Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The salon gleamed under its track lighting, which had turned on automatically when the sun had sunk low enough to throw long shadows in the cabin. Gold-and-black luxury decor sparkled against the white marble dancing floor. The whole cabin was shot through with veins of iridescent labradorite; when the chairs and and tables had been detached and stowed, what remained was a breathtaking display of wealth and class.

What a truly colossal waste of money for a yacht, Neil Bresson thought.

He drained his drink, and searched for a place to set his glass. When he failed to find one, he gingerly placed it on the floor and kicked it. The glass hit a wall and shattered. A spray of clear droplets and glass fragments rained on his white slacks. Huh. Well, what did he care? This yacht wasn’t his anymore. It had been his for less than a year, and now he’d traded it away to Mikhail Aven for the resources to support him through what promised to be a prolonged bout of indolence.

As soon as they put in to port, he’d transfer the title to Mikhail and walk away with a cool one and a half billion dollars.

That suited him just fine.

He’d woken up five months ago in what he’d assumed was his own bed. The memories of his old life had been completely swept away. The household staff called him Neil Bresson, who, he’d learned, was the son of a recently-deceased billionaire mogul. So he’d played along. That must have been one of his strengths, playing along with others’ wishes. He’d pulled it off rather flawlessly. Oh, here and there a hiccup had occurred when he didn’t remember a name, or a milestone, or an ex-lover, but it had been fine; he had been fine.

He just didn’t want to do it anymore. He didn’t want to tour Neil Bresson’s holdings, he didn’t want to show Neil Bresson’s mansions, he didn’t want to attend Neil Bresson’s fundraisers. Everything about Neil Bresson’s life was tediously dedicated to retaining the wealth his father had cultivated from his manufacturing empire.

God, he could barely tolerate the guests; Mikhail, his wife, and their entourage were on the top deck toasting to the canny business deal wherein Mikhail had bought the yacht--and, incidentally, a controlling stake in Bresson Ltd.--for a song. The yacht’s attentive staff had stayed topside to cater to Mikhail’s needs; they were eager to stay on with the new owner after the title transfer.

Neil Bresson might have felt some type of way about being so resoundingly ignored, but the man who currently wore Neil Bresson’s suits only felt a little dour.

He sat down on the floor, hard, and contemplated the ceiling like he’d never seen it before. He probably hadn’t. When did the son of a billionaire industrialist ever find the time to look at something that didn’t turn a profit?

Okay, maybe he was a little drunk. And a little bitter.

His gaze fell on the port doorway to the salon just as someone arrived. A solar hue rose around the stranger, wreathing them in silver and gold as they stepped across the threshold. Something about their movement seemed...off. Like they were walking through a cabin tilted in heavy weather, even though the boat currently rested on a calm sea. It wasn’t that, exactly, but their movement seemed too labored, too artificial, too wrong.

The stranger didn’t approach him directly; he walked the perimeter of the cabin, charging the air with the threat of an oncoming storm. Neil sat up on his heels, all too eager.

Something was about to happen, and he could not fucking wait.

Neil cleared his throat. “Good evening! Are you with Mikhail?” he tried.

“I’m not with Mikhail,” the stranger said. He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing, as though Neil had said something incredibly amusing. “We haven’t met.”

“I’d say not. I’d remember someone as interesting as you,” Neil said, squinting against the light. For some reason, he couldn’t get a clear look at the stranger.

--Maybe he was more than a little drunk, but he didn’t think that was it, either. He felt like he was looking at an after-image burned into his eyes, the bright lingering traces of someone who didn’t really exist.

“For some reason, sir, you are blurry,” Neil said, face scrunched to its limits.

The stranger held out a gloved hand. Neil leapt to his feet and took it. He tried looking at the stranger again, and found the image no clearer. The stranger wasn’t with Mikhail; and he couldn’t be with the crew. Neil would have remembered him. That narrowed the list of what he could be doing on the ship to a thrillingly small number of possibilities.

“It’s my duty to ask: what are your intentions vis-a-vis my boat?” Neil demanded. “Though I should inform you, it won’t be my boat much longer. If you’re thinking of kidnapping-for-ransom, might I suggest you start with good ol’ Mikhail on the top deck? Russian fellow, loud face, douchey voice. You can’t miss him.”

The stranger hadn’t let go of his hand. Neil felt a thumb ghost over the back of his knuckles. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he shivered.

The stranger’s voice tickled the shell of his ear. “I was thinking that maybe we could dance.”

“Dance?” Neil repeated incredulously.

“We’re alone. I have thirty minutes before anyone detects me. And this salon has a killer sound system.”

“You want to dance with me,” Neil summarized flatly. He had meant to say yes, but each new sentence that fell out of his mouth bubbled from a place of sheer disbelief. “Do you know who I am?”

“I do,” the stranger said warmly. “You’re the rich asshole with a boat.”

Neil gaped at him.

“Fine,” he heard himself saying. “One dance.”

