Archive of Our Own ^beta

There is a lion in my living room. I feed it raw meat
so it does not hurt me. It is a strange thing
to nourish what could kill you
in the hopes it does not kill you.
We have lived like this, it and I, for so many years.
Sometimes it feels like we have always lived like this.
Sometimes I think I have always been like this.

― Clementine von Radics, The Lion

 

 

---

The first time Vegas made a man scream, it’d been with the hilt of his father’s letter opener. The man had been his English tutor, one of those university students who’d just returned from studying abroad. Gun had always been partial to the quick flatness of a New York snarl, and so the man had been hired almost as soon as he opened his mouth. 

Vegas saw him three times a week. At the beginning, it had been innocent, though Vegas doesn’t really like thinking of the word. What he means is that it had started off harmlessly enough. A few looks here, some lingering touches there. And then they’d gotten to a unit on slang (‘what’s French kissing?’ ‘I’ll show you’) and after that Vegas found that he didn’t really care about learning the past participle or the future perfect. The sounds the man made—the sounds he could make with the man—were lessons enough. 

It ended, though, with the letter opener. Later, Macau would say that Gun had returned early, that his fingers had been stained the color of Japanese maple, that he’d worn the look that said, don’t come near me . Except Gun had chosen to burst into Vegas’ bedroom—he had chosen to open the door—he had continued to watch as Vegas rutted against soft denim. It was he who pulled them apart, then thrust the letter opener into Vegas’ hand, and said—

—What did he say? 

This, too, Vegas doesn’t remember. But he knows that it’d been spring, or maybe summer, because of the way sunshine had veiled the man golden just moments beforehand—the way the man had glistened afterwards. 

His father had made him do it. His father had pulled out a gun and pointed it at the man’s temple, had clenched Vegas’ fist around the blade, had watched as Vegas’ head and heart lines tore into each other, had smiled as the man rode the hilt and the fist ( had Vegas shrieked in English or in Thai ? did he cry ?). He’d stayed as Vegas felt the insides of a man for the first time, and he’d watched as Vegas thought, no and then art and then mine and then no . 

And when the man stopped crying—when the man slid, dazed and wordless to the floor, his sweat ringed around Vegas’ arm, the smell of it so stale and so cold and so rank—Gun put a bullet in the man’s head on an inhale and slapped Vegas’ face on the exhale. 

Eight years later, he’d slap Vegas with the same hand in the same way: signet ring turned inwards. 

Do you remember? That’s what the slap said. It said: Look how it’s a sunny day. Look how perfect the world is. Look how you’re a mistake, a smudge, a worm that I made whose toys I can take away. You can’t keep anything alive. Look at you; look at how I can do this to you. I can do this to you again and again and again. 

Vegas shifts. That was then , he tells himself, this is now . The now: his father is dead. The now: Pete’s head in his lap. The now: Vegas unclenching his hands, blooming them out and pressing them into the sheets. 

Pull yourself together . 

He tries to breathe, to center himself. He’s in the hospital. Another day in a parade of days that are supposed to get better. Pete’s breath is warm, puffing out gently through the thin hospital gown. They’re—they’re together. It’s an impossible thing, he knows. It’s an impossibly good thing, and yet—

Vegas looks down at his hands. Hurt him , his fingers say. Do it while Macau isn’t here. You’ve already exchanged the poetry, the pretty words. So do it now. You can make him cry so prettily. Isn’t that how you’ve always shown love best? Isn’t that the only thing you’re good for? Do it—

The head on his lap shifts. The breath along his hip skitters, then disappears as Pete turns and looks up. His eyes are black—blacker than black—and he smiles. 

“Good morning, Vegas.” 

Vegas swallows.

###

Recovery sucks. It’s easier to take a man apart than to put him back together, Vegas thinks. Breathing is tricky: if he inhales too quickly, he ends up gasping from the pain lancing up and around his lungs. Too slow, and he grows dizzy, the tips of his fingers turning blue. 

The first week, he orders a nurse to clean him—to wipe the stink of sweat from his body. He hates it—he’s always hated the smell of sweat, always hated the way it reminds him of that afternoon, that afternoon with his father, the terror, the entire arc of it. The moment he smells himself, he buzzes for the nurse. Macau already knows to leave, but Pete, of course, fights to stay. 

