Chapter Text
There were two universal truths of Malik’s life:
1. That he simply could not wash off the smell of engine grease no matter how hard he tried or what brand of soap he used. Regardless of the endless litany of advice he’d found on the internet on the subject, the smell of the garage followed him everywhere he went.
2. He was attractive to nobody, at all. Ever. (Possibly because he smelled like the dirty floor of the garage. Possibly for some other reason like what his brother referred to has his ‘resting face of casual rage’.)
He had lived a monk-like life alternating from working at the garage to going home and trying to scrub himself clean to occasionally going out looking for something to do and despite a troubling addiction to karaoke places, he gained nothing for his efforts. As such, Malik had simply accepted that internet porn and masturbation were his only sexual outlets and moved on with his life accordingly.
--
It was a Wednesday, during a hell of a rainstorm, when the little gray Honda found its way to the garage. The tow truck dropped it and its owner off without any fanfare. Malik watched from the relative safety of the space behind the counter where he’d been enjoying his lunch. The car was disabled (obviously) and from the spray of mud all along the sides of it, however it had died had been spectacular.
The owner was almost as bad off as the car. He was kind of tall (at least as tall as Malik) with a slim but obviously muscled body. (Only obvious because he was wearing a white shirt that was soaked with water and therefore showing off both the fantastic color of his skin and the deliciously well-toned muscles of his chest and belly.) There was mud all over his shoes, his pants and his back (apparently he fell) but it had already washed out of his hair. His nose was pink and his ears were red on the tips when he stopped at the counter. “Tow truck guy said you were the closest and best mechanic,” the stranger said.
Malik couldn’t swear that he’d necessarily done anything to earn the title of ‘best’ but he was probably the closest. He dusted his fingers off and stood up. The ancient chair he’d been sitting on squealed angrily at the abuse as he pulled a sheet of paper out for the man to fill out his info on. “What happened?” he asked.
“Car died. On the interstate. I have no idea why. But here I am. Wherever this is.” To add insult to the awfulness of this stranger’s day, the first two pens he picked up didn’t work. The increasing aggravation in his face finally broke with a ridiculous laugh. “I hate today,” he said. “Any chance you have one that works back there?”
Malik dug out one of Kadar’s good pens and gave it to him. “So you’re not from around here?”
“No. I am not. I’m actually on my way to New Ghent but as you can see,” he motioned back out the windows that provided a wonderful view of the slowly flooding streets. “I did not make it. What time is it?”
Malik looked at his phone sitting on the counter, “one-twenty-four.”
The stranger, Altair (or going by the contact information he gave at the top of the paper) let out a huff of noise that was almost a growl when he realized that his wet hand was leaving smears all over the paper. He dropped the pen and slapped his hand against the counter top. His face (pink-edged nose and all) was a comical mask of infuriation. “Do you have another paper?” he asked after a moment of utter silence.
“I’ll write it,” Malik said. “Do you have other clothes? We’ve got a bathroom—it’s tiny but you can use it, if you want to change.” He pulled a second paper out, took Kadar’s pen back and turned the paper Altair had already written on to copy down the information that was legible enough to read.
“Yeah,” Altair said. “I’m going to go get my clothes and I’ll be back.”
“Get me your license plate number,” Malik said.
--
Altair returned (wetter than when we left) carrying a bag against his chest with his body hunched forward in an attempt to protect the bag and its contents. He paused by the door dripping water all over the welcome mat with a persistent shiver. “I got the number,” he said.
“Tell me,” Malik said. He scribbled it down in between bites of his sandwich.
The door to the shop opened behind him and the intentionally obnoxious music rushed through the door followed closely by his equally obnoxious brother. Kadar stole one of his chips and picked up Malik’s cup to take a drink while grinning at him. He smelled like motor oil and sweat and there was a fresh smear of something dark and grimy looking down his bristle-covered cheek.
“I didn’t get a lunch,” Kadar said in his own defense. He rubbed his hand with the red shop towel and managed to do basically nothing but smear the grime around even further. Satisfied at this attempt at cleanliness, he yanked the zipper of his coveralls down far enough to shake the sleeves off his arms. “Oh hi,” he said when he finally saw Altair still standing by the door. “Looks like you’ve been having a great day.”
“The best,” Altair said.
