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And the threat of what is call’d hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing to me.
Whitman, As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado
Little Or Nothing
The house red’s halfway decent, but there’s nowhere near enough of it to get drunk on. Not that Wolfwood’s trying to get hammered, but a buzz would be nice. A blurring. It would be nice to forget for a bit. It’s a thirsty Tuesday evening, the mosquitoes are whining for blood, and he and Vash are waiting for their main course.
‘Are you getting drunk?’ Vash asks lightly.
‘No,’ he snaps, putting down the bottle with a sloshing clunk. Touchy subject.
‘Why’re you sulking?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Okay,’ Vash says, maddeningly placidly, and bites the end off a breadstick.
‘Okay.’ Wolfwood feels curmudgeonly.
Contemplative chewing for a moment, and then: ‘It’s just—’
‘What?’
‘Just, you’ve been ratty ever since you woke up.’ Vash isn’t bothering to speak any quieter than usual, and the pinched, prettyish woman at the next table sends them a faintly condescending look. Bitch. Wolfwood’s face darkens. She’s the one eating alone.
Ignoring her, ‘You were the one who woke me up,’ he says, forgetting, conveniently, that he did actually tell Vash to wake him when it was time to eat.
‘I know. I just thought you might be feeling off-colour or something.’
‘Well, I’m fine. Don’t fuss, okay?’ But it’s not the fussing, not so much; more the fact that Vash is being so uncomplicatedly nice tonight, plastering that painful fake smile over his face like wallpaper paste for Wolfwood’s benefit. ‘I’m fine,’ he repeats, more calmly.
After a second’s pause, Vash says: ‘Okay,’ and pops what’s left of the breadstick into his mouth.
Wolfwood sighs. It’s so damn frustrating when Vash gets like this, covered in uncrackable shiny glaze. ‘Tongari…’
‘What?’
Ah, screw it. They’ve had this out before. ‘Nothing.’
He stares past Vash, focusing on the small, dimly lit stage at the back of the restaurant. There’s a baby grand set up there, black with gold trim. Classy. (This whole place is way too classy for him.) There’s no one playing at the moment. Maybe later. He hopes it’ll be jazz piano; he likes that. The thing can’t just be there for decoration.
He squints. There’s something else on the stage, beside one of the stand microphones.
‘Wow!’ Vash exclaims.
The waiter’s just brought their huge serves-four mound of spaghetti along with two smaller, more civilised plates. The way Vash is eyeing it up and making little cooing noises it looks like he’d rather forget being civilised and stick his face in the giant bowl instead. The waiter leaves them a bunch of cutlery and then backs off, looking a bit nervous. Vash grabs the serving spoons and begins to pile spaghetti on to his plate with disturbing zeal.
‘It’s not going anywhere,’ Wolfwood says dryly, taking the spoons as Vash starts attacking the mountain opposite. ‘Slow down. You’ll get indigestion.’
‘You’d make a great dad,’ Vash says, mouth full.
Carefully Wolfwood puts down the serving spoons. ‘Sorry?’
Vash swallows. ‘Well, you would,’ he says a shade defensively. ‘Keeping ’em in line and all that. Y’know.’
‘Yeah. Right.’ Wolfwood busies himself with the water jug to cover his confusion.
Before he met Vash, a bunch of his emotions were in cold storage. That’s the only possible explanation. He’s never felt so damn much. He’s not sure if he likes it. That good-dad thing wouldn’t have got to him, before. It was less complicated, before. But then, before, no one else would have even thought of saying something like that to him, so exactly the right thing. No one else ever made him suffer through warm and fuzzy hell.
His spaghetti, caught in tomato-drenched limbo between his plate and the serving dish, begins to drip on the tablecloth. Vash nods to it, still chewing, and Wolfwood twirls his fork, capturing it, depositing it safely back on his plate. Vash swallows and smiles. Properly, this time. Wolfwood smiles back automatically. He always finds himself smiling back, no matter how crappy he’s feeling.
He wants to laugh at them both. The only couple in the world drawn closer by the lasting ties of spaghetti.
He stops smiling and stabs at a meatball, missing a couple of times before spearing it with his fork. So screwing once – twice – and arguing a lot makes you a couple now. Sometimes he feels like a definite half of a couple, and sometimes the very idea repels him like a cat from garlic. A couple? They’ve slept together twice, for Christ’s sake, and you could chalk those up to anything you like. Twice is inconsequential; the golden rule of three applies here as it does everywhere else. Three times; now that would make it a thing.
It’s not like he hasn’t wanted to make it three. Or four. Or more. In fact, almost every time they have one of their bitchy little arguments about nothing in particular he gets so horny he can hardly stand it. It’s really difficult trying to stay annoyed when all you want to do is launch yourself at the object of said annoyance and make out. God, he loves it when Vash gets good and riled. His mouth goes all thin and his eyes, man, they go all narrow and intense and it feels like they could strip you inside out. He actually gets sarcastic sometimes, and that’s just so damn hot Wolfwood can’t even begin to describe what it does to him. And all that snippy squabbling, in which he takes the same kind of secret pleasure that some people take in the drama of train wrecks, is like foreplay that never goes anywhere.
Vash swallows, obviously about to speak. Wolfwood lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
‘Pass the pepper.’
Wolfwood passes him the pepper.
It’s so awkward, this. So frustrating. God. He should just – make a grand gesture. Bend him over backwards and kiss him breathless. Or something. At least sit down and have it out with him properly, seize this moment while the girls are back at the office doing – whatever it is they do, and who cares what the stupid bitch at the next table thinks?
But he can’t, he can’t. It’s too damn embarrassing. He imagines it: Say, Tongari, was the whole screwing thing just a one-off, or d’you want to make it a thing?
Yeah, Nicholas, real smooth. Anyone’d be lucky to have you.
No, he’ll just have to play it by ear. Read the signals. But looking at Vash’s calm closed face over his spaghetti, desperation crashes in like a jarring chord. How the hell is he supposed to know if Vash wants to do it again? He can’t read minds, for Christ’s sake. Maybe once – twice, he corrects himself, he keeps forgetting about the second time – maybe twice was enough for Vash. Even if it isn’t enough for him.
The second time barely even counts. Wolfwood almost flinches at the memory. He was so, so drunk. And to make it worse, when it came to it Vash suddenly seemed not to be quite as drunk as he’d been pretending to be all evening. The bastard. They haven’t talked about it yet. The Morning After (he always capitalises it, doomfully) he figures he was too busy nursing his hangover for Vash even to dare broach the subject of them waking up wrapped round each other. And then the day wore on and the twelve-hour window in which they could have discussed it like adults narrowed and shrank and then finally closed up completely. And hey presto, it was taboo.
God. God. Drunken sex. The worst kind. He swore privately the next morning he wouldn’t touch another drop in Vash’s presence, and five days later here he is, downing the house red like the four horsemen are saddling up to ride tomorrow. If only he hadn’t drunk so much, if only Vash hadn’t looked so damned sad that night, this plateau they’re on wouldn’t even be an issue. This unnatural plateau, where everything’s fine. Where he’s white-knuckled with hanging on to a semblance of a platonic friendship with this guy he’s slept with, for God’s sake. Twice. Of course he knew it’d be different after the sex, he knew that, but…
He never thought it’d get weird.
He can’t even remember a lot of it, which is the most shameful thing. He does remember thinking, with a vague drunken irritation (it’s typical, this: all he can remember clearly is being annoyed), as he lay on the bed with Vash unbuttoning his shirt for him like an invalid, that it was technically his turn to be on top. Then there’s a blank. Only there was this one flash of clarity at the moment when Vash’s fingers slid warmly between his legs and into him. He remembers how he jerked, sluggishly, an all-over twitch of recognition, with his body welcoming this half-forgotten pleasure. And then the good feeling crested high and the wrong syllable came to his lips; he wet his lips to say the wrong name and then – and then – he can’t remember. Did he say it? Was he forgiven if he had? Vash wouldn’t be sitting here smiling at him if he wasn’t.
