on man, I live with you,” M says, cajoling.
Another late night, another late return. T won't look at him. Wrath and need and fear rushing under his skin, sparking from him, licking the air, looking for a place to ground.
T opens his mouth and “does she know your name” pours out, unbidden. His deepest fear dragged out of him in the dark of their apartment. He doesn't want to know. He does.
M sighs, rubs a hand over his face.
“Does she?” T says again, leaning into the pain. Yank the band-aid, look at the wound underneath. He's already living with it, bleeding with it, may as well expose it.
“T,” M says and he sounds exasperated, annoyed, irritated, “you know this isn't...” he gestures, big hands that have held onto T's, big hands that have swept the length of his naked back, “....it's not exclusive.”
“Her or me,” T bites.
Gets silence in return.
It's lightning under his skin, watching them. He shouldn't. He knows better. Her laugh is bright and M smiles back, effervescent in a way T never sees, not when they're alone. It was stupid to agree to this, stupid to come. Stupid stupid stupid.
He spins away, lets the pulsing beat of the music carry him, hears M call and pretends he doesn't, loses himself in the hot writhing crush of the crowd. So many people, warm skin and smiling mouths, wide welcoming eyes all around.
He lets people touch him, lets them curve their hands around his hipbones, press their bodies into his side, touch fingertips to his collarbone, someone's lips brush the tender nape of his neck. Mouth open, head back, eyes closed, he lets the music rush through him, the life of the crowd rush through him, settle in the little pouch tucked close to his chest, ignores how the pounding of his heart turns to tell me her name over and over, louder and louder until it's all he can hear. He screams. The crowd screams with him.
(“Names have power, and so do you,” his grandmothers voice low and quiet in the burning of his fever, “names can be used to elevate, lift up,” she mops his forehead with a cool damp cloth, making him moan from the ache, which she shushes with gentle fingertips, “but names can be used to destroy. You must be careful with your intent. You can do so much damage without ever meaning to.” He writhes in his agony and when he awakes, days later, the time is like a dream but “names have power” is under his skin, soaked into his muscles, branded onto his heart.)
The group is small, made up of people M has worked with before, some T has worked with, others have been vouched for by people they both trust. It's not much but the operation has to be small by necessity. The fewer people who know the plan, the fewer places it can get fucked up.
One of them raises an eyebrow after introductions and says, eyes slanted in amusement, “like fucking alphabet street up in here.”
M grins, wide, bright.
T's heart twists.
M's body is hot against him, on top of him, one long expanse of skin exposed to T's touch, M's own big hands stroking him everywhere, exploring, probing, perfect. M's mouth is slick, damp breath followed by a trail of goosebumps, soothed by his questing tongue.
T arches up up up into him, into his mouth, his hands, into anything he's willing to give, a litany of please don't leave beating mercilessly through his body like drums, so loud he thinks it'll deafen him.
“Not going anywhere,” M says, the arousal in his voice, syrupy slow and followed by his tongue sliding across T's hipbone, tracing the sharp lean line of it. T's body twists up into it, begging for his attention.
Sometimes T is so loud in his own body, M has no choice but to hear him. It's a flaw. (It's the truth.)
T's throat feels raw with aching need when M's mouth finds him, hard and ready, sucks him in, the same perfect heat as always, his hands sliding under the lift of T's back, fingertips digging into the spaces betweens his ribs, grooves that were built to hold them.
please don't leave please don't leave please don't leave please don't leave please don't leave
T's body gives, the way it always does, rides the wild thunder of M's attention, of M's touches, of M's skin, of his lips, his tongue, his dancing fingertips. He's still gasping as M works his way up, mouth first as always, leaving damp stinging patches of teethmarks until he reaches T's own welcoming mouth, presses in and steals secrets straight from his tongue.
Hands in T's hair, tugging, mouth frantic against his, T knows what he needs. Gathers all his flayed open pieces together, flips them over, presses M's body down into the bed beneath, presses them together, thighs, groins, stomachs, chests – mouth to mouth, eye to eye.