“Don’t worry about the carpet. It’s ancient.” Kadar plucked the paper away from Malik and frowned at the word ‘Honda’ before immediately giving it back to him. “Looks like you’ve got this one.”
Altair crossed the carpet clutching his bag against his chest and after a brief tussle with the bathroom door managed to open it. Whether or not he could successfully wedge himself inside still remained to be seen. He stopped long enough to remember he needed to give up his car keys. “Sorry,” he said when he dropped the dripping wet key on the counter.
When he was in the bathroom, Kadar stood next to him grinning. “He seems nice.”
“Stop,” Malik said. “Not every man that walks in is a potential sexual partner. Stop now.”
Kadar’s smile only got rounder and the smugness in his cheeks only more pronounced. “Henceforth, every man that enters here will be considered gay until proven straight. I will not cease my mission until I have found you someone willing to sleep with you.”
Malik kicked Kadar in the shin and that made him laugh all the way back out to his obnoxious music and his endless row of oil changes.
--
As it turned out, everything was wrong with the ugly little Honda. Malik, quite frankly, had absolutely no idea how Altair had managed to even get this car onto a road much less make it whatever distance he had on the high way before losing control of it. The poor thing needed to be mercifully put to sleep. He pulled the shop rag out of the back pocket of his overalls and stared into the abyss of failure.
Kadar was shimmying out of his coveralls and throwing them over the desk that was against the fall wall. The fruit smell of the hand cleaner he said worked best was floating all through the garage, trapped by the closed bay doors. “I’m leaving,” Kadar shouted. “Are you going to give the hot guy a lift to the nearest hotel?”
“Well, he can’t drive this,” Malik said. “Are you making dinner?”
“Not my night,” Kadar called as he went out through the door. It slapped shut and the grinding sound of Kadar locking it with the key echoed dully through the empty garage. Without the ear-splitting distraction of his brother’s music, the whole place seemed depressingly empty. So he headed for the door into the office.
Altair was sitting on the old couch with his legs stretched out in front of him. He’d traded his sopping wet clothes for a new pair of jeans and a darker shirt (shame about that, Malik liked the see-through one). He was glaring at his phone with his eyebrows at sharp angles and his hair still damply plastered to his head.
“So, when you were driving it did you notice any shaking or grinding? Maybe some sort of humming noise, the smell of transmission fluid?” Basically, if Altair had not realized his car was on the verge of death it was because he had never driven it before. There was no way the poor thing experienced such a tragic fate without some kind of attempt at begging for mercy.
Rather than answer, Altair dropped his head back with a groan that seemed to indicate he had feared for his transmission and rather than addressing the situation before it worsened had simply tried to ignore it. He covered his face with his hand and said, “how much?”
“Worse case, at least two thousand. I’d have to get a better look.” No he didn’t. Altair’s car was a worst case scenario and it was morally wrong to offer him any sense of hope. “It’s usually better if you don’t wait until you lose control of your car on a highway to bring it in. If you own a car you should know how to take care of it.”
Altair sighed.
“Do you need a ride to a hotel? We have three not that far from here, depending on your price range.” Malik put the computer to sleep, turned the answering machine on the phone back on and dug his keys out of drawer. The keys to open the shop were on a separate key ring that he also had to find and clip onto his car keys.
“Yeah,” Altair said. “That would be fantastic.”
Malik pulled the zipper of the coveralls down and yanked them off his shoulders before kicking them off his legs. His shirt was damp with sweat and his whole body smelled like an engine block coated lightly with deodorant. “Great, let me lock up and we’ll go.”
--
The first trouble was that Altair said, “hey, I know you’re already doing me a favor but could you take me somewhere I could get something to eat? I’ll buy you something too.” Then he vetoed most of the close-by places to get a burger, tacos or fried chicken so they ended up at a relatively cheap sit-down place with cracked vinyl seats. Their waitress looked as if she had been working there since the fifties and had the smoker’s husky voice to further prove it.
The second trouble was that Altair was really good looking. Absent the mud and water, he even smelled nice. His mouth was entirely too distracting and Malik spent too much time staring at it while he tried to keep up with the small talk they were exchanging. Sports, weather, local history and the sort.
“You said you were going to New Ghent?” Malik said.
