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“You are surprisingly bad at dying,” Pete says in a foreign language Vegas doesn’t know but somehow understands despite the fact.
Vegas’ responding smirk breaks into a tooth-baring hiss as Pete continues cleaning the wound on his side, salve stinging where it meets raw flesh. It doesn’t look like it’s anything life-threatening — Vegas managed to twist out of the shortsword’s swing just in time to merely get grazed — but he can already tell how inconvenient it’s going to be until it heals, threatening to stretch itself open with every move of his torso.
Regardless, he regains his cool in very little time, and seeks Pete’s gaze before he speaks. “Who else would you take care of if I wasn’t?” he asks, strange phonemes and words rolling off his tongue with ease.
Pete lifts an eyebrow, bites back, response at the ready. “Don’t get cocksure,” he says, and he breaks eye contact as he turns to reach for the roll of linen to his left. “I took a sacred oath to fight by your side, keep you alive.”
Vegas watches as Pete diligently soaks the cloth in vinegar and scoots even closer, their legs meeting where they’re sat on the stone floor. “You didn’t take a sacred oath to love me, and yet you do so all the same,” he retorts, and delights at the sidelong glare Pete gives him in turn, the corner of his pretty lips lifting, clearly against his will.
Vegas smiles back.
He loves him, always, would give his life for him (has attempted to do so multiple times, in fact, over the years spent fighting side by side), but he especially adores him when he’s like this; whip-sharp and futilely sour, fondness shining through the cracks of his makeshift façade, ever-present, undeniable.
Pete keeps up the pretence, huffs, and Vegas can’t help but just look at him as he devotes himself to his task, carefully wrapping the bandage around Vegas’ middle; right to left, left to right, tight, secure.
He looks beautiful, features intimately lit by the oil lamp next to them, and Vegas feels his eyes unfocus a little, vision becoming progressively hazier the longer he admires him. It’s only after a moment that he realises the blurriness, oddly enough, only masks Pete’s face.
Maybe that skirmish took more out of him than he initially thought.
Vegas curiously watches Pete’s eyes shift in and out of focus, losing definition and form, before momentarily sharpening into an almond shape. Pete’s irises seem to brighten up, light reflecting off of them easier, despite the late hour. They’re blue, he realises. Pete’s eyes aren’t blue, except they are. And right as the paradox registers, the eyes in question smoothly settle right back into the very ones Vegas knows by heart.
He feels his forehead crease in confusion. Waits, looks even more intently, attempts to recreate what just happened, but fails.
He’s snapped out of it when a sharp sting takes over his side before radiating towards the rest of his upper body. Vegas yelps in pain, hand instinctively coming up to guard his freshly bandaged wound.
He finds Pete squinting at him, mouth pursed in half-amusement, half-annoyance.
“What was that for?” Vegas asks, indignant, eyeing the thumb that was pressing into his wound just a moment ago. His mind retraces their exchange, thinking back to the last words shared between them before that odd dizzy spell got to him. Right, sacred oaths. “Am I being punished for speaking the truth?”
“No,” Pete says, drawing the word out as he sets all his tools aside, “you’re being punished for making me worry out there.”
Vegas sighs. He lets himself relax as he takes in the softness of Pete’s tone, the endeared playfulness in his eyes. Vegas smiles at him, can’t help it. “So you do care, after all,” he teases, like there was ever any doubt.
Pete steals all his smugness right out of his mouth with a warm, tender kiss that leaves Vegas’ chest burning with adoration. He opens his eyes, unaware of them having slipped shut, to see Pete still lingering, waiting.
“Still,” Pete whispers, breath warm against Vegas’ face, “next time you let an enemy shortsword close enough to wound, Gods help me, I’ll finish you off myself.”
Vegas proceeds to sitting in stunned silence, helpless against the foolish grin that takes over his face as Pete leaves no room for a comeback, up and already out of the room, presumably to return his supplies to the barracks’ physician.
He shares this moment with nobody but his racing heart and the heat pooling in his groin, both parties familiar company in the wake of Pete’s actions, now and very possibly forever.
The pads of his fingers absentmindedly feel the bandage around his middle, the texture of linen comforting.
In the background, his surroundings fall quiet, the familiar murmur of the barracks and the outside world giving way to all-encompassing silence, and Vegas turns his head to look at the rapidly dimming light of the oil lamp.
Odd, it should be good for a while more, he thinks, puzzled.
And with that thought, everything goes dark, and every second, every single moment he just experienced, converges into one, the memory a compact and dense entity of its own, right before it dissolves into empty space.
As if none of it ever happened.
Against the darkness, Vegas opens his eyes.
+
He recognises the very moment his mind starts to wander, and yet he can’t find it in him to do anything to stop it.
Vegas has spent most of his morning in a perplexed daze, unsuccessfully, so far, trying to wrap his head around last night’s dream. Because, the thing is, Vegas doesn’t really dream — or, at least, not in the way he understands most people do.
Since childhood, Vegas had never once woken up with the recollection of a dream fresh in his memory until this very morning. Before last night, he’d only ever managed to rescue a few vague, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it conjured up snapshots before his brain permanently purged them, leaving him with the impression of perfectly dreamless sleep.
In the old spiral notebook that lives on the bottom of the third drawer inside his closet, hide the few surviving reminders of images he’d dreamt throughout the years, the visuals obscured, fleeting: a pair of dark eyes, the eerily serene movement of water, a hand, desperately holding onto fabric.
And yet this time, the first night spent in the comfort of his own bed after his first (and hopefully last) long stint at the hospital, not only did Vegas see a full-fledged dream, he remembered it after. In detail.
He cannot stop thinking about it.
“They’re all healing up nicely,” he hears Pete comment, and he forces himself back to reality, feeling a little guilty about disappearing on him. He inclines his head as much as he can to watch gentle hands press gauze dressings onto his skin, covering up his wounds one after the other. “Scabbing just as the doctors said they would,” Pete says.
Vegas hums. He lets his hand act on its own accord, traversing the space between them and landing right where it needs to be, palm curling around Pete’s thigh where he sits on the edge of the bed.
He tries to let him work in peace, fingers hopefully subtle as they absentmindedly brush against the denim, the repetition of the movement soothing to Vegas.
He can hold it in for only so long, though. “Sorry,” he breathes out.
Pete’s eyebrows furrow as he briefly glances at Vegas, eye contact inquisitive before he focuses back on his task. “What for?”
Vegas huffs, frustrated with himself. Doesn’t know where to start, really, but he figures that vaguely gesturing at his abdomen could at least try to cover the matter at hand. “Just, all of this. Making you play nurse.”
He earns himself a tsk and a quick roll of the eyes. “I’m not doing anything against my will,” Pete says, tone assertive yet kind. He gathers all the materials he’s going to have to discard into a neat pile on the nightstand, but remains sat. “Plus, we only have four more days of wound dressing left. Maybe even fewer, with the way you’re healing.”