“I can hold your hand,” he says, twining his fingers with Vegas’. The touch burns, brand-like, not because of the ardor or the care behind it, but because Pete moves as if the gesture were easy—as if it’s nothing to him to touch Vegas like this. If Vegas weren’t—if he weren’t so weak —he’d shake it off. 

But he is weak, so he only grits his teeth together. He sets his jaw. 

“No.” He glares, pulling his hand away. He shuts his eyes, shoving aside the part of him that knows what he’s doing. He’s hurting Pete, isn’t he? But then again, that should be par for the course. He feels gross, he feels disgusting—he is disgusting, like this. Fucked up, defeated, fatherless. Part of him wants to scream and the other part just wants to wither, for this to be over. What’s the point , he wants to say, but he knows how Pete will snap back—something to the tune of, you have me , or I need you, or you’re enough . 

And what if that isn’t enough? 

The question nips at Vegas’ tongue, sour along his gums. He licks his lips, blinking up at the ceiling. “Leave,” he says again. His lungs hurt; he’s breathing too quickly —too unevenly. He knows because the nurse at his side is throwing him a worried glance. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the screen of one of the machines. His vitals spike, knife-like.

He feels sick.  

How the mighty have fallen. 

“Please,” he whispers, just as Pete says the same thing. But Pete must see something in his face—in the way he stares at the ceiling tiles, maybe—or the shiver that he tries to hide, the way that keeping it in elicits another wince. 

He doesn’t watch as Pete shuts the door quietly behind him. He tries not to feel anything as the nurse—a kind woman with a soft face—swipes away the smell and the sweat with a hot towel. She’s quick, efficient. When she cleans between his legs he tries to scowl, afraid that she’ll ( what is he so afraid of?) — he’s afraid, but her mouth is pursed in a matronly sort of way and she smells like a perfume he knows he’s smelled before, a mother’s maybe, someone’s long ago—and so instead of scowling he gives up. 

He gives up, and he finds that he doesn’t feel anything at all. 

###

The second week, Pete tries a different tack. By now Vegas has been cleared to stand and walk, though he remains within the hospital suite. 

“There’s a garden,” Pete says, pointing out the window, “on the sixth floor below. It’s one of those rooftop ones. Maybe they’ll have a carp pond.” He smiles, finding his way back to the bed. “We can check it out if you want. Did I ever tell you about the time Tankkhun made Porsche dress up as a mermaid?” 

Vegas tries to smile. Porsche. He still hasn’t sorted out his feelings yet—another thing he’s tried to forget. The emptiness in the back of his throat lurches. Is it the loss of his father or the loss of his standing within the families? You wannabe heir, he imagines his father saying. Another fucking disappointment . 

Pete prattles on with a story about dead carp, about Tankhun’s outrage and Porsche in a seashell bikini. Vegas doesn’t care but he lets Pete tell the story anyways. There’s a voice in his head and it’s a rattling tinny one. It rings in his ears. I don’t deserve this. I’ve done nothing to deserve this, I’m a fucking nothing and he’s wasting his time with me here and I don’t fucking deserve this . 

A nudge. 

“ —it’s time for your shower,” Pete is saying. He’s pulled the sheets away and he’s gently tugging on Vegas’ wrist as if to shoulder him towards the bathroom. 

Vegas flinches. “No.” He scrabbles for the topsheet and reaches for the buzzer. The nurse , he’s thinking. Would rather call for a nurse. He may be a nothing, but at least he can use up the family money—he can at least have the family pay for a strange woman to make him clean again—but Pete is faster, and he presses Vegas down by the shoulder and deftly tosses the buzzer away. It clatters—a loud, jarring noise—in the corner of the room. 

“The fuck—” 

“Look at me,” Pete says. He sounds angry. He’s clasped both of his hands in Vegas’ but when Vegas turns his head away he reaches up. “Can’t you look at me?” 

Vegas could shake him off. He’s done it several times over the week already 

Do I deserve this? the tinny voice says. I’ve done nothing to deserve this. I have nothing to give. 

He knows it’s true. He doesn’t deserve this. But when has he ever deserved anything? He wants Pete to continue talking; he wants to enjoy the feeling of Pete’s hand in his, how it isn’t ribbon-slick with blood. How it’s simple, soft, callused. It could be so easy to sink into this—to defang himself. Present himself as a good doting man, divorced from his family. A man who has another man, who has another man’s love not because of the sex or the drugs or his father or his family. 