“I was headed there,” Altair confirmed. “I was supposed to go accept a job there. I don’t really want to do it but it’s a job.”
“Jobs are hard to come by these days,” Malik said. But mostly he was looking-but-trying-not-to-stare at Altair’s lips. Or the pink drag of his tongue when he licked his lips. Or the way his lips curled at the edge in one of those really obnoxious smirks that only assholes employed. “What kind of work do you do?”
“I tell other people what they are doing wrong, mostly. Sometimes I get to fire them.” Altair’s body settled different in place as if he had only just that moment become aware of the way Malik had been trying not to look at his lips or his neck or the way the sleeves of his shirt hugged his arms.
Malik leaned back because the space between them felt very narrow. “Who would listen to a man that ignores how his car is dying? Seems like they hired the wrong guy to me.” (His defense against being discovered lusting after people was to insult whoever was closest. It was one hundred percent guaranteed to keep him from ever getting laid.) “I don’t think I could take criticism from an idiot.” (He was: Never. Getting. Laid.)
The third problem was that Altair laughed. “You must not know how upper management works. It wasn’t my car. I was waiting to buy one until I found a place to live.”
“How long have you been driving this car that wasn’t yours?” Malik asked.
“A few months.”
“Idiot,” Malik repeated. “Reckless. Stupid. Ignorant. Are these the traits of upper management?”
Altair’s face was pink with mirth. “Not usually reckless, no.”
But the fourth problem was that after they finished the luke-warm, mediocre sufficient meals served tastelessly on chipped plates, Malik drove Altair to the closest hotel that was well-lit with a decent reputation. It was a chain hotel, four stories high, which had been recently built. It had a rounded driveway that fed directly into the lobby where happy receptionists were waiting to book you a room. It was for situations like this where relatively nice guys like him could shove attractive idiots like Altair out of the passenger side door and make a clean escape.
Then there was Altair was leaning his head toward the window looking through the doors and windows. “Maybe you should come in,” he said, “in case they don’t have a room for me.”
“Maybe you should go see if they have a room for you and then give me a thumbs up if they do so I can leave,” Malik said.
Altair pretended to consider this. “Maybe you should come in and make sure I get to my room safely.”
At which point, Malik could not pretend he wasn’t aware he was being propositioned with sex. “You think very highly of yourself,” Malik said (mostly to Altair’s mouth and not even slightly to any other part of his face). “Or very poorly. If you think you are going to get lost on your way, there is a woman right there that can provide you adequate directions.” He pointed at the receptionist that was now staring at them.
“It’s as good as you think it is,” Altair said.
That was a confusing statement. “What?” Malik asked. He even managed not to look at Altair’s mouth when he said it (or his arms all subtly tensed to show off).
“My mouth. I’ve received very good reviews.” Then his smile (that had bordered on arrogant for so long) spread like a tease. He had a look of regret stuck on his face, though, as he said, “but I understand.”
“Shut up,” Malik said far more bluntly that he intended. His crisis was severe but brief. He went and found a place to park that seemed like it would afford him an easy get away and ignored Altair’s stupid smiling face as they got out of the car. It was hard to imagine what they must look like, Altair with all the appearance of a traveler and Malik with no bags and awkward sweat on his palms.
The fifth problem was they ended up in an elevator together. Altair (apparently now exhausted with the effort of not engaging in semi-public sexual displays) pulled him into a kiss that pushed Malik back against the hand-rail. It was an easy-confident gesture that was quickly as lewd as the wet press of Altair’s tongue slipping into his mouth. Clearly, Altair had a set perception of how this arrangement was going to go. Malik took advantage of the situation to get his hands on Altair’s body—heated and tight—in those few brief moments before the elevator lurched to a stop on their floor.
--
The hotel room was as anonymous as any room in any hotel had ever been. The bedspread was something floral and unremarkable, the art on the walls was instantly forgettable and the curtains that covered the windows were a bluish-color. The room was cool enough to be uncomfortable under normal circumstances but a blessed relief against Malik’s quickly overheating skin.