Pete reaches for Vegas’ assorted morning meds, popping each tablet onto his palm.
Here Vegas sits, back against the headboard, helpless and still reeling from the events of the past few months, as he watches the love of his life commandeer each and every little thing back into order. As if he’s the one who ought to. As if he’s the one who’s suffered the least.
Vegas shouldn’t even be here.
His lips move before he can control them. “Guess I’m pretty bad at dying, huh?”
Pete’s eyes snap to his own, fast, seeming almost surprised. The look of what feels like confused recognition is there and gone within a second, and Vegas startles. What’d that mean?
His palm is pried open by gentle yet decisive fingers, pills and tablets deposited onto it, and a tall glass of water is brought right in front of his face.
“Well, I’m glad you are,” Pete says. “Drink up.”
Vegas obeys. He’s almost embarrassed, eyes meeting Pete’s as he swallows, feels a little foolish, as things passively slot into place in his mind; he’s been under a lot of stress, has only narrowly escaped death, and is currently under enough medication to leave an elephant loopy. No wonder he’s so out of it, internalising all his guilt and allowing it to bloom into a full-scale fever dream.
It only makes sense.
Vegas needs to let it go and focus on recovering.
He exaggerates an exhale after his last sip, and attempts to distract both of them by playfully opening his mouth and displaying his tongue, evidence of having successfully followed Pete’s orders.
Pete smiles, mock-annoyed but mostly fond, and leans in. “Good boy.”
A soft peck, a gentle tap of fingers against Vegas’ jaw, and then he withdraws.
He watches Pete dutifully gather the trash and pick up the tray he’d brought his breakfast in on (Pete had made sure no bite would go uneaten), and Vegas’ hand comes up, knuckles brushing against the heat simmering beneath the skin of his chest.
One thing the dream definitely got right, at least? Vegas’ heart leaping at the slightest provocation, thrilled to be even in proximity of Pete; a beast, only just domesticated, feral for its master.
—
Vegas has never felt this way before.
The courtyard is brimming with courtiers, people of the high society and their lackeys, entertainers of all sorts, musicians and dancers, and yet all Vegas can focus on is him.
Pete, at the centre of it all, is a vision unlike any other.
He glows everywhere the sun kisses him, rays reflecting off the gold he’s wearing with every move he makes; each slow tilt of his head, smooth wave of his body, and graceful twist of the ankle plays off of the natural light, directing attention to every single motion. The gold chains spidering over the delicate bones of the backs of his hands accentuate his entrancing dance, and the precious gems adorning them twinkle as he manipulates the wood instruments in his hands, clicking along to the beat of the music.
Vegas does his best to drink the sight of him in as thoroughly as he can, and his heart nearly breaks with the realisation that his two eyes are nowhere near enough to fully appreciate every last bit of him the way he truly yearns to.
The band accompanying Pete starts picking up the rhythm, urging Vegas’ heart rate to rise along with it. He watches the way Pete’s hips undulate faster and faster, moving in smooth figure eights that have Vegas clutching at the edge of his seat.
“Who is he?” he hears himself ask in tongue foreign but oddly familiar, halfway out of breath despite being stationary, and it’s— it shouldn’t make sense to him, because he certainly knows this is Pete, would recognise him from a single strand of his hair, and yet he somehow understands this is his first time laying eyes on him.
The advisor standing next to him inclines his head to make his response heard over the music and the attendees’ loud reactions to the show. “A foreign boy,” he says, “his troupe came highly recommended. I can find out his name, if you wish.”
Vegas barely catches any of that, enspelled as he is, but he forces himself to nod regardless.
“He’s certainly very good,” he hears the man comment under his breath, unbidden, and it seems that’s all it takes for Vegas to regain some clarity in the moment.
Well, nothing about his current state of mind could objectively be described as clear, if he’s honest, but the sudden slap of anger that rocks him sure is pretty damn acute.
His head swivels up and to the right, and he finds himself sadistically delighted to see the immediate response, the advisor turning to meet his eyes within under a second, trained, expectant. Vegas curls his upper lip with as much derision and scorn as he can find inside him, creases his forehead meanly. He did not ask for the man’s input. He did not inquire as to whether he finds Pete good. That’s not for him to say.
The advisor visibly gulps, lowers his gaze with haste. Vegas can tell he’s feeling the urge to speak, apologise, but he apparently elects to keep his worthless words to himself.
Good.
Vegas redirects his attention to the centre of the courtyard, and feels the hot, bubbling rage in his chest settle a little as he once again finds Pete.
But the spell has been broken. The feeling that they are the only two humans in existence, that Pete is shining, dancing for him alone, is gone. With bitterness rising in his throat, Vegas comes to face the appalling reality that everyone in attendance is enthralled by Pete, just as Vegas himself is. They’re all watching him, entranced, hungry for every snap of his hips, every chance to catch a glimpse of his skin as his clothes, perfectly modest yet tantalisingly suggestive, subtly shift with each move.
Vegas loathes everyone here.
He wants to gouge their eyes out.
It’s on this thought that a certain pair of eyes reclaims all his attention and makes him magically forget about everything else, even if momentarily.
His breath stills in his lungs as he succumbs to the gravitational force that Pete’s gaze seems to possess. Their eyes meet, connection solid, magnetic, and Vegas finds himself lost in the dark-lined look Pete pins him with. His heart races, helpless.
“I want him,” he hears himself rasp out.
And with a sweep of Pete’s arm, glowing skin gracefully cutting through the air, the universe seems to grant Vegas’ wish; the move distorts reality, the ripples it leaves in its wake settling into colours and shapes that Vegas recognises without truly knowing. As Pete completes his enchanting twirl, mere seconds after Vegas last spoke, the air between them shifts to confirm they are no longer outside — the walls, plush furniture, and golden accents that surround them belong to Vegas’ private room. They are alone.
More important than the change in setting, however, is the realisation that Pete, too, looks different.
No longer is he wearing the expensive, heavy fabrics that previously covered his body, mercilessly depriving Vegas’ eyes of what they needed to see. Now, draping over his figure, flowing just above the fair expanse of his skin as if floating in the air, aura-like, is the finest of silks, turquoise. Sheer.
Pete dances, still, this time slower, more sensually, unaccompanied by music and seemingly relying on the wild beat of Vegas’ heart to keep time.
And all Vegas can do is sit on the edge of his bed, hands curled into fists, as he watches the see-through fabric tenderly graze against the dark, pebbled nipples on Pete’s chest. As the gold necklace around Pete’s neck slides against his skin and clinks with each move; the links that dangle from its centre dip straight down his sternum and nearly meet his belly button before they split into two, gold chain loosely encircling his narrow waist, hugging it to lock behind his back.
Vegas eyes the jewellery, and for the first time understands what it feels like to be envious of an inanimate object.
He wants him closer. Needs to own him, possess him entirely. Will not know peace until he razes the earth to the ground and leaves nothing but the two of them behind.
