Work Text:
Thomas wasn’t sure what he was doing here, at this moment, in a posh stranger’s media room, listening to atrocious jazz and eating unnecessarily rich pâté in the middle of the afternoon. But he knew why he’d come, and he certainly knew what he’d prefer to be doing—most of which involved taking up a lot more room on this lovely sectional.
“I need help tracking down the sources of certain stories,” Charles had said in the coffee shop where Thomas had first pulled him. Or, at least, Thomas had thought he was pulling Charles. Instead, it now appeared that Charles had been pulling him, for reasons that now seemed disappointingly more professional than pleasurable.
But Thomas had gone along with it, because he had already looked Charles up the previous week, when he’d first noticed the attractive man ordering espresso in front of him in line. He’d listened for the name, captured Charles’s card details with his photographic memory, and quickly discovered that the man’s existence barely went back ten years. A sloppy identity job, especially for a man of such wealth.
“Shouldn’t you be more concerned with securing your own story against potential trackers than investigating those of others?” Thomas said now, when Charles returned to the room with a fresh bottle of wine.
“My story?” Charles asked with what would never be innocence—that was impossible on a man like him—but which settled into what might be called amusement.
“The flimsy excuse of a CV and background you’ve put together. I saw through it in an afternoon. It wouldn’t hold up to much scrutiny.”
“We can consider that a separate project, if your services on this first one prove acceptable.” The words were accompanied by a pop, and a flicker of tongue that made Thomas, who’d already had two glasses, wonder if he could offer other services instead.
“What sorts of stories are you interested in understanding?” he asked when his tongue had unthickened enough for speech.
“Tales of disappearances, of odd appearances, of things not quite right.”
“Weird stuff, you mean?”
“If that’s what you’d like to call it.”
No one had ever hired Thomas for such work before. It seemed the realm of tabloid journalists, not hackers. But Thomas would happily have done it for free. Or, well, for other payment.
“All right,” he said.
“And I require discretion. No one can know that you are making such inquiries, much less on my behalf.”
“I’m sure you’ve done your research, too. You already know my reputation. Or rather, my lack of it, because no one knows what I do.”
Charles nodded. “You’re very good,” he admitted, and definitely did not miss the way Thomas’s ears went pink at the praise. His eyes narrowed, signifying that he would remember such a reaction, and use it again.
Good. Thomas hoped so.
He downed another glass of wine, and then, belatedly, thought better of it. He was getting sloppy. Or something. Because for a second, even though it was impossible, it looked as though a tiny snake’s head had peeped out of the cuff of Charles’s blazer and flicked its tongue at him.
Better take it slow, he thought.
(Too late.)