The beauty of Vash’s real smile hurts a lot nowadays. The thorn’s twisting deeper. And Wolfwood doesn’t even know how much Vash knows now, if he suspects; if he’s the one being strung along. Which he could well be. The guy is so totally not an idiot it’s frightening, especially as he had heard a thousand times from Legato how stupid and naïve and trusting this Vash the Stampede was going to be. Legato should have stopped being bitter for a second and actually looked. Stupid, no. Naïve, hardly. Trusting – yeah, maybe. But within reason. Within limits.
That’s fair, isn’t it? Vash said once, stripped to the waist, drying his blond hair. You’re keeping things from me, too.
And how.
This is the thing that’s going to send him to Hell, he thinks, staring into the bottom of his water glass. Judgement Day, this is what’s going to top his rap sheet. And he’s not even going to struggle.
‘This is nice.’ Vash is actually taking a break from cramming down his weight in spaghetti to make small talk. He gestures vaguely round, including the food, the dim lighting and the dark street through the open doors. ‘Isn’t it?'
‘Mm,’ Wolfwood replies, ungenerous and uncommitted. Truth is, he’s uncomfortable as all hell. This romantic little den – with the irritatingly servile waiting staff, the irritating manager with his nervous shiny little bald spot, the irritating niceness of it all – is the type of place where people would stand up and clap when some guy proposes over the bruschetta. This place is not concurrent with their relationship. It feels stagey, being here. But then isn’t the whole thing staged? Since the beginning, like following a chess game in the paper, winner already determined, moves laid out. Only now the board’s been upset and Wolfwood’s scrabbling for the pieces, trying to put them back, but he can’t remember where they used to be. That’s one hell of a well-prepared dead guy. He was prepared for everything except this.
He pokes at his spaghetti, suddenly not very hungry any more. He looks at the stage, way at the other end of the restaurant, because he hasn’t slept with it and it doesn’t make him feel like shit to look at it. He wonders again about that thing beside the microphone, on the floor. Black and bulky; a case or something. He thinks he recognises the shape of it. Something about the handle; the scuff marks, maybe, visible from here. He frowns. It’s definitely familiar. Really familiar.
And then it hits him. He almost drops his fork.
Oh, no. No fucking way.
‘What’re you looking at?’ Vash turns, cranes his neck to see.
‘Nothing.’ It’s so glib, so automatic, that it gives him a start. He’s been lying so much he’s forgotten what the truth tastes like.
Vash twists round further, scans the stage. ‘But you were staring—’
‘It’s nothing. Seriously.’
He’ll give it ten minutes to disappear. Wolfwood fixes his eyes on the spaghetti. He sticks his fork in and digs out a generous twist studded with meatballs. This is pretty good stuff – a bit chewy, maybe – made by the scary-looking woman in the back who’s got to be the ‘Rosa’ the restaurant’s named after and who obviously funnels the love she spares on her fellow human beings into her cooking. ‘You gonna eat or just watch me?’ he asks Vash, who’s looking at him with a vaguely troubled expression. Wolfwood forces a grin, which hurts. ‘It’s getting cold, Tongari. Don’t want to waste it when you’re paying, do you?’
The distraction works, as he knew it would. Vash plunges his knife and fork in simultaneously, the glint of competition in his blue eyes. Tomato sauce flecks the table. Wolfwood isn’t hungry at all now but he’s eating anyway. Vash would ask why if he wasn’t. He swallows a hot mouthful before it’s properly chewed and down it goes, a lump of rubber, bringing tears to his eyes. The water in the thick glass tastes faintly of metal.
A couple of tables ahead a woman with a broken arm is letting her boyfriend feed her. She closes her eyes and opens her mouth like a baby bird, and he pops the forkful of lasagne in. So romantic. You can tell it’s serious. There’s no wine left and he’s not about to order more, not when he’s probably going to need his wits about him now. Wolfwood stabs more spaghetti. He chews slowly – al dente all right – concentrating on the movement of his jaws, and lets his gaze drift.
He would have pinned Vash for a romantic, when he first met him. But later, when he’d got to know him a bit, the fact that he wasn’t didn’t come as a surprise. If he’d taken him at face value, if he hadn’t chipped off the dumb reflective glaze and seen the rawness beneath, then yeah, maybe he would’ve been surprised. The preacher on the bus who’d never handled a gun in his life would have been surprised. But Wolfwood, the real cold him, Gung-Ho Gun number-whatever-he-was-now, wasn’t. Romance is not his thing either. All that vague, mushy, rose-tinted stuff. To him it seems like a lethargic substitute for passion.
But unlike his, he knows Vash’s rejection of romance wasn’t by choice. The man had just been hurt too deeply to believe in hearts and flowers. It’s like kids and the tooth fairy. Once they know the mechanics behind it – they find the supposedly vanished tooth hidden behind a picture on the mantelpiece or in Ma’s purse or something – they’ll go along with it, but only to please their mother. Vash tried like that for him, that first time they did it. Vash is scarily strong. He didn’t have to take it slow when Wolfwood asked – he didn’t have to do anything – but he did. To please Wolfwood. To keep the romance close and the goddamn desperation of it all at bay.
Kids also play along with the tooth fairy to get the money, Wolfwood thinks, and then swiftly guillotines that thought.
It would have been better if he hadn’t discovered Vash had layers. He’s drawn to complexity as fidgety fingers are drawn to a half-completed jigsaw. If Vash had been pretty and vacant, like Legato had always implied, it would have been so much easier. How can you love a mannequin? How can you love a sex aid? It would have been painless. They would have screwed once, twice, just to satisfy curiosity or to prove something to someone, and left it at that. Sweet and passionless and painless. Instead of leaving him hanging like this. He’s going to hang until he dies.
‘D’you want dessert?’ Vash asks hopefully.
Wolfwood looks down. The warm heap of spaghetti’s been reduced to a few limp strands swimming in a watery tomato residue. Either he’s been shoving it down without consciously moving the fork from plate to mouth and back, or Vash has been stealthier – and hungrier – than usual. His body feels full.
‘I don’t feel like it, but you go ahead if you like.’ The sentence takes a lot of effort; so many little scattershot words to say such a banal thing. He sits back, closes his eyes. Has it been ten minutes yet? He tells himself that thing wasn’t the same one. It couldn’t have been. Any number of them on the planet. Any number of his kind. His kind. Sounds like something Legato would say, coldly, precisely. Legato, laughing at him in the deep of his brain about this thing with Vash though he’d do anything for the same from his brother; Legato, demented, rejected, heartbreakingly pretty. Being certifiably insane and also in love – well, doesn’t take a genius to see that it’s a fairly undesirable combination.
‘Oh, they have strawberry tart as well?’ Wolfwood opens his eyes. Vash is chewing the corner of his lip, menu propped up in front of him, obviously torn. ‘I dunno what I should get. What d’you think?’ He turns the menu round to show him. The squiggles should mean something. Wolfwood’s brain has atrophied. Pickled, in a jar. He rubs his eyes with his finger and thumb and tries to concentrate.
‘Uh,’ he says, peering at it. ‘That. The coffee thing. Get that.’
‘Mm… nah. Not really my kind of thing.’
‘Right, right. Then… Um…’ His eyes flicker up the stage and then quickly away. The frigging thing is still frigging there. He can’t bear to look any more. He should have seen this coming. He’s a fatalist, and nothing ever happens to him by chance. Just as he knew way back then – sitting beside Vash on that bus as it bumped over the bad road and set him aching in new places, draggy exhaustion pulling everything in him down towards the sticky floor – that the interest he’d felt in their handshake was more than casual, he knows for sure that the object on the stage is not random and it is what he thinks. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, screws up his napkin into a damp ball. Why here? Why not tomorrow? Why not never?
Vash survives by being observant; of course he notices something’s wrong. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I don’t feel too great,’ he manages, dragging his eyes away from the stage for the millionth time, forcing them to stay on the concerned blue ones across the table. He shoves back his chair with a clunk. ‘Will you excuse me?’
‘Sure,’ Vash says, probably confused by his politeness more than anything else. ‘Shall I get the bill?’