Pete dances closer, a breath away now, and the scent of him would have Vegas’ knees buckling, were he not sitting. Vegas feels his nostrils flare, desperate, as his lungs expand to fit as much of Pete into them as they can.
The amber is deep, vanilla-rich. He smells warm, Vegas thinks, inviting and comforting. He wants to tear this palace down and build a new one inside Pete, glimmering gold and searing hot, live the rest of his days there.
He lifts his hands to hover over the swell of Pete’s hips, but doesn’t allow himself to touch. He follows his entrancing dance, reverently swaying along with it as he maintains just enough distance between their skin to feel the sizzling charge that tethers them.
Vegas lifts his eyes slowly, dragging his gaze along Pete’s body until he reaches those dark half-lidded eyes. Staring straight back at him.
He has to run his tongue over his parched lips to successfully unstick them.
As Pete looks down on him, beautiful and all-encompassing, a deity incarnate, Vegas feels his heart succumb to the urge to confess. “I would give anything to have you forever.”
The words reverberate in the space around them, echoing with the truth of them, until the creeping darkness Vegas hadn't even been aware of until now grows to overtake their surroundings.
All sound is absorbed by the void that envelops them.
Eyes locked onto Pete's own, Vegas finds he doesn't particularly care.
And, on that thought, darkness.
+
The crisp night air breezes along his skin, making it pebble. Vegas would think that’s the culprit behind every tremor and shuddering breath of his, body struggling to compensate between the difference in temperature in and out of water, except he knows better. No, the real reason his lungs tremble with each exhale is none other than Pete.
Wonderful, caring Pete, who surprised him with flight tickets and photos of the villa waiting for them right when Vegas needed it the most, burnt out and stressed out of his mind over deals and financial reports he desperately wished he could forget about, even for a day.
Competent, resourceful Pete, who promised everything would be taken care of, from work responsibilities to any and all day-to-day arrangements necessary — Macau could learn a lot by running the house, even if only for two days, and Porsche would finally stop pestering them about not getting to see enough of Venice, after he and Kinn get a proper taste of full-time toddler care.
Beautiful, breathtaking Pete, who hovers right over Vegas’ lap, statue-esque, his damp skin glowing in the underwater lighting the hot tub provides. Wet eyelashes heavy as he looks down Vegas, it feels like he’s immense, Vegas thinks, as if he’s about to rise above the moonlit mountains off in the distance, stretch towards the sky without much effort at all.
Vegas is so, so grateful, and so, so painfully hard.
He watches Pete move, follows the smooth back-and-forth, the delicious rolls of his hips with bated breath, hoping that the next motion is going to be the one to finally bring their bodies together. He wants to feel Pete, wants Pete to feel him back, at last, at last.
Unable to help himself, Vegas reaches for him, hand finding Pete’s nape without much thought. His fingers curl around the side of his neck and travel down it, over the dip of his throat and across his clavicle; his thumb catches at Pete’s nipple as it passes over his chest, blunt nail eliciting a hiss as it scratches at the bud. And after he feels along the side of his ribcage and bends along the curve of his waist, Vegas finally settles where he needs to, cupping Pete’s hip.
He makes sure not to grab, merely to hold, follow along as Pete moves. Vegas does need him, does ache for him, but still does not want to interfere.
“When’d you learn to move like that?” he asks, and passively registers just how breathy his voice sounds. He’s not surprised.
The smirk that blooms on Pete’s face is slow, self-satisfied. It gets Vegas’ heart fluttering. He stills as Pete leans in, torturous in his sensuality and red-hot against the shell of his ear, to whisper, “I was a dancer in a past life.”
Fire roars in Vegas’ sternum, reaching all the way up his throat. His eyes follow Pete as he straightens back up, leaving goosebumps in the wake of his hot breath, and Vegas can’t help whatever expression takes over his face as he simply stares.
The memory of last night’s dream slots right back into place in the front of his brain.
It’d been months, countless months upon months since the last (and the very first) time he’d dreamt. Somewhere along the line, he’d just figured it was a fluke, his theory about the shootout and medication being proven correct.
He hadn’t been expecting to find himself mystified by any of this anytime soon. Or ever again.
His fingers tighten on Pete’s hip.
“Yeah?” he hears himself rasp out. “Who’d you dance for?” he asks. The heat in his chest turns a little dangerous, tinted with a feeling he’d recognise in an instant, from spark to full-on wildfire; jealousy.
It’s not real, he knows, despite what his mind might want him to think. His dream was just that, a well-directed lie, and yet Pete’s words, strangely well-timed, have him twisted up and hot all over.
Pete smiles. His fingers cup the edges of Vegas’ jaw, warm. And then he finally, finally grinds downward with resolve, naked and hot and hard, with a slow roll of his hips that rips a moan right out of Vegas’ throat. It feels like his ribs rattle with it.
Teeth seize his lower lip as Vegas moves to hold Pete with both hands, unable to stop himself from encouraging his hips now that they’ve crossed this line. Pete bites, releases, soothes with an entirely too-chaste peck. “Just you,” he says into Vegas’ mouth, breath hot as he ruts against him. “I only ever danced for you.”
A kiss, and then another and another, until they all blend into one, never seeming to end. Arms fall on top of his shoulders, Pete’s hands seeking for purchase at the edge of the hot tub as he grinds harder, faster, fighting against the water as it tries to steal some of the friction between them.
Vegas clutches at him even tighter, thrusting upwards to meet Pete halfway.
“Say that again,” he half-commands, half-begs.
Pete gasps, and Vegas can feel his abdomen tense up where they’re pressed together. He’s close, already. They both are. “I only ever danced for you.”
Vegas shuts his eyes so tight he sees colours.
It’s not real, he knows, but he wants it to be.
Yearns to believe.
Pete is his, has been his, will always be his, again and again, lifetime after lifetime.
His lips move with the mantra, and he can’t be sure he’s been hissing it out loud until he more feels than hears Pete moan, “yes, yes, always, yours.”
Everything whites out as Vegas’ orgasm slams into him like a tidal wave. As he’s swept up into it, he takes Pete along with him.
—
Vegas stalks patiently, confidently, every step certain yet near-silent. He knows these woods, and they know him right back; overhead, their branches seem to bend, moonlight streaming through to guide him, and their leaves rustle to cover up the sound of his movements.
The forest knows how significant his work is.
Vegas senses him before he sees him. He can hear his panicked breath. He’s trying to keep it low, shallow, but his lungs are screaming for oxygen, Vegas can tell. They betray him with every poorly concealed wheeze.
It only takes him a few seconds to pinpoint him, despite his best attempt at hiding behind the thickest tree trunk in sight. Vegas can see him where he’s half-crouching, protectively curling over his side, bloodied hands pressing into the wound there. He might be able to slow down the flow for now, but his luck has run out.
He’s going to get what’s coming for him, soon enough.
And he’s going to be deserving of it. They all are.