It's never work to open him up, to get inside. T's careful, slow, works him the same way as always, until M's begging for it, writhing, gasping pants into T's face, hands pulling tight.
not thinking about her now not her just me not her never her just me me mine me
Slide inside as perfect as always, as perfect as the first time, as every time since. M pants into his face, body tight and needy, fingers grasping at his shoulders, (“where your wings would be” he said once, long ago, when they laid together after, cooling, staying close, “where your wings would be Tr...” and T had kissed him before he said it out loud), digging in, making sure T knows exactly who he's with, as if he'd ever forget. As if he was the one forgetting.
They move together in the dark, slick and wet, sweating against each other, grasping tight, lips brushing, breathing into each other.
“Say it,” M pants, begs, into the silence of T's mouth, “It's been so long since I heard it. Say it.”
T pushes, pushes again, touches him in places that make M whine, high in his throat, head tipped back, skin exposed for T's ready tongue and his needy teeth, easily bruised. M lets him, over and over, M lets him.
“Please,” he gasps, high with it, trembling, “please please please,” over and over as T pressed his whole body down, pressing M beneath him, irrationally afraid he might disappear.
He takes M all the way to the edge, pushes him there then holds him, makes him walk the line, shaking, gasping, begging, keeps him walking it, enjoying the control, the need.
“Say it, say it, god fucking please,” M begs, eyes wide in the dark, staring staring, “please.”
T does.
Swallows M's greedy gulping gasps, pushes, says it again, finds his ear and whispers it, catches M's shattering body with his own, pushes him down, makes him feel everything between them, makes him feel it all.
Tangled in the sheets and each other, M's hand finds the pouch resting on T's chest and fingers it carefully. T lets him, watching.
“What is this?” M asks, voice light, like he doesn't know. He pretends. The same way T pretends he doesn't see the finch feather woven into M's bracelet that appeared not long after she did.
“Tell me her name,” T says, trapping M's hand under his own, both of them together pressing it into T's chest, against his steady strong heartbeat.
T rolls over, trapping M beneath him. Looks down at him, at his wide forehead and the deep rich darkness of his eyes, his sloping cheekbones and his full mouth.
“Tell me her name,” he whispers against that mouth, quiet, seductive, “I know you know,” don't leave me “whisper it to me, no one will know.”
M looks back, eyes reflecting T's in the shaft of moonlight spilling across the pillow. They look silver. Unreal. Like something T has never seen.
“Tr...” M says but T slides his fingertips onto M's tongue, muffles the word, doesn't want to hear his own name, not now, not like this.
Mouth follows fingertips, M's opening to welcome him, tongues touching.
Silence envelops them.
(He tips the coffee grounds in, watches as they disappear into coal dust, blackening the rest of the items until nothing is identifiable aside from one long light strand of hair. He pulls the pouch closed, ties it with a reed stem, once, twice, three times, slides the string through the loops and ties it around his neck. He'll carry it on his chest, let the life in him infuse the pouch, getting it ready to be used, just as soon as he gets that last item. Just one more. He turns to M, bleary in the morning sun, who accepts the coffee cup with an absent smile, eyes already somewhere else despite just stumbling from their bed.
One more. That's all he needs.)
Everything is ready to go. Everyone is in position. Everyone has the information they need to complete their part. Everything is planned down to the last second. Yet anxiety crawls under T's skin like it lives there. Like they haven't done this before. Like they haven't done it before and successfully.
M's fingers slide past his collarbone, tangling in the string holding the pouch to his chest. T turns to him, eyes questioning. M's lip is caught between his teeth, eyes wary like he wants to say something. T doesn't want to hear it. They have to concentrate. There isn't time.
“Are you sure...” M starts, uncharacteristically hesitant. T rolls his neck to face him.
“Retirement job,” he reminds, eyes cutting back to the storefront. “This is big leagues. One and done.”
“One and done,” M echoes, but it sounds thin, uncertain.
“One and done,” T repeats, firm, then leans in against his mouth.
M stiffens then goes loose all at once. It's not a kiss, barely even a press of lips. T's fingers wrap around M's wrist, squeezing at the bracelet there, the softness of a finch feather against his skin, tightens his grip, feeling the crush of it. M tugs at his arm but T increases his hold and tugs him in, moves his mouth under M's eye, slow, careful, across his cheekbone, finds the gentle curve of his ear.
“Miles,” T whispers.
M gasps.
(give me her name stay with me give me her name)