‘No. No, uh, I’ll be back in a little while. Get dessert. Or whatever. I’ll – I’ll be back when – look, there’s the waiter, there.’
‘Wolfwood—’
‘There, look. Don’t let him go.’
~
The bathroom is down a flight of pointless narrow stairs squeezed between dark walls. It feels like stepping down into a different world. It’s a big enough room, clean, with four cubicles against one wall and five urinals facing them like loose mouths on the other. Achingly white tiles on the walls and floor, like a hospital. He stands there, forehead pressed against the tile, the coolness of it spreading through his head like a spill. He doesn’t feel particularly warm but his hair’s sticking to his forehead and his shirt is damp under the arms.
The door opens just then. He stays where he is, frozen. It could be either one of them. Vash, come to see what’s the matter, or—
‘You okay, buddy?’ The relief and disappointment are caught in his throat, blocking any reply. The guy urinates, flushes and leaves without washing his hands, sending Wolfwood a dirty look. ‘Wacko,’ he mutters.
Point taken. Wolfwood goes into one of the stalls, locks the door, puts down the ceramic lid and sits on it. He rests his chin in his hands. He pictures gloom hovering over this cubicle like grey mist. He figures he’s got a while to think before Vash gets antsy and comes to see if he’s all right. Vash has discovered how much Wolfwood’s privacy means to him. Plus, Vash gets squeamish about people throwing up. Wolfwood allows himself a small smile. Some hero.
The stall is one of those ones where the door and walls reach all the way to the floor, with only the slimmest crack at the bottom. It feels very enclosed all of a sudden. Almost like a confessional, actually, which is almost certainly blasphemous and which makes him want to laugh. The first time he took confession it felt like telling his sins to a sponge – a non-judgemental, absorbent, silent sponge – but then he got to the good part and heard the creak of the stool as the priest leaned keenly forward behind the lattice and he remembered suddenly that he was unburdening his soul not to a sponge, but to a human being, as flawed as he was. His sins didn’t vanish, didn’t get sucked into an air flue, but were stored and filed under Wolfwood, Nicholas D. (the thing was supposed to be anonymous, but who was anybody kidding?) in this priest’s old head. The whole idea kind of lost its attraction after that.
Vash could be that priest. He needs to confess. He can’t. Wolfwood knows there are too many lives in the balance for him to tell Vash what’s really wrong, and yet there’s a little weak part of him that wants badly to do just that, now, run up and tell him. It’s a selfish desire. The words are all ready, waiting to be jerked out, a string of knotted magician’s scarves. I. Am. Your. Enemy. Run, Vash, run like the wind.
That first time, which was better than any first time had the right to be, when they were lying there afterwards touching each other in this vague wondering way as if they’d never seen nakedness before, this very confession rose like a bloated dead thing on the sweet tide of tired euphoria. It seemed too horrible, just then, as the late afternoon sun made Vash’s hair dark gold and a child yelled ‘Wait!’ outside, to keep up the deceit. He was too tired; it was too much. Even now he was selfish. God, this man had made him feel. Vash’s fingers moved with fascinated slowness over the back of his knee, unbearably ticklish, his mouth twitched in readiness and instead of laughing he almost said it, almost. I am your enemy. But then the fingers moved away from his knee and the moment of madness vanished, sealed itself up as if it had never been, and Vash sat up all sexily dishevelled and asked him if he wanted some tea, because he was going to make some.
Wolfwood wonders how it would feel to be completely open with Vash. Frightening, probably. He’d be lucky if Vash didn’t run away screaming or shoot him on the spot. He’d be defenceless. Lies are like cushioning fat: lose that and falling down suddenly hurts a hell of a lot more.
The door to the bathroom opens again. Footsteps on the tile, a pause (no sound of a zip; must have buttons) and then the splash of urine against porcelain. Another pause (doing up the buttons) and then the creak of the tap. At least some people still wash their hands. Aunt Melanie used to go nuts about that.
And a voice, humming tunefully over the plash-plash of water.
He really hates being right about these things.
The door creaks a little when he unlocks it. It swings outward on loose hinges. The guy washing his hands glances up into the mirror. He stops humming. Wolfwood pushes the door fully open and steps out.
‘Well,’ Midvalley the Hornfreak says slowly, drawing out the syllable, meeting his eyes in the glass. ‘Hi.’
‘Hey.’ His lungs won’t inflate, shrivelled paper bags. ‘I saw your – I saw, uh, Sylvia on the stage and I thought you might be... here.’ He wishes he could have said something a bit more impressive. All that time to prepare what he would say if he was right, which he knew he would be, and he comes out with that.
Midvalley smiles, very slightly, then lowers his eyes and goes back to washing his hands, very thoroughly and carefully, as if he’s washing delicate china. Of course he takes care of his hands. Along with his lungs, they’re the important parts. He’s never broken his fingers and he only smokes before playing and after sex, to ‘take the edge off’. Wolfwood remembers him saying that often. There’s no hand towel, so Midvalley wipes his hands on his white jacket. That almost gets Wolfwood smiling. Almost. You can take the boy out of the slums, et cetera.
Suddenly, Midvalley turns and offers a hand. ‘Let’s shake.’
‘Shake?’ He feels dazed all of a sudden, as if he’s just stepped out into bright sunlight. ‘On what?’
‘Happy coincidences,’ Midvalley says seriously. ‘Gotta love ’em.’ Wolfwood extends an awkward hand, clutches soap-softened fingers and is the one to let go first, with a kind of embarrassed confusion. He wipes his sweaty palm on the side of his leg. Midvalley shakes his head. ‘I was kidding, you moron.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘Sense of humour bypass, huh?’
‘Sorry. I’m just kind of tired.’
‘My heart bleeds.’ Damn, Midvalley can move fast when he likes, but Wolfwood knew that. He knows that. Midvalley smiles his million-dollar smile (a million’s far less than sixty billion), which, close up, is vaguely distressing in its white confidence. ‘We’re way past handshakes.’ They are. Wolfwood can’t argue with that. ‘C’mere.’
‘I’ve got to get back.’
‘I’ll be quick.’
Midvalley draws him into an embrace. It’s loose and casual, like friends greeting each other. He feels as if he’s being tested. He looks into the eyes of his reflection over Midvalley’s shoulder, and then looks away. He moves his hands on to the back of the white jacket.
One of them is wearing nice aftershave. Midvalley, probably. Wolfwood can’t remember if he owns aftershave. Midvalley’s hair is slightly damp where it curls over his collar. Only once they showered together. They did it in a weird strained silence, not touching, the water crashing down. He kept having to wipe the soap out of his eyes and blink them clear: he didn’t like being blind in front of a man he didn’t trust.
Midvalley releases him. ‘Seriously though,’ he says – they weren’t being serious before? – ‘it’s nice to see you.’ His eyes travel slowly over Wolfwood. ‘Really nice.’
‘Likewise.’ Wolfwood shoves his hands ungraciously in his pockets and chews his tongue. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he asks eventually, doing his best to sound as if he doesn’t give a damn. Which he doesn’t. Vash’ll be ordering now. He wonders what he went for.
‘Nothing much.’ Midvalley shrugs his white-jacketed shoulders. Not for the first time Wolfwood wonders how he gets the blood out. ‘I’m playing later.’
‘That thing you were humming?’
‘You like that one?’
‘Yeah. I mean, it’s okay.’
‘That one, then.’
Wolfwood has almost forgotten that Midvalley’s smile is honest-to-God beautiful. It just about makes up for his eyes. Lovely eyes, sure, you could go on for ages that ‘brown’ doesn’t do them justice, but only if you don’t look too closely. You do and you see they’ve got this painted-on quality about them; they’re cold and hard, like lumps of winter soil. In unguarded moments they take on this deadish glaze, like fishes’ eyes. Before they saw what they’ve seen they were probably warm and liquid, like coffee. He can’t imagine that. Even at the beginning they were never like that.