Vegas’ gloved hand tightens around the hunting knife, worn leather squeaking almost imperceptibly. He runs his tongue over his chapped bottom lip as the urge to pounce keeps rising and rising, throat clenching with it.
But he holds himself still. Shifts his focus and lifts his gaze, lets himself instinctively feel exactly where it needs to land. It never really takes much effort, and yet it always surprises him in the most pleasant way; confirmation that they were both made to be doing exactly this.
From this distance, Pete comes across as more creature than man. The whites of his eyes flash in the light of the full moon, eerily bestial. Vegas takes a moment to admire the tightness of his silhouette, body taut, coiled to strike. Just like Vegas, he, too, fits right into these woods.
It takes no more than a shared nod between them before Vegas knows it’s time.
He turns to once again find the man, pressed up against the tree, desperately still trying to catch his breath. Unfortunately for him, they will not be giving him a chance.
Vegas lifts a foot off the ground, angles it just so, and steps back down with purpose, boot managing to find the driest, crunchiest twig on the forest floor.
Snap.
It’s like time slows down.
Vegas watches with delight as the man bodily turns towards the source of the sound. His panicked eyes find Vegas with surprising accuracy — not too bad for a man his age. As realisation clearly dawns on his face, expression distorted with dread, Vegas grins back. All teeth. The blood in his veins thrums.
Half a moment goes by like this, the man terrified, Vegas elated in return.
And then, with increasing speed, time resumes, whooshing right back into place.
All at once, three pairs of legs set right off.
Vegas runs, runs, runs. Two beats of the heart for every step forward. The blade of his knife slashes through the air with every swing of his arms, and the Mini-14 hanging off his shoulder smacks against the muscles of his back as he moves. Shotguns are not their weapon of choice, not by a long shot, but they make for a good contingency plan.
(They haven’t had an actual runner yet — and they are not planning to — but it’s smart to always be prepared. Just in case.)
He allows himself to have fun with it; he gets a bunch of air jumping over obstacles, runs the long way around trees in his path, and drifts over dead leaves with every sharp turn. Vegas can afford it. The man, already injured and exhausted, cannot. The game would be over way too early if Vegas would let himself catch up with him as soon as he could.
Unfortunately, not even five minutes into the chase, time really does seem to be up for the guy.
Vegas slides to a halt as he watches him trip over a log and fall, gracelessly, heavily, onto the cold forest bed. His hands barely come up fast enough to protect his head as he goes over face-first. The sad thing is, he just stays there, seemingly accepting of his fate. Vegas hears a shuddering sob come out of him.
Tsk.
Guess this is it, then. What a let-down.
Okay, to be fair to the guy, they have been at it for the better part of four hours by now, but still. Vegas expected at least a bit more out of this one.
He approaches from behind and plants his feet on either side of his lower body before making a disapproving noise. It’s only a moment before he’s got a hand gripping the man’s hair and the other by his throat, blade biting against flesh.
Vegas pulls him upright, just as Pete joins them, stalking closer from the left. The grimace on his face leaves no room for speculation — he’s disappointed, too.
“Well, that’s a bummer,” Pete sighs, his English perfect. Even with the exaggerated tone, it clearly slips out of his mouth like only a mother tongue would. He lifts a corner of his lips as he comes to stand face-to-face with the man, and the disapproving look he gives him gets Vegas’ stomach all fluttery. It’s almost time. “I explained the rules, didn’t I?”
The man trembles in Vegas’ hold, and his fingers grip Vegas’ forearm, desperate yet ineffective. “P— Please,” he almost whimpers.
Pete doesn’t budge. Shakes his head. “I told you before we started: you can only get caught and released twice. We even gave you a headstart! But a third time?” Pete cranes his neck, tsks. His eyes find Vegas’ own, over the guy’s shoulder, and he exaggerates a shrug. “Was I not clear?”
Accompanied by even more whining and pleading, Vegas grins as he tightens his hand in the man’s hair, pulling to expose more of his neck. “I think you were perfectly clear, babe.”
A pitiful sob comes out of the guy’s mouth as Pete jams his thumb into the stab wound he’s been so protective of. Vegas doesn’t actually get to see it, but the satisfied grin on Pete’s face, the glint in his eye, tells him all he needs to know. “So you know what happens now,” Pete tells the man.
Vegas’ muscles start to strain as the guy becomes more or less dead weight, his knees evidently giving in fear. He thinks he tries to sputter a plea, or maybe an apology, but it doesn’t come out right, the words entirely unintelligible. Truth is, however, neither of them would care even if he’d succeeded.
“Ready?” Pete whispers, eye contact fleeting but heavy.
Vegas’ gut burns with excitement, aching anticipation. He takes a single breath. “Go,” he whispers right back.
As they move in unison, the forest seems to quieten for their benefit.
The only sound that breaks through the sudden silence is that of their hunting knives slicing through flesh. Decisive, practised, almost easy.
In what feels like slow motion, Vegas senses more than sees the way Pete revisits that particular stab wound, low in the man’s abdomen; he goes deep this time, Vegas can tell, and angles just right. As Vegas pulls to cleanly slash through both carotid arteries, Pete mirrors the motion with a horizontal drag across the man’s abdomen.
Dark red glimmers in the night.
The air tastes metallic.
Vegas’ heart beats hard. Fast. Excited.
If the man makes any last sound as he gives up the ghost, Vegas does not hear it. All that reaches his ears under the whoosh of his own blood pumping is Pete’s breath, trembling with exhilaration. It’s all Vegas cares about.
As the now lifeless body in his arms falls to the ground with a dampened thud, Vegas is finally free to focus on the only thing that truly matters.
Under the full moon, the starlit sky seems to extend itself onto Pete’s beautiful face. A blood-spattered chart of constellations spans his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. It even spots the top of his eyelid, dots the soft curve of his brow. Vegas’ lungs ache. He wishes the image would burn in his retinas. Wants to keep it with him forever.
“Doll,” he says, not even attempting to mask the awe in his voice, and he relishes in the way Pete’s eyes, bright, joyfully feral, lock with his own. “I’d kill every last human just to keep seeing you like this,” he confesses.
The smile he’s rewarded with is sweet, dimpled, perfect.
Gloved fingers grip his chin and pull him close. Vegas complies without second thought, stepping over the body between them to meet Pete’s lips, twist a hand into the hem of his shirt as he kisses his blood-stained cupid’s bow and licks into his mouth. Welcoming. Hot.
Soon enough, they’ll have to focus back on their mission. They’ll dig into the man’s jacket to fish for his wallet. They’ll make sure everything is as it should be before they get back into the Chevy and start the long drive back home.
Tomorrow, they’ll double-check that the asshole’s ID card is accompanied by all the right clippings before they seal the envelope. They’ll be satisfied to know that the authorities are properly informed about all the crimes he’d gotten away with.
Sometime next week, they’ll crack open the newspaper to find yet another article about their handiwork being discovered. They’ll listen to yet another radio host argue that they have once again done a better job punishing criminals than the actual police.