“Vegas!” The hand on his chin wrenches his face forward, and all at once Pete’s breath is all he knows. Their noses are touching. If Vegas tilts his head sideways—if he opens his mouth just a little—

They really could kiss, like this. 

But does he want it? 

He blinks. Feels a tightening in his gut. 

“Vegas,” Pete says again. His voice is stern now. Steel-backed. “You can shower, but either I’ll help you or no one will.” His grip on Vegas’ chin loosens, but all the same the words hit Vegas like a bat. 

Or a boot , a mad part of him thinks. 

He inhales, just to buy himself time, before his mouth begins to run. 

“You like this, don’t you? What’s going to be next? Gonna feed me—is that it? Just a little experiment, see how low I can go, see how much of a—” 

The slap across his face feels almost delicate. Sparkling. It makes the dirty thing inside Vegas leap up, and all at once he thinks of Pete strung up and shivering, and it makes him grin—it makes his face break into a grin even as his stomach shrinks and his lungs pound. No , Vegas thinks, stop-stop-stop . 

But he can’t stop. “So you do like seeing me weak like this,” he says, ignoring the unease hurtling through his chest. There’s something wrong with him; there must be something wrong with him. Only a few weeks ago,  their situations had been reversed. It’d been Pete crying—Pete chained up. His body open and wounded and waiting, just like that first man. 

Vegas sucks in a wet breath. “What’s it to you to chain yourself to a nobody?” He switches to English so that the sentiment comes out uglier. “Just a fucking drag —”

The next slap doesn’t come. Instead Pete reaches up and slams their mouths together. The kiss is a bruising thing—more teeth than tongue, more gum than lip, more fury than anything else. 

Restrain yourself , Vegas thinks, but when he swallows down the fear—when he swallows down the ugly shame crawling in his gut—he finds a yawning unfurling want instead. 

He moans. 

“Are you done?” Pete murmurs. With his free hand he reaches up and prods at—

Vegas winces but this time he doesn’t pull away. He leans into the hurt, biting down on his lip. 

“I made this,” Pete says. His voice is soft in the low punched-out way that people are when they’re dying. He sounds like that: his breathing, his blinking. Vegas makes a keening noise—feels the sound scrape itself off his throat and into the air as Pete presses again on the place where he’d grazed Vegas’ arm. This close, his face is unreadable even though he smiles. 

“You can heal from the other injuries,” Pete says, “but this one—” 

“ — this one is special,” Vegas whispers. He hangs his head, feeling a flush high in his cheeks. “I’m—I’m—.” He looks at his hands, curling them into fists and then pressing them into the mattress. He shudders. 

He feels flayed, maybe. He thinks he could flay Pete, wants Pete to be ruined, wants to cover himself in the ruining. 

“Vegas…” 

A warning tone. 

Vegas swallows. Collects himself.

“Fine,” he finally says, trying for lighthearted. “If you’re going to help me, make sure the water is the right temperature.” 

Pete grins. “Deal,” he says. His lashes are impossibly long and the pressure around Vegas’ arm still hasn’t let up. A smile hangs treacherously off the side of his mouth as he watches Vegas swing his legs around the mattress. 

“Come on,” he says. His palm is so warm against Vegas’ skin. “Maybe I’ll make it worthwhile.” 

###

The last two weeks in the hospital pass by in a haze of routine. In the mornings Pete guides him down onto the mid-level rooftop, where they take their breakfast and walk through the gardens. In the afternoons, Macau drops by, sometimes with news of how Kinn and Porsche have been leading the major and minor families, and rumors of a woman, some relative that Korn has kept hidden away. 

Vegas tries not to connect the dots, but it’s clear, he thinks. The woman in the photo Porsche shared with him, the woman in the photo his father always kept close, the woman who had looked at him when he stumbled in only to find his father with his eyes open yet already filmed over. There’s a loose thread, and he only needs to pull hard enough to find the truth. 

He doesn’t though. At least not now. In the evenings Pete helps him into the shower. It’s no longer an actual necessity: by the fourth week, Vegas has shed enough of his dressings and regained enough range of motion to shower without assistance. But there’s something comforting about the routine. It’s about having someone with me, Vegas thinks. Someone who chooses to be with me. 