The first time they met, him and Midvalley, they blanked each other completely. The briefest touch of palms and a competitive testing clench of fingers that passed for a handshake; a curt ‘Pleased to meet you’, which meant the exact opposite, and they each turned away. Bloodlessly Wolfwood had noted the frank-looking brown eyes, the dark hair that fell artfully artless over the forehead, the sensual mouth which looked made for drawling. Pretty, sure, but he wasn’t interested. He really wasn’t. Just looking at the guy you knew trouble was sewn into the lining of his suit. Plus, he had too much attitude. What the hell was that handshake about, anyway? Just about crushed his fucking fingers.
Ten hours later they were in bed together. Got to be some kind of record, that. He pats his pockets for his cigarettes before remembering that he told Vash to remind him to buy more last night, just before they went to sleep. Idiot forgot, didn’t he? Didn’t think it was important, probably. He wouldn’t. Only another smoker could understand. ‘Shit,’ he says under his breath, unreasonably irritated. Vash, you moron, he thinks, and then guilt kicks him hard in the gut beside the gnawing craving and he feels even worse.
‘Are you out?’
‘Yeah.’ Wolfwood exhales through his nose. He’d only been about to light up to fill the gap in conversation, for something to do, but now that he knows he doesn’t have any, he really wants one. Typical.
‘Wait a sec.’ Midvalley fishes around for a moment then produces a single cigarette from somewhere in the dark lining of his jacket. He brandishes it like the Holy Grail, lights it with his silver lighter, takes a quick preliminary drag and then hands it over. ‘I was going to smoke this over some wine later, but I think I’ll donate it to your good cause.’
‘What, my life-draining addiction?’ Wolfwood takes a long, grateful suck of smoke and then watches it unfurl towards the broken ceiling fan. ‘Some good cause.’
‘The words ‘gift’ and ‘horse’ come to mind. But then again, I suppose you’re doing me a favour.’ Midvalley takes it back and blows an imperfect smoke ring. ‘Hey, look at that. That’s my best one yet.’
‘Amateur.’ Wolfwood inhales till he feels dizzy, then forms his mouth into an O and releases the pent-up smoke. The ring is worryingly perfect.
‘Nice,’ Midvalley says, with easy grace. ‘But I bet you can’t play the sonata in C minor I’m practising at the moment.’
‘Nope.’ Wolfwood bends his head to hide his smile as he pinches the cigarette out between finger and thumb, carefully, preserving it for later. ‘But if I’d ever gone in for that stuff, my sorata—’
‘Sonata.’
‘— in C major—’
‘Minor.’
‘— would be goddamn perfect.’
‘Despite the fact you’ve told me repeatedly you have a tin ear.’
Wolfwood straightens. ‘I only said that so you’d stop trying to get me to sing.’
‘Business, Wolfwood! You would have made me loads of money. And I would’ve given you…’
‘Fifty percent. Obviously.’
‘Twenty.’
‘Screw that, I’m your meal ticket, remember? Forty. No lower.’
‘Thirty-five.’
‘Deal.’ They shake, firmly, and this time it isn’t awkward. ‘Hypothetically speaking,’ Wolfwood adds, and even cracks a smile.
Midvalley laughs. He extracts himself from the handshake and drifts his hand up to Wolfwood’s face. ‘You should have sung, y’know, one of those times,' he says. 'You would’ve been great.’ He hesitates and then strokes the dark hair off Wolfwood's hot forehead. His fingers feel cool. ‘You would’ve been great,’ he says again, softly.
‘You always made enough without me.’
Midvalley’s mouth quirks and the seriousness, not the intimacy, lifts off like a veil. ‘I coulda made you a star.’
Their lips could touch, if Wolfwood wanted it.
‘Could you?’ he says.
The tenderness of the moment, undercut and undermined by a weird charge between them like repelling magnets that makes him want to pull back and push forward at the same time, is like nothing he’s ever experienced.
‘Just thought I’d check on you,’ Midvalley says, strained, obviously feeling it too. ‘Just make sure you were still on track.’
‘I am.’ He can practically taste him. ‘I’m kind of – sleeping with him, Midvalley.’
‘I thought you might be.’
Wolfwood feels bizarrely kittenish, saying this, but he needs to know. ‘Are you jealous?’
‘Yes,’ Midvalley says, looking him straight in the eyes.
‘I thought you might be.’
And suddenly they’re kissing three-two-one go as if someone’s fired a starting pistol, and it’s a desperate race, a rough pushing-together of mouths and hot nothing-tasting tongues familiarising themselves all over again. Wolfwood shifts and moves his legs further apart – just to keep his balance, of course – and Midvalley moves immediately between them – this is a really familiar dance – exerting expert careful pressure with his thigh and oh God this is going to end up serious, isn’t it. Another kiss, gentler this time. The soft pressure makes his mouth tingle. No one in the world kisses like this.
Except, maybe –
Midvalley says, ‘Don’t let me keep you.’ It’s like reading that menu: individually the words ring loud and clear, but together he can’t make sense of them, the words won’t knit up and make sense. All he can see are eyes the colour of that dry chocolate he used to get sometimes as a kid, the kind with nuts in he didn’t much like, and his mouth is tingling, and he rests his arms round Midvalley’s neck and kisses him again; different, longer, wetter. They’re going to swallow each other. Perhaps kissing will be enough, and at the same time he knows it’s not. Midvalley wants him, uncomplicatedly, even loves him – maybe, probably, perhaps. At this moment he can make or break this man. The power is such a turn-on. Anyone would be turned on by it. Wouldn’t they?
‘If I blow your cover I’ll be shot.’ The hand pressing on the small of his back feels distinctly possessive, sends a not-quite-right thrill to his head. A hand at the nape of his neck, too, pulling him close enough to kiss. But Midvalley doesn’t kiss him, only drops words like pebbles into his mouth, each landing with a self-contained splash somewhere far away inside him. ‘You need to get back. He’ll be missing you.’
‘I said I wasn’t having dessert,’ Wolfwood hears himself say, randomly.
A heavy, thinking pause.
‘That’s a shame.’ Midvalley eases his fingers inside the fold of his trousers, where the zip is. ‘They have this coffee thing I think you’d love.’
This is confusing. This is the type of thing Vash would say if he knew him better. What Vash will say if Wolfwood lets him get to know him better. The fact that Midvalley is the one saying it, so casually, with that easy arms-length affection that lets you know exactly where you stand, gives Wolfwood a strange feeling in his chest. It’s half anger and half something else, something he doesn’t care to name. Vash should have this nameless thing from him, and no one else. God knows Vash has put up with a lot from him, and he did it willingly. Midvalley just happened to be there. And yet –
‘What’s it like?’ he asks, dry-mouthed. ‘The coffee thing?’
And yet.
Midvalley pauses. ‘How to describe it,’ he says, low, and flexes his fingers, gently. ‘It’s kind of bitter…’ The zip is undone. Fingers sliding over the top of his cotton underwear. ‘And it’s hot…’ Fingers against his bare skin now, cool, coming away damp because he’s sweating, he’s sweating more than he thought he was. ‘And it tastes like heaven.’ Untucks Wolfwood’s shirt. Slides his fingers round. Eases down his underwear.
Wolfwood leans back, braces himself against the cracked basin, allows his legs to be spread wider. The air feels cool on his cock. He bites his lip and forces thoughts of warm afternoon hotel rooms and lying on his back and being licked gloriously, frustratingly all over except where he needed it most out of his head, into the air, where they no longer matter.
‘We’re not talking about cake, are we?’ To his ringing ears the joke falls painfully flat.
Midvalley smiles at that, and his brown eyes look almost human again, and then he wets his lips with his tongue and lowers his head.
They’re not talking about cake.
First flickering wet tongue-heat over the head of his cock. Things have gone so fast but how can he stop it now? No, wouldn’t be very polite and ah, beautiful beautiful hot wet mouth – and teeth, gentle sharpish pressure on him, just a little. He’s never had someone use teeth before, that’s so fucking hot, he’ll remember that for next time. This is so – Je-sus! – good; Vash is so good at this. He’s so clean-cut, so blond and blue-eyed and boyish, almost, except for when his eyes get old sometimes, and you’d never think it, would you? Never thought he’d be that good. Hardly thought it’d be worth it him going down on you, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, did you, and then wham, he’s got you writhing.