Altair threw his bag on the bed, crossed the room to flip open the control panel on the room air conditioner to adjust the temperature, and then straightened up again in time with pulling his shirt off over his head. The grayish filth of the mud he’d fallen in was still a stain across his back, still in the creases in his neck and drying in scaly patches along the backs of his arms. For a man who apparently worked in an office telling everyone else how they weren’t doing their jobs properly, he was remarkably well-cut. Obviously due to this own deeply ingrained arrogance and vanity because Altair was rubbing his palm against his own chest like he simply could not resist the chance to feel himself up.
“Do you even need me?” Malik asked. He hadn’t managed to do anything more impressive than leave his shoes near the door and even that left him in his socks feeling really out of place. If it weren’t for the fact that he was desperately aroused at even the notion of touching another living human (and an attractive one at that) he might have just left.
Then Altair came back over to stand in front of him, all ten of his fingers curling up under the bottom hem of his shirt and pulling it steadily upward toward his shoulders. He was looking right at Malik’s face (not his body) with his tongue at the corner of his lips and his breath in anticipatory little gusts. The backs of his fingers rubbed against his belly and chest as he worked the shirt up. Malik lifted his arms and Altair pulled it up and off before throwing it on the floor. He made a low hissing noise before he pressed his hand against Malik’s chest, this thumb brushing across the coarse, dark hair there. His cheeks were pinked in pretty highlights just before he ducked his head and kissed Malik again.
It was intense (almost painful) with Altair’s hands going around his back to pull his hips forward and press his shoulders back. They were swapping the taste of dinner back and forth across their wet lips and Malik was working up some sense of shame at how hard he already was even before Altair’s hand dragged back around his waist to push down between his legs and grip at his dick through his pants. The arrogant-low-laugh that broke the kiss was embarrassing for everyone.
“I thought you were supposed to be sucking my dick,” Malik said.
Altair squeezed his hand around the bulge of Malik’s erection. “I like the way you smell,” he said, “but if you think I’m putting your dick in my mouth, we should probably take a shower.”
Malik stared back into Altair’s unflinching stare and dropped his hands to the waistband of his pants to tug open the button and zipper. “Get undressed.” His own body wasn’t fashioned to look good but he had been working since he was a kid and years of effort had given him a nice, natural definition.
Altair stripped with almost comical speed and went to turn the shower on in the bathroom. “How hot do you like it?”
“Not cold,” Malik answered. He pulled his socks off and dropped all his clothes in the same pile before going into the bathroom. It was white-porcelain everywhere with a perfectly serviceable tub. Altair found the prepackaged individual soaps and got into the shower as the water started to steam. Malik accepted his soap and got into the shower with him. The water in the bottom of the tub was gray with dirt from where it was washing off Altair’s skin and out of his hair. Malik wasn’t nearly as dirty (well, not in a way that made the water change colors) but he wasn’t as needlessly inefficient about getting clean either. Under the unforgiving bright lights of the hotel bathroom, Altair maintained his attractiveness. In comparison, Malik felt lumpy, hairy and troll-like.
(Good thing was, Altair seemed to find hairy trolls attractive.)
There was a flinch in Altair’s eyebrows in the half-seconds between him deciding to attack Malik and him actually grabbing him by the face and pressing their mouths together. They were kissing again, Malik against the wall and Altair’s wet-bare-dick grinding against his belly. He rested his hands on Altair’s waist and followed the sluice of water down over his hips to grip at his firm ass and loved the vibrating moan that earned him.
“Can I fuck you?” Altair asked.
“After you suck my dick,” Malik said. He made it sound so forceful, as if he felt like Altair had to earn the privilege. That wasn’t his intention but everything about this jerk rubbed him the wrong ways (well, almost all of them) and he couldn’t shake his defensive rudeness. He might have apologized if not for the way Altair’s mouth opened in an inaudible breath of arousal. Being bossed around and made to earn sex clearly worked for him.
Maybe, Malik meant ‘suck my dick out in the other room’ or ‘suck my dick when we get to a bed’ or anything but the way Altair grabbed him by the hips and pushed him until he was leaning back against the wall opposite the showerhead. He didn’t mean for the jerk to get on his knees in the bathtub with his long-long fingers wrapping around Malik’s dick. He just wasn’t prepared for the way Altair eyed him like he was sizing up how big an obstacle this was going to be before he licked his lips all shiny-and-wet. “Stop looking at it,” Malik said. His hand was in Altair’s hair and his dick was brushing across the man’s fat lower lip as Altair looked up at him with that same arrogant lilt to the edges of his mouth. “Open your mouth wider,” he said. (But who was he, even? This was not his life.)