And then they’ll do it again. And again.
And again.
But for now, Vegas is simply going to keep attempting to satiate an unquenchable thirst, even though he’s well aware he’ll fail. He’s going to keep kissing Pete, for as long as he can afford to.
He’s going to drop his knife, and he’s going to smudge the side of Pete’s neck with blood.
He’s going to selfishly devour every wild heartbeat right off of Pete’s tongue.
Even as everything falls silent. Even as the world around them dims to total black.
Even as Vegas himself blinks out of existence.
+
Vegas can’t help but smile to himself as he follows the sound of their voices.
He turns the corner to the hallway that connects their bedrooms, and does his absolute best to approach as silently as he possibly can.
“Very good!” Pete’s voice reaches him clearly as Vegas comes to stop just a few steps shy of Venice’s door. From where he’s standing, he can see how everything has been tidied up and moved out of the way to accommodate the makeshift art station in the middle of the room.
Pete and Venice are seated on a large mat, facing each other, a slightly smaller sheet of paper between them. Scattered along the edges of the sheet are various containers of paint and painting utensils — well, Vegas can see all the differently sized brushes, at least, but he’s not quite sure what that plastic spoon and sponge are doing there.
“Which colour do you want to use next?” Pete asks Venice, grin radiant. Vegas leans back against the wall behind him, puts his hands in his pockets. Despite the long day and against the mounting exhaustion that had made a home on his shoulders, Vegas feels all tension melt away. “Oh, red?”
“Red!” Venice parrots, nodding his head with excitement. He’s growing so fast, Vegas thinks, almost scarily fast.
“Okay!”
The sound of a plastic lid coming off accompanies some more gentle instructions.
“You know what else you can do? Look. Like this,” Pete says. With his view obstructed, Vegas can only hear the soft sound of paint being flicked upon paper. Venice giggles, evidently delighted by the action. Vegas watches as the grin on Pete’s face brightens up even more. “See? Fun, right? You can try it out! Like this,” he encourages, and repeats whatever motion made that sound.
Venice emits a thoughtful hum as he leans in towards the space in front of him, clearly focused on replicating the technique Pete just showed him, and Vegas’ heart beats with adoration at the sight of Pete’s eyes closely following every single move. Venice straightens back up and looks up at Pete. Vegas can’t see his face, can’t be sure what expression he’s making, but the way he cranes his neck makes him squint with curiosity; Vegas knows that tilt of the head. Knows to expect trouble. Venice is their son, after all.
“Like this,” Venice says, using Pete’s own words, and doesn’t leave Vegas wondering for much longer.
Three things happen all at once: paint goes flying, bright red droplets zipping through the air between them. Pete’s reflexes kick in with impressive speed, but, even as he leans back and out of the way, he cannot seem to avoid catching the thinnest bit of spatter, paint hitting him right in the face. Venice shoots up from his spot so fast he very nearly falls, and the overjoyed cackle that leaves him fills the space entirely.
Vegas’ cheeks hurt as he tries to remain silent, watching the scene unfold. For a second, they’re both almost entirely still. Pete, staring at Venice, hands up in surprise. Venice, staring right back at Pete, entire body shaking with mirth, the joy of having done something naughty on purpose.
The moment snaps when Pete’s body visibly coils up, telegraphing retaliation even as he’s grinning from ear to ear.
“Why, you—!”
Venice is spurred into action, turning in place and immediately breaking into a run, giggle-yelling “no, no, no, no!”
Vegas plasters himself against the wall next to the door just in time not to be detected, and only has to wait a second before the sound of small feet hitting the floor tells him the time is right.
The shriek Venice emits when Vegas dramatically sidesteps, cutting him off with a grin, must echo throughout the entire city, Vegas thinks.
He sweeps Venice up right away, arms tight around him as he twirls him in place just to make him squeal. “I saw that!” he says in that exaggerated gremlin voice that always gets a laugh out of Venice, “I saw you being naughty!”
Venice squirms, hides his face in Vegas’ neck as he simply giggles, his little body trembling, mischief-high. Vegas hugs him even tighter, and switches to gently swaying left and right, silently encouraging Venice to relax. He loves seeing him like this, but a wound-up Venice can be quite a dangerous little thing, this close to bedtime.
“We’re raising a troublemaker,” he says around the undefeatable grin that takes over his face at the sight of Pete’s paint-decorated dimples.
Pete’s eyes move from Venice to Vegas, soft, warm, warmer. “Who could have seen that coming?” he deadpans. His hand comes to gently caress Venice’s back, partially overlapping Vegas’ fingers. The skin contant, however simple, wakes the butterflies in Vegas’ stomach up.
“That’s a good colour on you,” he says, and if it comes out breathier than he intended, considering the circumstances, he hopes it doesn’t surprise Pete. The way his body reacts to Pete, always, has not changed, years into this. It never will.
Venice mumbles something unintelligible into Vegas’ neck.
“What’s that, bud?” Vegas prompts, and he draws back just enough to establish eye contact, encourage Venice to speak clearly.
“Red,” Venice repeats, smile bright but thankfully more tame than before. He twists just a little in Vegas’ hold, and sends an almost-shy grin Pete’s way. Squirming a little under Pete’s mock-austere gaze, he turns back to find some understanding in Vegas. “Dad’s pretty,” he says, and points at his handiwork on Pete’s face, as if that’ll exonerate him.
Maybe it will.
Merely following Venice’s reasoning, Vegas allows himself a moment to just look.
The bright red freckles on Pete’s face look like stars. They dust the curve of his nose and adorn the tops of his cheekbones. When he lifts a faux-exasperated eyebrow at Vegas, the spot on his brow bone rises along with it.
Last night—
Last night, in his dream, the spots looked almost black in the light of the moon.
A shiver runs down Vegas’ spine.
Pete isn’t just pretty, he wants to say, he’s beautiful. He’s purity and brutality, blood and stardust. He’s my entire world.
Vegas clears his throat. “Yeah,” he manages to say, “yeah, he really is.”
The tiniest expression flickers on Pete’s features, there and gone before it can be processed. Vegas cannot be sure what Pete saw on face or heard in his voice, but is thankful either way when it turns out that it earns him yet another smile.
A gentle thumb on his chin. Pulling him close.
A simple kiss. Venice giggling between them.
A breathtaking flutter of the heart. The feeling of being loved. The feeling of loving back, wildly, too much.
—
Vegas wakes up into a dream that feels less like a dream and more like a memory that never was.
The very first thing he registers, and the factor that distantly alerts him to things being different this time, is the scent that reaches his nostrils. He knows this scent. His body recognises it. In turn, his consciousness recognises this body as his very own. It’s younger, perhaps, but it’s his.
In the span of time it takes for a neuron to fire, Vegas realises that living in this skin feels entirely different, mind-bendingly more real, than all the other times—
The revelation evaporates.