He wets his own dry lips with his tongue and rests his head back against the hard tile. The broken sink digs coolly into his back, low-grade ache as he shifts, grounding him. His fingers, gripping the smooth china edge, almost slipping off. He opens his eyes briefly, smiling down at Vash, his unbelievably dirty-sexy-pretty lover (you’re doing great, you look great) and the brown hair in which his fingers are locked shocks him so badly he nearly starts up forward off the basin.
‘Midvalley.’ It’s almost a whimper, almost a plea. Don’t be you. A reminder. He grasps his handful of dark hair and remembers blond spikes, wilted by sweat and mid-afternoon heat, poking through the gaps between his fingers like tufty grass.
Oh, God, this is – not good.
I hardly know you, he said once, that night of the day they met, as they shared a dying cigarette in the third-rate bedroom of their first time. He stood naked at the cracked window, trying to catch a breeze, while Midvalley eased on to his stomach and lay there looking at him, cigarette smoke wreathing his head in premature grey. And you hardly know me. He was just stating fact, in case this good-looking hard-eyed musician was gearing up to get attached to him, but for some reason it had provoked a smile. Lustreless brown eyes travelled boredly over the sweaty cooling body that their owner had clutched just minutes ago. He felt the gaze like the trail of a tip of a feather, sweeping his stomach, teasing his cock, tickling between his thighs. He folded his arms low across his belly, aware for the first time, since they’d torn at each other’s clothes, caught fingers in zips and heard buttons clatter to the floor, of being naked. Midvalley had got up and taken his wrist and drawn his thumbnail over it. It was unbearably ticklish, and disturbing in the nearness of his veins. You have a long life line, said Midvalley, glancing at his palm, and then, up into his eyes, without missing a beat: The question is, Nicholas: do I want to know you?
There was a pause, in which Wolfwood had time to reflect upon the fact that Nicholas D. Wolfwood had never even considered being anyone’s one night stand, and then Midvalley dropped his wrist, put the cigarette carefully in Wolfwood’s mouth and got into bed, facing away from the window. He stared at the gently tanned back, smug in its smoothness. Was this how it felt? The cigarette crumbled to ash between his lips. The house of cards was folding, gently but insistently, and he knew as it fell he was hooked.
No, this is not good at all. They are separate, they always have been, these past months: he must keep them separate. Already he can feel the approaching tight climax of all this licking and sucking and gentle stroking, and more, just a bit more, and he’ll come and clean off and go upstairs and eat dessert after all. Vash, help me. He can say things in the confusion of his head that he would never dream of saying aloud. Come and help me. I didn’t mean to start this.
‘You look spaced.’ Midvalley rests his cheek against Wolfwood’s thigh. ‘What’s on your mind?’
Wolfwood stares at him, makes a desperate motion with his hands. ‘Don’t stop!’ There’s much more urgency there than the common I-really-want-to-get-off variety.
Midvalley lifts an eyebrow. ‘Hey, whoa.’ He stands up and brushes invisible dirt off his knees, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, but not in a nasty-taste sort of way. ‘We haven’t done this in a while, y’know? We should take it slow. Savour it.’
‘What? Savour what?’
‘Calm down. I know you probably need this way more than I do.’ He grins. Wolfwood makes an inarticulate noise of fury in his throat. Typical fucking musicians, typical Midvalley, laid back so far he’s practically horizontal, only uptight when it suits him. Wolfwood sets his jaw (it aches a bit where he’s been clenching his teeth) and fights to keep his cool. Difficult, this, when he’s so hard all his brain can do is squeak Sex! Sex! Sex! as if he hasn’t got lucky in months. ‘My. If looks could kill,’ Midvalley says mildly. ‘Fear not, Nicholas. I’m not planning on leaving you hanging.’
‘Then get—’
Midvalley grabs Wolfwood’s sleeve and pushes him into one of the cubicles, steps in after him and locks the door behind them both, all in one fluid motion. Wolfwood jerks out of his grasp. ‘What the hell are you on?’
‘I just thought a bit of privacy might be nice.’ As if on cue there’s a rising bray of laughter, just on the stairs outside. The door bangs open.
‘And she said – wait for it – no, but I’m free next Tuesday!’ It’s a good thing the two guys are in the right place, Wolfwood thinks, because by the sound of it they’re about to wet themselves. The two men let fly twin streams of hissing urine, still laughing.
‘Besides,’ Midvalley barely-says, breathing the words, ‘it’s always just a shade classier behind a closed door, isn’t it?’
Just like him and Vash, he and Midvalley are about the same height: Midvalley can just lean forward instead of up or down to kiss him, gently and obscenely, tongue washing the salt taste of himself through his mouth. This time they both keep their eyes open. Wolfwood starts to kiss back. Perversely, it feels so safe, this. No one has to go slow or take it easy or be careful. No danger of getting hurt by something as trivial as this, when they’ve been here scores of times before. Even though each possesses the necessary weapons to cut through the layers of deadened scar tissue now, neither of them would ever take such a cheap shot. Wolfwood wouldn’t, anyway. He keeps forgetting he doesn’t know Midvalley very well any more.
They’re both breathing hard, in unison. Midvalley’s left hand is suddenly between his legs and the other’s manoeuvring him round so that he’s against the sturdy wood door. Wolfwood recognises this abrupt efficiency, remembers it from so many separate occasions, and knows they’re not messing around any more.
‘Have you – got anything?’ he says. Midvalley is unbuttoning his shirt dextrously with one hand and stroking him efficiently with the other, and Wolfwood finds it hard to make the words lock together properly.
Midvalley gives him an I-do-get-laid-you-know smirk. ‘Of course.’ He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it over the cistern along with Wolfwood’s shirt and then leans past Wolfwood to take a small bottle, maybe four inches tall, out of his inside pocket. ‘Travel size,’ he says, not without a note of pride, holding it up between finger and thumb. The word Passionné is embossed on it. ‘I figured this was more important than the cologne that was in there before.’
‘You’re a complete sleaze.’
‘And you’re easy,’ Midvalley replies, stripping off Wolfwood’s trousers and underwear and shoving them into the corner with his foot, ‘but who’s counting?’ He still has the pink shirt on. He steps right up close in the tiny space, putting his hands deliberately either side of Wolfwood’s head, leaning in so that their mouths almost touch. ‘Speaking of which, Nicholas, when was the last time you got fucked good and hard?’
‘Thursday.’
‘It was a rhetorical question,’ Midvalley says gently, with an edge.
‘I know,’ Wolfwood replies, equally gently, with the same edge.
‘Was it good?’ A wet licking bite on the side of his neck, the blunt pain of million-dollar teeth. He and Midvalley used to jeer at Legato when they were sure he couldn’t be listening – hurt me more, Master – but really they’re all masochists on some level. Him, lying; Midvalley, asking; and Vash, God, Vash, smiling and smiling. ‘Was it good with him?’
‘It was great.’ Probably, he adds silently.
‘Was it really.’ Midvalley draws back a fraction, showing those teeth in a ferocious, deliberately unpretty smile that makes Wolfwood’s stomach tighten unwillingly with the old excitement. Slowly he pours some of the stuff on the fingers of his left hand (left-handed, he’d forgotten) and then steps up and kisses him, open-mouthed and wet, tongues touching. ‘You ready for this?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ The whole fuck-me-now thing seems a bit off for this situation, so Wolfwood’s sticking to put-downs. ‘I haven’t built you up in your absence, you know.’
‘But you wouldn’t need to, would you?’ Hand between his legs again, levering his thighs apart.
‘Because you were just that good.’
‘Exactly. And you’re going to forget,’ Midvalley the Hornfreak says, giving each word equal stone into still water emphasis, ‘that he ever made you come even half as good as I did.’
Midvalley pauses, likely anticipating the smart retort, but Wolfwood has none. He doesn’t answer. He can’t.