And the kisses too—they’ve kept to kissing to avoid ripping anything open. “It’s still a chest wound,” Pete told him seriously the night Vegas tried to initiate something more. He’d ended up gasping, pain making him curl bug-like into the mattress. “Two shots hit your vest but one didn’t—it nearly tore you apart. You shouldn’t even be stretching like this” 

So they kiss. They kiss in the shower, where the soap suds up between their bodies, where Pete keeps his hands almost virginally along Vegas’ shoulders. The only time they travel lower is to thumb at the scab along Vegas’ bicep. Everything else is air, is skin and soap and water sluicing across his skin, the taste of cleanness, of Pete’s rice milk soap and his own humid jasmine one. 

“I still wouldn’t blame you if you left,” Vegas says sometimes, even though he knows that Pete won’t change his mind. At first he knows it sounds pathetic but Pete doesn’t ask him to stop. He doesn’t get angry. He just gives Vegas that unreadable look—the one where his face shutters and his mouth goes still—and then he kisses Vegas hard enough to bruise, fingernails digging into whatever’s closest: hair or cheek or jaw. 

“I still choose you,” Pete says each time. 

Tonight Vegas hazards at a chuckle. “I guess misery loves company,” he says. Pete raises both brows. 

“Hush.” He pushes a steaming bowl of curry rice forwards. “Eat your dinner.” 

Vegas does. He watches Pete as he putters around the suite, humming at something tuneless. I want you , Vegas thinks, and to his horror, the tiny ugly voice returns. Hurt him , it says. See the way he fidgets; see the way he plays with his fingers. He’s asking for it, really. Look at him . 

Vegas swallows. Shakes his head. He smiles when Pete catches him though, and he lets their hands tangle once more. He wants you. And he liked it, before. He liked being your pet. Do you want to disavow him of that so soon? Take him. Bend him over and—  

Vegas tightens the hold, until Pete must surely be hurting. 

But Pete only turns and smiles instead. The shape of it, Vegas thinks, is electric. 

###

He begins to get the creeping sense that the ugly voice in his head is somehow right. Or that, somehow, against all odds, Pete wants Vegas—wants Vegas when he’s sweet but also when he’s—

Vegas tries not to put a word to what he is. 

When he’s discharged from the hospital, they’re given a set of rooms in the major family’s house. “Just something temporary as you get on your feet,” Korn says, smiling at Pete, “stay as long as you like.” 

Vegas manages to keep a straight face. What’s the English phrase? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth . Except he already knows what Korn is doing—better to keep your enemies close, probably. With Vegas under the major family’s roof and Porsche in a role that’s constantly being watched, Korn has control now: control of the narrative, of what they each can and can’t do. 

Briefly, he wonders. Is there even a point, now, if his father is dead? Or should he be glad to be rid of the role, glad that Porsche will now be the one to pick apart Korn’s machinations? How many faces will Porsche have to wear now?  

He smiles back at Korn and says all the polite expected things. He needs time to recover and strategize. That much is true. He can use his location to his advantage later down the road. And it’s been a long time since he’s done anything for himself—since he’s acted upon a desire detached from his father’s—and he allows himself the opportunity. He wants to be—not good , but better. 

The only problem is that Pete seems determined to make Vegas hurt him. 

The first time it happens, Vegas chalks it up to his own paranoia. Pete is helping him out of the shower. They’d been kissing, then arguing over the temperature of the water. Pete had wanted it cooler; Vegas had argued for something more molten. “It’s therapeutic,” he’d said, and Pete’s face had done—had done something , had flipped inwards and gone seamless—before he brought their faces together. 

By the time they turn off the water, the bathroom is fogged. Steamed up like morning hugging a springtime pond. The walls sweat around them, slippery as their tongues, and Pete stumbles at first—reaches out to grip at the towel rack—and Vegas tugs him back just a bit too hard. They tip backwards, Pete’s eyes widening as he twists their bodies, craning his head around and thrusting his shoulder outwards to break the fall. 

The fall, when it happens, is jolting, but not disastrous. Once Vegas catches his breath, he looks down, only to watch as Pete wipes at his forehead and licks the finger clean. “Must have caught the sink,” he says, but there’s still blood smudged around his temple. The sight goes straight to Vegas’ cock and he startles back.

Pete smiles—a dazed smile, but a smile nonetheless. “You okay?” 

Vegas nods, unable to find his words. 