Altair opened his mouth with a clear challenge in his eye and his damp eyebrows conveying how he didn’t think Malik had it in him. (Of course he didn’t, this guy was paid to go around telling people they were incompetent despite the fact that he wasn’t even capable of caring for a car.) Malik wrapped his hand around the base of his dick over where Altair’s fingers were already curled around it and rubbed the head of his dick against the open spread of Altair’s lips. He pushed his hips forward just far enough to slip inside of his mouth, across the smooth surface of his tongue and out again. The hand he had threaded through Altair’s hair tightened so his blunt (dirty) fingers were pulling Altair forward to meet the next shallow thrust.
Nothing that had he had experienced in life prepared him for the way Altair’s eyes fluttered shut or how his free hand dropped to stroke his own dick like the whole thing was too-fucking-intense to resist. His lips closed around Malik’s dick and he took him in all the way.
“Oh fuck,” Malik mumbled (but not in English) just seconds before his every attempt to maintain some level of embarrassment over this sudden sexual transformation he was experiencing melted away. He tipped his head back and tightened his grip on Altair’s hair before he started thrusting into his mouth and the bastard took it with pleased-wet-sounds.
The water splashing into the bottom of the tub was interrupted only by what part of Altair’s body was still under the spray. Malik was breathing the heavy-hot-air as the steam from it made the mirror fog and his skin start to sweat. And he was trying to watch the way his dick slid easily in over Altair’s lips but he couldn’t make himself concentrate on it because he hadn’t gotten laid in months and nothing would intensify his embarrassment more than coming in the first five minutes.
(But he wanted to. He wanted to so desperately.)
Altair either sensed his dilemma or got tired of having his mouth fucked (that was not likely from the noises he made) because he pulled back with a slick-wet-popping noise and was back on his feet with pretty-red lips and impatient hands. He kissed Malik again, elbows against the wall behind him, crushing them together so he could rub his dick against Malik with slow-purposeful thrusts.
“I want you to come with my dick in you,” Altair said against his mouth.
Right. Of course. Didn’t everyone? Malik didn’t say any of that or moan agreeably, “you think that was enough to impress me?”
“Do you give everyone this much shit?” Altair asked. His hands had found their way to Malik’s ass.
“If they deserve it,” Malik answered. (He had to learn to shut up.) He pressed his thumb against Altair’s reddened lip and pulled it down. He looked at his mouth and not his eyes. “I wasn’t finished with you yet.” Then he hooked a hand around Altair’s shoulder and pushed him back down. More amazing than the fact that he felt perfectly in the right to do so was how easily Altair let himself be pushed. How happily he went back to sucking dick in a hotel bathroom.
(Fuck.)
Malik closed his eyes and concentrated on nothing with a particular emphasis on not concentrating on the greedy moans vibrating all around his dick.
--
It was Malik, not Altair, that finally said, “fuck, fuck me,” because his whole body felt like it was poised on a point of pain and he wanted nothing more than to orgasm (except maybe to come all over Altair’s face). It seemed like a minor thing to wait until Altair got what he (said he) wanted out of the whole thing. Once the words were out of his mouth, he was impatient to get it.
Altair turned the water off and got out of the tub on unsteady feet (apparently kneeling on the hard porcelain for extended periods of time was bad for your circulation) and pulled Malik out after him. They were idiots dripping water all over the floor, naked and chilly in the still-cool room. Malik got shoved back on the bed and Altair dug into his bag to retrieve a small black zipper bag where he kept his lube and condoms.
Malik took the lube and Altair took the condom. It had been a long enough time since the last time he’d gotten fucked that the sight of Altair’s happily hard dick seemed daunting but arousal and lack of common sense was giving him a false sense of euphoria. Malik slicked his fingers and reached down between his spread legs to spread the lube around his hole. It was an easy slip when he pushed them inside but his finger was nothing in comparison. “How do you want to do this?” Malik asked.
“This is good,” Altair said. “Is it good for you?” He grabbed Malik by the thigh just below his knee and pushed his leg up toward his shoulder. The bed dipped and groaned as Altair moved forward on his knees. His stupid face was attractively spotted with arousal as he stared openly at Malik’s fingers pulling free of his body.