And so those agile fingers slide inside him, cold and slick, one first, then two. The stuff’s cold enough to make him flinch. When Vash did it he warmed it first. Midvalley pushes his thighs wider apart with capable musician’s hands, the calmness of concentration in his brown eyes. Wolfwood remembers how much he loves – used to love that look. It’d be a huge turn-on for anyone, being the complete focus of such concentrated attention. He wonders if Midvalley thinks of this – of him – as a particularly interesting piece to be played; something memorised once, years ago, and then half-forgotten. But the notes are coming back. The nuances are there again. And he’s playing it well.
He’s drifting into the pleasure, not focusing on its giver. It could be anyone. Midvalley’s fingers twist hotly and it’s half-painful, he’s not really wet enough with the lube yet for that, but then they quickly find his sweet spot and press hard, hard, Jesus. Wolfwood gives this groan that is completely involuntary and which he bites his tongue, literally, teeth sinking into muscle, to end. He’s not usually loud, never reached more than a kind of ‘nnnh’ with anyone else (except with – no, he can’t, not here, not now), but something in Midvalley brings out the feral in him, Midvalley always drew these yowls and moans from him as he does – did – from that saxophone, fingers skilful and quick. He knows what buttons to push. Wolfwood knows his buttons too. They’re similar, him and Midvalley, in some ways. Sometimes it used to feel like screwing an alternate-reality version of himself, with the same kind of problems, the same kind of fuck-’em outlook. There was always a lot they’d both rather not remember.
‘Remember New Oregon?’ A tongue wet against his ear (no one else, not even Vash knows that weak spot, not yet; he’s ashamed of it, it’s so corny), warm breath. He does remember New Oregon, with the vividness of a particularly bizarre dream. There he had the best and dirtiest sex of his entire life with this guy. These fingers were in him then, fucked him like this then, knew every bit of him in the Biblical sense. It’s always a bit uncomfortable at first and he keeps infuriatingly just missing his prostate but now they pull out and push back in a couple of times, going deeper and – oh, God, that’s it, found it again, there, there. Jesus. Jesus.
‘Kiss me.’ He does, dumb body willing to the last, stupid brain reeling, and it’s a glorious fighting clash of mouths and tongues and teeth. Midvalley slides his hand between his legs for the hundredth time tonight and uses the precome and the lube to make his stroking butter-smooth. Wolfwood grasps two handfuls of shirt. Hang on. Hang on. His mouth is open; he’s breathing through it, panting, almost, as everything tightens. He feels like there’s a big zip inside him, zipping slowly up. ‘Have you missed me, Wolfwood, have you missed this?’
‘No,’ he gasps – he can’t remember why he’s not with Midvalley permanently, when it’s this good, when it’s always this good. ‘No, you fucker, no way—’
And Midvalley takes his hand off his cock and his fingers out of him and he’s left twitching, breathing, lube dripping down his thighs, so hard he’s throbbing, so nearly there he could weep. A twitch goes through his thighs, as if a string’s been jerked taut, and his knees go rubbery and weak. The edge of it recedes. He doesn’t attempt to clutch at it. His hands stay clenched in the smooth back of Midvalley’s shirt, because if he lets go Midvalley’ll see the needy fuck-me look he swore he’d never let him see.
Midvalley pats his back. ‘I love it when you kid yourself about me. You always used to.’
‘Shut up,’ Wolfwood says, blood hammering in his head.
I’m not your fucktoy. Every time he came under this man’s lazy curious fingers he thought for that shuddering second that he was in love. In the daytime they were equals; he, Wolfwood, held the cards, even, because he could afford to turn his head aside and let kisses miss or be infuriatingly distant; but the moment darkness came he’d become this thing, this sensitive sensitised heap of nerve endings and secret pleasureful places to be explored and exploited by the best – lover (no other word for it, really, he shrank from fuck buddy, recoiled like a worm being prodded because it reminded him of a lot of the things he hated – still hates – about himself) he’d ever had. No, you’re my lover.
He doesn’t ever bite, but once he bit Midvalley’s shoulder. The bastard got him coming so hard he thought he’d pass out; that one time he bit him, only once, sank his teeth into the creamy faultless skin of his right shoulder deep enough to scar. Before that Midvalley had teased him for an hour; he never knew an hour could be such a long time. The taste of blood and Midvalley’s quick indrawn breath of pain felt like his deserved revenge. They used to play games like that. Brinkmanship. One-upmanship. All about power. At the time it was just enough. Just.
He wonders if the scar is still there, and begins to unbutton the pink shirt (pink, he’d choked when he’d first seen it, what in hell’s name possessed you?) to find out. Midvalley stands patient as a priest as Wolfwood manipulates fingers gone clumsy and thick to undo each button. The worn cotton parts, hangs off strong pale shoulders like loose skin. The scar is still there. The fact engenders a rush of relief which he can’t explain. He feels loose and drunk, but not. Now that Midvalley’s lost his clothes and he’s lost his, he doesn’t know what to do.
He felt a bit like this that time when he’d found Legato looking calmly at him after he’d come to, cold and disorientated and pretty much naked, in a hotel room which was not his. His head was muzzy and he thought he was dreaming as Legato bent over him, all cool unreal beauty, and ran the fingers of the transplanted hand over his bare stomach, which curved instinctively concave under his touch. Legato seemed pleased by the reaction, kissed his own palm and then pressed it to Wolfwood’s sweating forehead. He tried to sit up and couldn’t; tried to say something stupid and couldn’t even do that, either. It was the most unsettling feeling. He’d always said he’d rather be dead than paralysed.
‘Are you okay?’ Midvalley touches his chest with the flat of his hand, moves up to cup the back of his head, making a kind of pillow between the hard door and his skull. Surprising, that. Considerate. He’s a good lover but he’s not considerate. Vash is all consideration. ‘Hate to complain or anything, but you seem a bit preoccupied.’
‘I was just thinking –’ Wolfwood catches his breath and coughs. ‘Just thinking about that one time with – Legato. In Kansas.’
Midvalley blinks, then says slowly: ‘I remember. You were shaking afterwards. All over.’
Wolfwood feels himself colour. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’ It was.
‘But it wasn’t any good, was it?’ Midvalley says, raising weary eyebrows. ‘I’m always afraid the freak’s going to snap completely.’ The present tense doesn’t pass Wolfwood by. Midvalley must have a raw deal, being the only one left, but what can he do about it? Always afraid. Christ. ‘That psycho needs more than any TLC I can give, I’m telling you. Someone should put him out of his misery.’ The words are said, characteristically, mildly enough, but there’s a tide of venom pulling beneath them.
‘He’ll have heard all that,’ Wolfwood says as Midvalley traces a secret pattern on his thigh with the tip of his finger. It leaves a slug trail of lube behind. ‘You’re really gonna get it later.’ They used to joke about it to take the dread away, them and Dominique. Sucks to be irresistible, Midvalley said once. Dominique laughed, shrilly. They bet on it sometimes, with matchsticks. They kept score. It’ll be you tonight. Trying not to think Not me because that’d get you chosen, nine times out of ten.
‘You kidding? He’s with Knives.’ Midvalley gives a cold grin. ‘Master, master, hurt me more. Remember? Man, I’d get sick of that fast. Maybe if Master actually gives him what he wants so much this time he’ll leave me the hell alone.’
‘Live in hope.’
‘Yup. Anyway…’ His voice actually softens a fraction and he leans in to lick at the place where Wolfwood’s pulse is rapidly sinking back to its normal beat. ‘Where were we?’ Both hands slip down, ghosting over his stomach, both ending up between his legs. One finger teases him, circling, not quite pushing inside, making him jerk for it. Damn it, he doesn’t need to be coaxed, never did; he wants it now, now. He spreads his legs and presses his arms against the door, at his sides, as if he’s about to be searched.
Midvalley bites the soft part of his ear, gently. It’s so sexy he almost shivers.
They’re pressed full-length against each other, both sweating, skin bound moistly together.
‘Turn round,’ Midvalley whispers.
Wolfwood opens his eyes. ‘No.’
‘C’mon.’ Midvalley tries to pry him off the door. ‘It’ll be easier.’
‘No.’
They stare at each other, stubborn as thomases. If we didn’t have this, Wolfwood thinks suddenly, if we didn’t have sex, what in God’s name would we have in common?