Vegas half-heartedly tries to revisit it, remember what he was thinking about, but his interest slips as he finds himself walking through a house he doesn’t know but can navigate by heart. This scent, he hasn’t smelled it in so many years, but his heart swells for it. It calls him home.
So he follows it all the way to the source, until everything clicks, until the scent is identified as his favourite meal, prepared the way only one person ever knew how to. Until his feet bring him into their modest but cosy kitchen, and his presence makes the woman in front of the stove turn to look at him.
The corners of his mom’s eyes crinkle with the bright smile that takes over her face. “Good morning, sleepyhead!” she says, voice so sweet and dear it makes his throat tighten and his eyes well up. (It doesn’t really make sense — he knows he sees her every day.) “Or should I say good afternoon?” she teases, pointedly eyeing the clock on the wall next to where he’s standing. 12:34. Oops.
Vegas lowers his head, scratches the nape of his neck. “Might have stayed up a little late last night…”
She smiles as she takes the couple of steps needed to stand in front of him. Her hand reaches for the top of his head and smooths what surely is a mess of a bedhead, gentle fingers running through his hair. “Yes, I figured.”
It’s always been like this, with his mom. He could never hide from her; she knows him better than anyone, faults and all, and yet he’s never had reason to conceal anything. There’s always an undercurrent of tenderness to her call-outs, if you can even call them that.
It’s always been like this.
And even more so in the past years. After.
Anyway.
“Why don’t you go wash your face and get dressed?” she says, focusing his attention back to reality. “I want you to go grab some mangoes. I forgot to get some when I went out earlier.”
“Sure,” he says around a yawn, and she pats his arm with a smile before returning to the bubbling pot on the stove-top.
She stops him right as he groggily makes to leave, eyebrow teasingly lifted. “See if you can pry your brother away from his console too,” she says over her shoulder, “he’s been yelling at it all morning. A walk would do him some good, hm?”
Vegas chuckles and hums in agreement before turning to exit the kitchen. His bare foot lifts off the linoleum floor, and when it lands, his sneaker slaps against rain-damp concrete.
The market isn’t exactly buzzing with activity, but enough locals are out and about to make it feel relatively lively. Vegas catches bits and pieces of chitchat, and even exchanges some hellos of his own as they walk.
They’re three stalls away from the fruit vendor when he’s brought to a sudden halt.
“Pete’s here to stay with us for the summer,” he hears, and he surprises even himself with how fast he turns to look over. Jui looks like she’s beaming with pride as she squeezes Pete’s arm.
Pete.
Vegas’ heart starts beating double time.
“Oh, how lovely,” the customer says, “is your daughter visiting as well?”
Jui shakes her head before she resumes bagging up the woman’s order. “No, she’s only coming at the end of the summer to take him back to the city,” she says as she hands the goods over and reaches out to accept the payment. “Pete is starting university, you see.”
The woman opens her mouth to respond, but Vegas couldn’t tell you what it is that she ends up saying. The moment he realises Pete’s eyes are on him, it’s like the world goes mute. Nothing else could dare exist when Pete’s attention is focused on Vegas. The mere concept feels like sacrilege.
For half a second, Vegas grasps onto the tail-end of a fleeting, suppressed thought; this really is Pete. Vegas wonders if Pete feels the way he does. If Pete woke up feeling real in this skin, just as he did. If the language in his mouth feels as profoundly familiar as it does to him. Compared to—
“Vegas! Come, come! Have you met Pete?” Jui’s voice somehow manages to break through the brief spell he put himself under, and Vegas instantly finds that he cannot remember what he was thinking of just now.
Still, he walks over without resistance. Eyes still on Pete. Pete’s own still on him. “I haven’t.” Except he has. It’s like he’s never not known him. Down to the atom.
His throat feels really, really dry all of a sudden.
“He’s my grandson,” Jui supplies, and it’s like her words have to travel a village over to reach his ears. The only input his brain seems to seek is the sound of Pete’s voice, the sight of him standing right across from him. Beautiful, so beautiful. “Vegas is a good boy, he should show you around!” she tells Pete, and that definitely is an idea that deserves the effort of unsticking his tongue off the roof of his mouth to address.
“I could do that!” he says, realising just how intense and hurried he sounded only after closing his mouth. Somewhere off to the side, the familiar sound of Macau’s snort. He clears his throat. “If Pete wants. That is.”
He watches as Pete swallows, and wonders if he’s having just as hard a time as he is. If it also seems to him that this moment is passing in slow motion. If all he, too, wants to do is reach over and kiss him like his whole life has been leading up to that.
“I do,” Pete says. “You should. Show me around, I mean.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
Vegas realises he’s been smiling for an indeterminate amount of time when a bony elbow digs into his side, painful enough to snap him out of it and actually make him feel the burning ache in his cheeks.
When he breaks eye contact for what feels like the first time in hours to send a dirty glare Macau’s way, he’s startled to see Jui watching him closely, something bordering on dangerous in her eye.
“Pete helped me make khanom chan this morning! It came out really good, you should have some,” she smiles one of her friendly smiles, but Vegas can’t find it in him to trust it, for some reason. “Right, Pete?”
Vegas turns back to him to see Pete nodding.
And, okay, if Pete wants him to buy some, Vegas will. Anything, really, as long as Pete says so.
“But, ah, we just sold our last slice!” Jui says, and Vegas would probably be paying more attention to just how exaggerated her tone is, if he could take his eyes and attention off of the soft flush on Pete’s face. “Now that he’s learned, though, I’m sure Pete can make some more for you! Maybe even tonight. Vegas should come over later, right?”
Vegas, entranced, watches the tender skin of Pete’s cheeks dip into twin dimples. His blush grows deeper. Vegas wants to touch his lips to it, see if it runs as hot as it looks.
“He— You should come over, Vegas.”
His lips look so soft.
Vegas has, for the most part, frankly lost the thread of conversation, but finds himself agreeing all the same. “Sure, I’d like that.” Anything.
Pete smiles at him, sweet.
Vegas blinks, and feels an incredible amount of loss when he opens his eyes to find himself on the opposite side of the market, three stalls over. The vendor in front of him is weighing a bag of mangoes.
Oh, right.
“I wouldn’t get too attached to City Boy, bro,” Macau says quietly enough to only be heard by Vegas. “You know he’s not sticking around.”
Vegas lowers his eyes. Something in his chest tightens. He understands Macau’s reasoning, recognises that it comes from a place of caring, but that’s not a truth he wants to hear right now. Not one he wants to accept.
When he chances a turn of his head and a look to the side, he finds Pete looking right back at him.
His breath stills in his lungs.
In this moment, a single truth hits him like a lighting strike, zips down his spine and etches itself into his bones: he would do anything to be with him.
Almost like an afterthought, he realises with a small amount of shame, he thinks about the home-cooked meal waiting for him. The softly wrinkled smiles he gets to enjoy, despite everything that’s happened, finally safe.
Even so.
The fact — because that is what it is, an unshakable, fundamental fact — remains.