“Yeah.”
“Ready?”
Sure, why not? Malik nodded and Altair pressed the fat head of his dick against his hole with his lip pinched between his white teeth. It occurred to him as his hole stretched open with protest, that he might have been overly-confident. Malik closed his eyes and tipped his head back as his body tightened reflexively against the intrusion. Altair was moaning appreciatively and Malik thought he might have to hit him.
“Fuck,” Altair said from somewhere above him, “you are tight.”
And, he simply didn’t have to make it sound so unbelievable. Malik reached up toward him and found his arm, yanked him down and kissed him because it was the second-best use of his mouth. Letting the idiot talk would only end badly for everyone. Altair liked it, kissed him and sucked on his neck and fucked him until it felt good and Malik stroked his back and arms and said filthy encouraging things to him like, “fuck me harder” and, “put your hand back on my leg” and “bite my nipple” and, “slow and deep, I want to feel your fat cock inch-by-inch.”
It was nothing he’d ever said to anyone and it should have been more distracting than it was. Altair was good at taking direction up until he decided he was finished accepting requests and pulled out to roll Malik onto his stomach to finish fucking him.
--
Kadar was not at home when Malik got there (which was for the best) so he took a shower and ate a snack and went to bed uneventfully.
In the morning, though, he woke up and found his brother in the kitchen with his smug face caught in a grin that would have made the devil proud. His stupid beard he refused to shave was obnoxiously dark on his face. “So,” Kadar said, “where were you last night?”
Malik probably could have convincingly denied every insinuation that Kadar’s abrasive grin was making if he’d only thought far enough ahead to put a shirt on before going into the kitchen. As it stood the little hickies on his chest damned him. “I was out,” Malik said.
“Was the closet getting too tight?” Kadar asked with exaggerated sympathy.
At which point, Malik slapped him. “I don’t want to hear about this all day.”
--
But, it was, “you’re moving slow this morning, Malik. How big was his dick?”
And, “do you give head? How do you practice something like that? I’m just assuming you practice.”
And, “did you tell him about your dildo collection? You should invite him over to see it sometime.”
All of which was the usual sort of conversation that Malik could handle (even if it was annoying) but then a cab pulled up to the front of the shop and Altair got out looking just as obnoxiously good looking today as he had the night before.
Kadar was delighted at this development. He threw his wrench on the ground and took off at a run to get to the office door before Malik could catch him. The door slapped open with the force of Kadar’s body knocking into it and Malik’s fingers slid down the back of his coveralls searching for and not finding purchase to stop him. Instead he grabbed Kadar’s ankle and pulled his leg out from under him. He hit the ground full-force with a shout of objection.
Malik went up the steps and feigned concern. “Why are you so clumsy?” he asked.
Kadar punched him in the thigh from where he was lying on the floor. Malik kicked him (gently) in the stomach and got hit again for his troubles. He turned around to see Altair standing on the other side of the counter.
“How bad is it?” Altair asked. “Should I even bother trying to fix it?”
“No,” Malik said. “You’d be better off buying a new car and neglecting it from pristine condition than paying to fix this one so you can neglect it.”
Kadar was wiggling a hand up his pants and Malik kicked him again without looking down at him. His brother groaned weakly at him.
“It’s amazing how angry you are at me,” Altair said. “I can’t stay in town, I have to be in New Ghent this afternoon. I’ll call you when I figure out what to do with the car.”
“Fine,” Malik said. “It might get stolen from the lot before you get to it. We don’t take responsibility for that.”
“Amazing,” Altair said again. He took a business card from the little tray on top of the counter and motioned back over his shoulder to where the cab was still waiting for him. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,” he said with the utmost sincerity.
“Thank you,” Malik said. It was, in fact, amazing how he managed to make those two words sound so venomous. Then he stood there as Altair turned and left and only after the door slapped shut did Kadar clear his throat from the ground where he was still laying. “What?” Malik demanded.
“Was he just really bad at fucking? I mean, can you even judge at this point? At what point do you become a virgin again? A year? Two? Four?” The grin across his face was terribly pleased with itself.
Malik kicked him when he stepped across his body. “Get back to work.”