‘Let’s leave it, then,’ he says, voice hard.
‘Bluffing.’ Midvalley smiles, unperturbed. ‘You want this as bad as I do.’
‘My way or not at all.’
The smile is extinguished; it can go on-off like a light switch. ‘Fine.’ Midvalley exhales and says again, more calmly: ‘Fine. It’s gonna kill your back, but fine.’
‘Want to stop jawing and get on with it?’
‘Fine.’
Wolfwood stands there making loose fists with his hands as Midvalley slicks wet fingers over his own cock. Now it’s come to it, now he’s about to get what he thinks he wants (he does want it: it’ll get this guy out of his system for good, won’t it?), he feels empty and unprotected. Wolfwood has to stop himself pushing him away as Midvalley comes close to stand between his legs, like before, only now he’s got to do something, now he can’t just stand here and be pleasured. He’s shouldering the blame by doing. He spreads his legs as wide as he can, leans all his weight back against the door at his shoulders and pushes his hips forward. Midvalley uses one hand to brace under Wolfwood’s left thigh, lifting his foot on to his toes on the floor, and the other he uses to guide himself in, quickly but accurately, and carefully, surprisingly carefully. Wolfwood’s been surprised a lot this evening. He’s sweating more now; behind his knees the skin feels damp.
Things have changed since last time, of course, but they slot together still; they fit like a jigsaw. Wolfwood bites his tongue and leans his head back, closes his eyes, focuses on the dull ache and the sharper burn, trying to put off the pleasure for as long as possible so it’ll smack him hard and good. He’ll keep his eyes closed. The pain’s lessening without him doing anything and it’s so uncomplicated now, this easing, filling feeling. It doesn’t hurt enough.
‘Nicholas.’ Urgent, as if something’s burning up or falling down. His Christian name sounds stagey and ungainly; he never liked it very much anyway – at least not when Midvalley used it. Don’t call me that, he used to say; they’d just met and it felt invasive and wrong. Even if they were screwing almost every day now, it still felt wrong, and he still preferred his surname: it was less personal that way. His mouth is busy breathing but someone feels the need to kiss it. You can kiss without fucking: why can’t you fuck without kissing? It doesn’t hurt enough.
‘Open your eyes.’
No. He does and this time the hard brown eyes don’t surprise him horribly or even at all. They look at each other, with the noise of their breathing filling the space around them. Upstairs people are eating. Upstairs, Vash. Like a different world, down here. The door creaks a mild protest as Wolfwood is hitched up on it, unpolished wood pulling against his skin. His toes stretch for the floor but can’t touch it; he stretches like a hanging man and still can’t reach.
‘Relax.’ Midvalley pauses. He’s strong like him, like Vash too: he’s holding him up, Wolfwood’s thighs round his hips, hands gripping ass hard. ‘Relax, sweetheart.’
Oh, Jesus, his mind’s clearing again. He can’t be allowed to think about this.
‘Shut up,’ Wolfwood says between his teeth, squirming for the spot, ‘and fuck me.’
‘Lovely,’ Midvalley says dryly, and exhales, controlling himself. ‘So romantic.’
‘So help me God,’ Wolfwood says tightly, grasping Midvalley’s loose collar and yanking him forward so that their noses almost touch, ‘if you don’t get the fuck on with this I’ll twist your goddamn balls off.’
Midvalley kisses him sweetly on the mouth, a soft first-date kind of kiss. ‘It’s called patience. Apparently it’s a virtue. You should know.’
‘Will you shut – ah. Ah…’ Finally, easing deep and pulling out sharply and then slowly in again and the rhythm begins for real – thank God don’t talk don’t talk just do this to me and – there. There. There. Over and over: there, there, there, and he’s moving with it; shoved rudely up and back and up and back against hard wood and the latch on the door’s rattling, but who cares? Short, panting cries, like a wounded animal, and they’re coming from him, God, from him. These fingers, stroking, this mouth wet on his vulnerable neck, this cock in him – Vash, Jesus, Vash, who knew? – together they’ve plunged him into blackness, he’s blind and stupid and he can’t remember anything. Each sweet sharp stab of pleasure is vicious but meant and makes him tighten all over – his fingers, his toes, inside – and this last makes the man mashed into him catch his breath in a harsh, blissful gasp, stiffen completely and then shudder, hand still working him like a machine. A moment, a second of almost painful tenseness and – Wolfwood jerks wrenchingly, crushes the sweaty body to him – and oh, God, the fastest sand steamer never came as fucking hard as this.
Breath slowing. Eyes still tightly closed. His head hurts from the fierceness of it. He hasn’t come as hard as that since…
‘Vash,’ he chokes, barely able to form his lips around the word, so it comes out as a kind of dying gargle.
‘What?’ A hand, damp and trembling slightly, caresses his cheek. He opens his eyes, stomach aching weirdly, and averts them straight away. Depression, a dull hammer in the gut. It’s always this way after sex. He always thinks he’s not going to feel down and he always does. You’re no better than mating insects. Afterglow is a myth. Or it used to be. Is afterglow lying in gold five o’ clock sun, so comfortable you’re nearly asleep, hearing: Hey, do you want some tea?
‘Shit.’ Midvalley checks his watch and starts buttoning up his shirt, grabs some paper from the dispenser and hands some to Wolfwood. ‘I’m supposed to be on in five minutes.’ He wipes his stomach and groin with the same cool efficiency as he does most things. Warmish trickles of come and lube and sweat are sliding down Wolfwood’s inner thighs. They’re annoying, tickling. Wolfwood wipes them off, straightens and throws the damp tissue into the corner of the stall. He pulls on his underwear, his trousers, shrugs on his shirt. He doesn’t want him to, but Midvalley helps him button it. Their fingers meet on the middle button and – the sheer fucking stupidity of this – Wolfwood actually blushes. His legs feel boneless. He tells himself it’s guilt. He’s feeble with guilt. Shaky with remorse. Not weak in the wake of fucking fantastic sex with an ex-lover he wouldn’t trust enough to play poker with.
Midvalley reaches round him to unlock the door. Wolfwood moves aside. Now they’re not actually screwing, the cubicle seems to have shrunk. ‘So I guess I’ll be seeing you,’ he says. ‘Sooner or later.’
‘Huh.’
‘Wolfwood.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t guilt over it. It’s really not worth it.’ That smile. So smug he wants to punch a hole in it. The fingers of his right hand curl into an unconscious fist. ‘Life’s too short for you and me.’
‘I know.’
Midvalley’s leaning against the broken sink. Wolfwood can see himself in the mirror beside him. He’s flushed. His hair’s sticking up at the back, his shirt’s buttoned up wrong at the bottom (where he started doing buttons up) and his mouth looks blurred and kind of raw. The whole effect basically screams I just got laid. Is ‘laid’ the right word when you do it standing up? Midvalley would know, for sure. Like hell he’s going to ask him.
‘Better sort yourself out before you go up,’ Midvalley says sagely. He comes forward, takes Wolfwood’s hand, squeezes it. And then he’s opening the door to the bathroom, letting the otherworldly chinking of cutlery and low-key dinner conversation filter down the carpeted stairs. ‘Oh, and Nicholas?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks for the ride.’
‘Fuck you.’ Wolfwood says it tiredly.
‘Next time, maybe. But I’m not promising. See ya.’ And Midvalley’s gone.
Wolfwood looks into the mirror again and smoothes down his hair as best he can. He runs the tap till it’s cold and then splashes some water into his face, into his mouth. The nameless taste lingers. He begins to unbutton his shirt and do it up again, properly, this time.
~
When Wolfwood comes back to the table, trying not to hear the sounds of a baritone sax warming up, Vash is not there. He looks around tightly, trying not to make it too obvious he’s just been ditched. Nope. Nowhere to be seen. He sits down, suddenly, his back to the stage. The seat’s still warm; Vash must have just left. Ditched him with the bill, most likely. He’s broke, as usual. If he has to borrow money from Midvalley he’ll – no. He’ll wash dishes before he borrows money from Midvalley. Getting angry over the bill stops him feeling anything more dangerous.