The stranger let Neil’s hand drop and zipped over to the invisible wall panel and activated the hidden sound system console. A jukebox popped out of another wall. The stranger perused the jukebox menu and then picked several songs out of the queue. Neil knew how dangerous this situation was becoming, second by second, and he really should call for a steward. But he couldn’t help himself. It was the little things. Like how the stranger knew where the systems on the yacht were concealed. Like how he knew Neil enjoyed sensations on the back of his hand.

Like how he was baiting Neil, even with his song selection. A beat opened with the one-two-three of a cowbell. The stranger held out his hand, but Neil only knew two ways to dance with a partner: the slow, determined shuffle to a slow ballad; and frenetic grinding against a partner in a club.

He beckoned the stranger closer, and marveled at his approach. The stranger moved like a top spinning in reverse. It seemed inextricable how they came together. Their feet moved in synchrony; no step out of place, no shoe caught underfoot as they dodged and weaved and circled each other. Around and around they went, and finally he just grabbed for what he wanted. He caught the stranger’s hand and settled it on his waist.

--a little less conversation, a little more action please--

As the chorus kicked in, he leaned his chin against the stranger’s shoulder, and breathed him in. He smelled like cedarwood and gun oil. Wholly unfamiliar. Neil wondered if he had danced in this salon with this stranger before--before he knew restlessness, boredom and dread; he wondered if they had already known each other in a past that was locked away from him forever.

He decided in a moment that didn’t matter. The stranger was wholly wrong for Neil Bresson’s life; the present belonged to him alone.

--A little less fight and a little more spark--

He and the stranger were dancing here, alone, and the night was all theirs. Neil whirled the stranger around, lining them up back-to-front, and let his hips shimmy their way down the stranger’s back with just the hair of a ghost between dancing and--something else entirely.

--open up your heart and satisfy me--satisfy me--

The stranger spun them back around face-to-face and dipped them in both directions, his hand marking a path down Neil’s body, and, god, why hadn’t Neil thought to ditch his jacket before they started? He could have had that hand with nothing but two layers of thin shirt and leather gloves between them, and it would have felt wonderful.

Better yet--

Neil paused as the song faded out and a new one faded in.

--I’ve got to have a shot--of what you got--

He threw his jacket after the broken glass, and it crumpled on the floor. “Gloves off,” Neil demanded as he yanked at his black bow tie.

The stranger hesitated. “You’re sure?”

--It’s oh-so-sweet--you got to make it hot--

Neil wanted those hands on him.

The stranger removed his gloves and slipped them out of sight somewhere. It was so hard for Neil to settle his gaze anywhere, but he knew for certain the gloves had come off; the stranger stepped up to him and took Neil’s hands in the position for a waltz. All of a sudden it felt like the layers in an image had snapped into alignment. He saw the stranger clearly: his short-cropped beard that matched his short-cropped hair, his cheeks a warm brown that gleamed under the salon lights, his lips parted in amusement. Neil almost didn’t notice when the stranger stopped smiling because good Christ, what if I kissed those lips? A bolt of frenetic energy shot straight down his spine.

The stranger seemed to jump back and forth as though he’d been poorly spliced into the room when one of his hands dropped away from Neil; but when he cupped his hands around the back of Neil’s head, Neil could see him again. The worry etched deep lines in his face as he lowered Neil to a more horizontal position on the dance floor. Neil’s head was pounding. His lungs fought against the air, heaving up nothing but his breath.

“You’re gorgeous when you’re in focus,” Neil groaned up from the floor. “Stay like this, please. Grant a dying man his wish.”

“You’ll be fine,” the stranger said. The rebuke was kind enough, because the stranger was still here with him, hand against the back of his neck, rubbing circles into his skin. “You’re not used to the jump. It’ll suck when I let go, but I can’t keep you like this.”

The stranger craned over him, like he was thinking of kissing him, and Neil regretted the fuck out of it when the stranger decided not to. His hands withdrew, and with them so did Neil’s clarity. The stranger slunk back; Neil gasped as his lungs started working again, and he staggered to his feet and gulped down air greedily.

Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and pointedly didn’t look at the stranger; he wanted to remember his face. He had to commit it to memory, right now, before he could forget it. “Why did you dance with me, on tonight of all nights?” he muttered through his hand.

The stranger had disappeared, and it felt like his voice echoed through the salon. “Just your lucky day, I guess.”

A moment later, the stranger was at his back again, the gloves on. His hands came around Neil’s sides and held him in a loose clasp. A hug, almost.

“We can do this again and again, but we don’t have to cut the same path. You can be more than this,” the stranger exhorted.

Neil could not control how his heart leapt. “What do I call you? When I see you again,” he clarified.

“...Call me David.”

The stranger squeezed him briefly, and then his touch vanished. Neil stared unseeingly at the salon walls. He was afraid to turn around. If he turned around, the spell would break, and he’d return to what he was--a man irrevocably alone.

The music stopped. In the silence, he could hear himself breathing harshly.

In that moment, he felt certain about one thing. Neil Bresson wasn’t a coward... and neither, he decided, was he.

He found the strength to turn towards the jukebox. The salon was empty, as he’d expected it to be. But something rested on the jukebox’s cabinet--a metal top and a business card.