Vegas would sacrifice it all, anything, everything, to be with him.
The world around him blinks out of existence, there one second, gone the next.
For a moment, only he and Pete remain. Eyes (still, still, hopefully forevermore) on each other.
Vegas finds he’s okay with that. Prays the same applies to Pete.
Maybe he’ll find out when he wakes up.
+
Vegas starts anticipating Macau’s reaction the moment he hears the distinct sound of his footsteps coming down the hall.
He saves and closes the Excel file he’s been working on right when Macau shows up. The expression he makes as he pauses in the doorway is worth the wait. Vegas smiles at the way his face pinches in confusion, eyebrows drawn together. His nostrils flare with every exaggerated inhalation.
“Is that—?”
Vegas huffs, amused. Happy. He nods.
He watches as Macau’s frown only grows deeper the moment before he’s set into motion again, fully entering the dining room and moving right towards the adjoining kitchen. He disappears behind the decorative divider, but Vegas doesn’t need visual to recognise the sound of the pot lid being lifted. The dramatic sniffs that follow.
He locks his laptop and gets up to join Macau in the kitchen.
The face that turns to look at him, neck straining with his comically deep hunch over the stove, looks awed.
“How’d you do that?” he asks, and Vegas puts all effort into restraining his reaction right now; he hasn’t seen Macau this pleased, this flustered, in years. He looks so young. Vegas would hate to scare this expression off his features. “It smells the exact same!”
Vegas leans against the counter behind him, loosely crosses his arms to hide his fidgety hands inside the crooks of his elbows. “I dug out one of mom’s recipe notebooks,” he says. Doesn’t disclose the fact that they never were buried in the first place. “Hadn’t cooked in a while, so. Thought it’d be fun.”
That’s a pretty plain, casual way to explain this, right?
Macau replaces the lid and sways in place a little, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The grin on his face is a wonderful, rare thing to behold. It’s not that he’s unhappy, not any more, but there’s a child-like feel to this brand of joy he’s displaying that Vegas hasn’t seen in a long time. Macau is his brother, always, but this, right here? This is his baby brother.
Macau would spontaneously combust to hear any of this.
“Thanks,” Macau says in the end, seemingly able to tame his grin into a smile. It’s simple, short, but Vegas gets what he means to say all the same.
“Thank me after you’ve tasted it, just to be sure.”
When Macau laughs, gently clapping his hand against Vegas’ stomach as he walks by, Vegas knows he got what he meant to say, in return.
“Hey,” he calls out to Macau right as he’s about to leave the kitchen.
He halts midstep, turns an inquiring eyebrow at him.
“Do you remember mom’s theory—” Vegas pauses. Catches himself. Rephrases. “Do you remember the stories mom used to tell us about dreams and soulm—”
Pandemonium takes the form of a criminally tiny human, manifesting in a combination of increasingly louder thundering footsteps and the single loudest mantra of “gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!” that Vegas has ever heard.
He turns to follow the commotion through the walls, relying on sound alone. Never hard to do, when it comes to Venice.
“Gotta go potty!” he yells, seemingly for dramatics, drawing out the last word as his voice trails down the other side of the floor.
“I can’t be sure, but I think he might want to go to the bathroom,” Macau deadpans, delivery so incredibly dry it drags an unexpectedly loud laugh out of Vegas.
“Should have been in the car with us,” Pete’s voice approaches from the dining room, and Macau steps aside with a smile, allowing him to pass through to the kitchen. “That forty-minute traffic jam would have cleared all doubt from your mind,” he tells Macau, tone cloyingly sweet. Dimples frame his sardonic smile, and Vegas can’t help but lean in to deposit a kiss on one of them the moment Pete is within reach.
Pete’s hand brushes against his waist, and he turns his head to catch Vegas’ lips in a quick peck right before he draws back.
Vegas feels his cheeks heat up like he’s thirteen and facing his crush.
“It smells incredible, by the way,” Pete says, “you’ve got the guards outside scenting the air like possessed men,” he chuckles. Vegas smiles at that, always too eager for Pete’s praise. He’s about to say something undoubtedly embarrassing in thanks, but Macau cuts him off.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing at the plastic bag Pete just left on the kitchen table.
“We brought dessert,” he says, and just as Macau, sweet tooth extraordinaire, makes to open it up, he pauses right where he stands, prompted by the index finger Pete casually extends. Simple, but prohibitive.
The gesture is meant for Macau, but Pete’s eyes are on no one but Vegas.
“Make a guess, first.”
Vegas’ heart does something funny inside his ribcage.
Off to the side, he thinks he hears Macau speak. He couldn’t be sure.
Instead, all he can focus on is the slant of Pete’s lips. The tilt of his head, the sparkle in his eye. It’s possible he’s merely being playful, but Vegas is sure he’s developed an entire new sense over the years, strictly dedicated to discerning just how far into danger he is when it comes to Pete. Alarm bells start ringing in earnest when Pete’s hand curls into the hem of Vegas’ shirt.
“Just guess,” he says, suddenly too close.
Vegas feels hot all over.
Only one thing comes to mind. Were he any less flustered, he’d try to play it off as lightly as possible, as if he truly was simply making a guess. But he’s not. And Pete doesn’t really want him to.
The words come out of his mouth almost on their own, breathier than they should be. “Is it khanom chan?”
Pete’s answering smile makes it hard to breathe, for a moment.
In the background, a rustling sound. Plastic crinkling. “How’d you know?” Macau asks, clearly surprised.
Vegas wouldn’t know how to answer that without sounding insane.
The hand clutching his shirt pulls tighter, and another set of fingers curls around his nape, tugging him close. Vegas, as always, goes.
His palms settle on the small of Pete’s back, and when Pete kisses his bottom lip, Vegas kisses his in return. There’s so much he wants to say, too many questions to ask, but he wouldn’t even know where to begin. As they draw back to look at one another, Vegas gets the distinct sense that they’re on the same page.
It feels familiar. It feels right.
Like he was put on this earth to see — and be seen by — Pete. Down to the marrow.
Pete seizes his mouth in a kiss that has Vegas’ head spinning. He does his best to pay back in kind, and is all too greedy to lap up the moan he’s rewarded with.
The tension is broken by the loudest and most drawn-out call for "dad!" there surely ever has been, as Venice, all the way down the hall, shouts for help at the top of his lungs.
Vegas feels Pete's body subtly shake with amusement, and mirrors it right back at him.
In a second, he'll let him go. He'll regain enough degrees of peripheral vision to realise Macau must have left at some point, presumably for the sake of his sanity.
For the moment, however, he holds him tighter only to be drawn further in, in return. He steals the grin Pete presses into the kiss, and gives him one of his own right back.
A positive feedback loop he doesn’t ever want to break out of.
Vegas would sacrifice everything. Is almost certain the same applies to Pete.
His heart beats, content.
—
This is not a dream.
No mere dream can possibly hurt this way, Vegas thinks, as if molten metal is exploding into his flesh, as if he’s being stabbed by fire.