Oh, Christ. He puts his face in his still-wet hands. What he’s just done has the close, unreal quality of a fever dream, one of those ones which only ever lasts ten seconds or so, but in those seconds you’ve lived hours. It’s not that he can’t connect himself to it: he can, too easily. The sore ache gradually gathering force inside him and the dampness where his jacket was lying on the floor make sure of that. He just doesn’t want to.
‘What’re you doing?’ A hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t move; he heard him coming. ‘I’ve just paid. You can’t still be hungry.’
Instead of giving a flip remark he could hug him, right there in the middle of the restaurant, to show how fucking glad he is to see him, but he’s Nicholas D. Wolfwood and he doesn’t make grand gestures. ‘Of course I’m still hungry,’ he says instead, still sitting. ‘Some greedy Tongari ate everything.’
‘You did your bit.’ The hand rests on his shoulder for another moment, a warm weight, then hesitates – he feels the slight relaxation of the fingers – before lifting away.
‘Yeah, but I could never keep up with you.’ Wolfwood gets out of Vash’s seat carefully, like an old man. His back aches, like Midvalley said it would. His thighs ache too, from being held apart. ‘I’d explode.’ He’s careful not to look Vash in the face, not yet. From the corner of his eye he notices that Vash has his left hand behind his back.
The pianist strikes up a quick staccato plinking; it builds. Wolfwood knows enough to know it heralds a solo. Vash looks past him to the dim stage, now lit up and active. ‘That’s a nice tune,’ he says, as the saxophone begins to wheedle coaxingly up and down the melody. ‘He’s good, isn’t he? The sax player?’
‘I suppose,’ Wolfwood says abruptly. ‘Let’s go.’
He walks ahead of Vash, who’s still concealing whatever it is behind him, out on to the wooden veranda with its village of empty tables and chairs. It might be a switch in his hand, Wolfwood thinks darkly, sidestepping a stray chair that’s become separated from its table. So Vash’ll finally be the one doing the stabbing in the back.
‘Wolfwood?’
‘Yeah.’ He turns, making fists with his hands in his pockets. At his back the mosquitoes are whining again; from in front comes the muted restaurant noises, the sweeping saxophone scales and the tinkling of the piano. The moons are up in the sky; the clouds cleared back as if dissolved by the parched heat. Nice night for it, he thinks, not knowing what ‘it’ is.
‘Yeah,’ he says again, trying to cut the agony short. Of course Vash knows. Wolfwood realises he’s bracing himself as if he’s about to be hit.
Vash looks at him but doesn’t move yet; only grins, a bit shyly, hand still behind his back. Wolfwood’s reminded suddenly of the time when some of the kids at the church clubbed together to buy him that godawful cologne one Christmas: all bubbling excitement, twenty-six pairs of eyes trained on his reaction. Wolfwood tries to lean round him and see, but Vash holds him off with his other hand, planting it gently but firmly in the middle of his chest. It feels almost like a caress. Wolfwood gives up just soon enough to still be considered sporting.
‘What’ve you got, Tongari?’ he says wearily, warily. Maybe it’s not a knife. He’s imagining everything from stray kittens to chocolate vodka.
‘I thought you might like this,’ Vash says, presenting what he’s holding. ‘If you’re not going to throw up again, that is.’ In a white plastic dish with a lid is a slice of dark cake, still gently steaming. Vash looks at Wolfwood’s face, a bit embarrassed. ‘It just looked like your sort of thing. It’s the uh, coffee thing,’ he adds, helpfully.
‘Yeah,’ Wolfwood says. ‘I know.’
A pause. They both look at it.
‘It’s OK if you don’t want it,’ Vash says, retracting it. ‘I can—’
‘I do want it.’ Wolfwood takes it. The plastic is warm against his fingers. There’s a thousand things he could say. Should say. ‘Thanks,’ is what he finally decides on, a thousand times too close to lukewarm, making him squirm miserably at his own mealy-mouthedness. ‘It was a nice thought.’
Vash goes slightly pink. ‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘It’s just a stupid little thing.’
Pause. Vash clears his throat. Wolfwood hardly ever hears him do that. ‘Shall we make a move, then?’ Vash looks kind of embarrassed, like he wishes he’d never thought of the cake thing at all.
‘Yeah. Okay.’
They pick their way out: the harsh rude wail of the saxophone follows them out away from the lights of the restaurant, into the close dark of the street. They stand there for a minute, mute, as if they have to get their bearings, even though both of them know exactly where the hotel is. Then, like they’ve both suddenly just thought of it, they both begin to walk. They’re side-by-side and close enough to touch, even though they don’t. Vash’s arm brushes Wolfwood’s once by accident and Vash says ‘Sorry,’ as if they’re strangers.
They turn the corner of the street where their hotel stands between two classier ones, shouldering its dingy way on to the road. Wolfwood’s holding the plastic cake box under his arm. The aroma of coffee rises from it and drifts after them. They’ve attracted one stringy stray dog with three legs, which lollops after them at a distance, dripping saliva on to the dry road.
As they near the door Vash starts searching in his pockets for his room key. Wolfwood stops, suddenly, so Vash does too.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s not,’ Wolfwood says.
‘Sorry?’
‘This. It’s not a stupid little thing.’ Wolfwood places the box carefully on a window ledge and then forces himself to look Vash in the face. ‘Listen. I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’ Vash asks quietly. His eyes in the moonlight are ancient and patient.
‘A lot,’ Wolfwood says eventually. It’s a coward’s answer, it’s a cheat, but for now it’ll have to do.
‘You’re a very strange man,’ Vash says, sounding almost tired. He reaches out to touch Wolfwood’s cheek, but then obviously thinks better of it, and drops his hand. They stand there, close, silent, in the almost complete darkness. They still haven’t touched. Yet.
Wolfwood swallows in his dry throat; the sticky sound it makes is faintly repulsive. Now Vash gets his grand gesture. It’s up to him if he wants it or not.
‘So… want to come up?’ he asks, trying to make it casual, already bracing himself for the polite rejection. He jingles his room key in his pocket and then stops because it suddenly strikes him as vaguely sluttish.
‘I was planning on it,’ Vash says, without drama, as if none of Wolfwood’s week’s uncertainties ever even occurred to him. ‘If it was OK with you.’
‘It – it is.’ Oh, God, it is.
‘Good.’
This isn’t going to solve things, Wolfwood thinks as Vash moves to him, slowly, as if wary of scaring him after a week of being away from this (or so Vash thinks; the ready slickness inside him is going to be a dead giveaway unless he distracts Vash well enough), but it might just paper the cracks for a while.
Vash takes the key out of Wolfwood’s pocket and then kisses him, gently, and then not so gently, and slides his tongue into his mouth, and puts his arms round his waist. The three-legged stray comes and sniffs round their ankles for a bit, tracking the remnants of coffee smell, then wanders off, evidently unfamiliar with the concept of windowsills.
‘Don’t forget your coffee thing,’ Vash says, letting go when Wolfwood has to breathe. Vash can hang on longer than any human lung capacity allows.
‘I’m not.’ Wolfwood goes to pick it up. ‘Smells really good, I—’
‘It’s your turn, y’know,’ Vash says softly. Wolfwood can feel him watching. ‘On top.’
‘I –’ His fingers crumple the thin plastic edges. God, yes. Imagining. And he’s sore from before with him, and it’s his turn, and – of course he can’t. He doesn’t deserve to. ‘I – don’t mind,’ he says. ‘You can, if you want.’
‘Of course I want.’ Vash looks a bit confused. ‘I just thought you—’
‘You can,’ Wolfwood repeats, in his End Of Topic voice.
‘Okay.’ Vash smiles and hooks his arm round his waist again, drawing him close enough to kiss. ‘If you’re sure.’
Wolfwood kisses him first this time, a quick fierce bump of his mouth against Vash’s. ‘I’m sure.’ I’m sorry. Make me sorry.
‘Next time, it’s you, huh?’
‘Next time. You bet.’
This had better paper the cracks, because he doesn’t think he’s got anything else that could.
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