But the weirdness happens again, just a day later. They fall asleep, napping alongside each other. Vegas must have a nightmare because he wakes up gasping, half-expecting his father to burst through the doors and hit him with that signet ring—for that pain to radiate from his metal-stamped cheek, for his eyes to water—and he does what he’s always done: he squeezes his hands together so tightly and braces for the blow, except this time—

“Ve—Vegas,” Pete gasps around the chokehold. 

Vegas looks down, releasing Pete’s throat. “Fuck— fuck —” he says, raising both hands in the air. “Fuck, Pete—” He tugs on his hair, hunching in as Pete slowly sits up. Their shoulders are touching; why are their shoulders touching? Shouldn’t Pete be scared—shouldn’t Pete be backing away? 

Maybe Pete isn’t safe here , he thinks. Maybe that’s the point that Korn is trying to prove, why he’s allowed for this: see how you’re the one who’s a danger to Pete, not me or the family .

“It’s okay,” Pete says. He smiles with his eyes and puts on that patient look, the neutral one that bolts Vegas to the present. Then he shows off his neck. “See?” He cranes in, then catches Vegas’ wrist and folds their fingers around his throat. 

“See,” he repeats, arching up further, and Vegas can’t look away at the sight: at the picture of his fingers around Pete’s throat. Pete swallows—Vegas squeezes—Pete swallows again. 

And then he guides Vegas’ thumb along his jugular. 

So close , the awful voice says. You’re so close to hurting him. 

But Pete’s eyes glitter, the pupils blown so wide Vegas could fall into them. Vegas has seen this look before—has seen it as he’s fucked Pete sideways. It’s the one Pete wore when he licked the sweat off his own arm, his cock dripping as Vegas mouthed between his legs. 

And he likes it too , the voice says, satisfied. But when Vegas blinks, the look is gone from Pete’s face, and instead he props himself up and kisses Vegas’ forehead. 

“Silly,” Pete says. “There are other ways of waking me up.” 

The third time it happens is when Vegas realizes that perhaps Pete is doing it on purpose. Perhaps , he lets himself think, he misses it. Maybe he misses it. He doesn’t allow himself the luxury of thinking that it’s him that Pete misses, because he’s right here—right here, cupping Pete’s jaw and tugging along that upper lip, drinking in Pete’s morning grin, the warmth of how alive he is. 

And here he is, a razor in his hands. “A tight shave,” Pete had said over breakfast, and when Vegas had arched a brow, he’d grinned and ducked his head and thrust out his phone screen. “See this hairstyle? I was thinking you could help me try it. Porsche used to help me with my hair, and before that, it was just me—” 

“I’ll do it,” Vegas had said without thinking. 

He turns over the razor. Pete sits still in his chair. His head is tilted away towards the wall. For a moment Vegas wishes he were facing the mirror; at least he’d be able to catch Pete’s expression, because right now all he sees is that wide stretch of neck, pale and smooth, and if he looks closely, he could just press the razor to the jugular, or maybe he could nick the skin, just a little bit—

He sucks in a breath. 

The haircut is a success. But somehow Pete looks disappointed. He roots through his little leather bag of toiletries before pressing a second, thinner single-blade razor into Vegas’ open hand. 

“My face too,” he says with a dazzling smile. 

This time, he looks straight forward, right into the mirror as Vegas works. Vegas tries to focus on his breathing. Inhale, exhale. It’s just skin , he reminds himself. It’s just skin, but if I miss—if I get the angle wrong—

In the end, it’s Pete who ends up cutting himself. An accident of course. He takes the razor from Vegas upon finishing, and he squints into the mirror. Vegas blinks, and before he’s able to stop him—before he’s able to even open his mouth—the blade falls from Pete’s hand. 

Blood spiders down from a cut along his jaw. 

“Ah,” Pete says. He doesn’t turn around, just looks at Vegas in the mirror. Their eyes catch as Pete dabs at the spot with a cotton pad, but the cut is deep and it takes half a dozen, a dozen little white pads to sop up the mess. By the time the cut stops bleeding, Pete’s hands are copper-flecked and flaking off at the cuticle. 

Without thinking, Vegas leans in and laps at each finger. 

“Vegas…” Pete murmurs. His voice is low and wobbling. When Vegas looks up, he’s gone glassy-eyed. Panting. “Please,” he says. 

“Please?” Vegas says archly. He isn’t sure where it’s coming from but it must be right because Pete gives him a curved smile. One cheek dimples up but it’s his eyes again—

“Kiss me.” 