He would think it’s impossible for pain like this to exist, so total, so all-encompassing, except he’s experienced it before. Knows it all too intimately. Recognises it for what it is in an instant.
This is not a dream, it’s a repressed memory retold.
Vegas stands suspended in time, unbearable heat tearing him apart from the inside, taking the scene in front of him in, as if he’s watching over someone else’s shoulder.
This is it, he realises. This is how it ends. Hand over his abdomen as if it’s going to stop the blood from leaving his body. Resurrected hope withering away inside his chest, budding one moment, dead the next. Attention on none other than Pete, covered in blood and sweat, his face lit in shades of red and blue.
Pete was smiling, half a second ago. It breaks Vegas’ heart to watch the lines of his mouth fall flat, the edges of his eyes curving in shock, pure horror.
It’s ironic; for a few days now all he’s been thinking about is how, if he could have say at all, he’d want the last thing he sees to be Pete. Here he is now, wish granted, only for it to be distorted into this nightmare. The last thing Vegas gets to see is Pete’s anguish.
It is what it is, he supposes.
The entire world sways sideways and, from his point of view just off the side of his own ear, Vegas watches as his body falls victim to gravity, too weak to fight it. His knees give out, and he hits the ground to the sound of Pete’s guttural yell, his gun firing one, two, three times in a row.
By the time he’s well and truly down, he’s surprised to realise just how numb he is. He can’t really feel where he’s been shot, any more.
It’s like most of his sensory processes have been relegated to the background. All he can truly focus on is the heart-wrenching sound of Pete’s wails. The way his hands desperately cling onto him, the seams of Vegas’ suit popping under pressure. The heat of his body, pressing in close. The weight of his head on Vegas’ chest, as if hoping against hope that he’ll find his heart beating.
His eyelids have long since slipped shut, and yet he can still see the gentle play of blue-tinted light, the eerie calm of the pool.
He’s having trouble grasping onto what remains of his thoughts, and yet he can still hear himself think, “don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.”
Vegas would laugh, if he had any control over his body. It figures. Even his inner voice sounds like Pete’s. He’s lucky to be hearing it now, at the very end.
With his last breath, the very last thing in his mind is that he hopes Pete knows he’s sorry. That he loves him. Loved him. More than he ever thought he was capable of loving anyone.
The lights go out.
Quiet falls like a heavy blanket.
Everything he ever was, is, will ever be, stays suspended in the vast darkness of time and space.
Everything feels like nothing, with the sole exception of the deep-seated knowledge that he should be somewhere other than here. The sentiment sits right between his lungs, solid, undeniable. It pulses and pulls.
He knows what direction it’s calling into, but he cannot find his way there. If only he could— If only there could be some sort of guide—
A scream-hoarse voice slashes through the suffocating silence like a knife tearing through fabric.
“Don’t you dare leave me!”
He never was good at disobeying orders.
The pressure in his solar plexus grows impossibly heavier. The weight of its seemingly magnetic pull takes over his entire existence, until he becomes it. With great effort to not shake apart in the enormity of it, he yields.
A terrible snap that makes the universe vibrate tugs him throughout the cosmos, until everything cracks into place all at once. In its aftermath, a heartbeat, steady, strong, condemns his own to follow its rhythm. Vegas feels it comply even as he knows it has no choice, and listens carefully as, surely enough, the sound amplifies. Two as one, nearly indistinguishable from one another.
Fingers hold onto him tight, bruisingly hard, as Vegas’ rattling lungs abruptly replenish themselves with air, burning with it.
Pete exhales like it hurts him to do so, his breathing laboured, and his body goes slack over Vegas’ own. He buries his face in the crook of Vegas’ neck and, in turn, Vegas uses every last bit of energy to raise an arm, curling his hand around the base of Pete’s skull.
He feels Pete tremble in relief.
Knowing it’s the least he can do in thanks, Vegas breathes.
+
It’s still dark out when Vegas first wakes up.
There’s a wet patch on the front of his t-shirt, right where Pete’s face is resting. Vegas tightens his arm around him, pulls him further into the curve of his body. He can feel the shivers that are running down his spine.
“I’m right here,” he whispers, unsure if he can hear him. “I’m fine, we’re fine,” he reassures him.
He holds him until the shared body heat dries his shirt. Until Pete stops shaking.
Sometime right after the sun starts to rise, Vegas falls back asleep.
+
The next time he opens his eyes, a groggy glance at the nightstand informs him it’s well past noon.
He’s content to lie in quiet for a little while, despite being certain Pete can tell he’s awake. Vegas does not interrupt him, lets the almost meditational back-and-forth of his touch lull both of them into calmness. He simply holds him as Pete traces every scar, one after the other, the pads of his fingers gently brushing against them in small circular motions.
Worry stones.
Reminders of a moment in time years ago.
Proof that Vegas is still here, because Pete wouldn’t let him go.
He can’t be certain how long they spend in this state, touching and being touched, breathing in tandem, before the words come to him, unbidden.
“Don’t worry,” he says, trying his best to keep his tone light, “there’s no lifetime or parallel universe in which you can just get rid of me like that.” The joke falls flat, he thinks, the statement revealing itself to be more of an attempt at comforting them both.
Pete’s hands still. Vegas watches the top of his head for a few seconds, until Pete finally cranes his neck, turning his face towards him. For a while, they just look at one another. He waits and waits until Pete lifts his cheek off Vegas’ chest, and straightens his head to meet his eyes dead-on.
His palm presses into Vegas’ abdomen, hard enough for emphasis but not enough to hurt. “Good.”
Tone serious. Heavy. A threatening edge to it.
Vegas feels love so immense he could choke on it.
The mattress dips under Pete’s weight as he detaches from Vegas’ side and rearranges himself so he’s caging Vegas against the bed, hands on either side of his head, knees bracketing his hips. His eyes look so, so incredibly dark as he hovers right above him.
When Pete’s lips part, Vegas finds himself entirely unprepared. “You belong to me, Vegas Theerapanyakun. Body and soul. Do you understand?”
Vegas can’t form words. Vegas can hardly breathe. So he just nods instead.
Pete nods back, solemn. “You’re not going anywhere,” he says, unclear if it’s directed at Vegas or more for himself to hear, but the way he says it makes Vegas fight to swallow around all the feeling stuck in his throat.
He feels the need to confirm it. “I’m not,” he manages to whisper, and is relieved to have done so, when it turns out it earns him that look, Pete’s eyes intense, still red around the edges, right before he leans down to kiss him.
Vegas reaches up for him, cradles his jaw, touches everywhere he can, just because he can, and prays this kiss lasts forever.
He pulls Pete to him, in the end, chest to chest, arms locked around him. He wants to be close to him, as close as it is physically possible for two humans to be. And then some.
He wants his ribcage pressed so tightly against his own that Pete can feel Vegas’ heart thump.
It beats for him, him alone.
Because of him.
His soulmate.