Lip against lip, Pete kisses just hard enough for Vegas to nip back, and then he kisses harder, as if— as if wanting it , Vegas thinks. 

Panic shoots up his throat. 

“I don’t want to hurt you—” he says softly. “You’re not my pet—you’re my—” He tries to cradle Pete’s head in his hands as gently as he can, but Pete shakes his head. 

“But what if I want it? What if I like it?” Pete stares at him. His breath is hot. His lip is bloody, his jaw now too. But he grins, dark and velvet. “That part of you—it isn’t ugly, you know,” he says, ghosting a kiss along the side of Vegas’ mouth. “I want you to show me—I want you to show me all of you.” He pauses, peering at Vegas. “Don’t you want that too?” 

###

They let it simmer for an afternoon. When Vegas pulls Pete back into the bedroom, Pete squirms away and gives him a long-suffering look. “I want you to do this for yourself as much as you’re doing it for me,” he says, tugging his pants back on. “And plus,” he grins, “I have a date with Porsche.” 

And he does, it turns out, because when he returns, his shirt is rumpled, his cheek bruised. 

“What exactly was this date?” Vegas asks, trying to keep the jilted note out of his voice. 

“A bit of a sparring session,” Pete says, shrugging out of his shirt. His neck is tan—a shade darker than his chest. The fact shouldn’t move Vegas the way it does but it can’t be helped. 

Pete shoots him a pleasant smile. “I wanted to make sure Porsche wasn’t getting soft on your family’s food.” 

Vegas snorts. He has the sudden feeling that perhaps Pete is purposely riling him up. But maybe he wants to be played—maybe, he thinks tentatively—

He leans in but just as quickly he wrinkles his nose. ( clean, sharp, aquatic ) “You smell like—” 

Pete narrows his eyes. “Oh,” he says lightly, standing by the bed. “That must have been Kinn. We sparred as well.”  

Vegas tosses Pete a towel. Pete must definitely be riling him up. 

“Clean yourself.”

“What if I don’t?” 

“Do it,” Vegas says evenly. He thinks back to their conversation from the other day. I want it, he tells himself, and the not-ugly part of him crows out, says yes , yes , take him, crush him, make him cry, it feels so good when he cries and he likes it too.  

When Pete doesn’t move, Vegas closes the distance and drags him to the bathroom, ignoring the tug of newly knitted muscles. He breathes. Inhale, exhale. Then he presses the soap into Pete’s hands, and then he waits—waits for Pete to look around and realize what’s changed. 

And Pete does. He inhales sharply, and there it is, Vegas thinks. There it is . He slides the belt free from his pants and gently snakes it around Pete’s wrists. 

“You know,” he says conversationally, “it wasn’t nice, leaving me here all alone. I started to get ideas…” 

“Yeah,” Pete breathes. “What kind of ideas?” He’s still looking up at the hook Vegas installed in the ceiling. It’d taken little effort: a soft word to one of the servants and he’d gotten what he needed. 

After a moment, Vegas pulls him up, then secures the belt onto the hook. He turns on the water and lets it steam. It’s only then that he allows himself to grin. 

“You’ll just have to see don’t you?” he says. 

He makes sure to show all of his teeth. And Pete, to his credit, shows all of his. 

  ###

They start slow. The basics: Pete struggles, and it’s a pretty show, Vegas thinks. He traces the line of Pete’s spine first, the arch of it. “I could tug this out of you,” he says, keeping his tone airy. “You’ve seen the way I can work a man. I’d even be extra careful with you.” 

Pete trembles. “Would you?” he asks, worrying at his lip. He twists his face, curls his ankles together. His chest is pink, turning red from the heat of the water. Vegas presses his mouth to one nipple. Bites down. 

Yes, Vegas thinks, you wanted all of me, didn’t you? 

“Please…” 

“Please what?” Vegas begins to kiss across the expanse of skin—along the tight new lines where his belt had met Pete’s ribs, clavicles, the soft spots underneath his armpits. He lets his tongue skate along the other nipple, then tugs it between his teeth until Pete lets out a sob. 

“Use your words, Pete.” 

Pete whimpers. “Is this better,” he says, and it’s awful—it’s almost frightening how Vegas can hear the smile in it. “Am I…Am I better than Tawan?” 

Vegas grips down, nails digging into Pete’s hips. The tattoo, the line about honesty. Fuck , he thinks, and then he spits out the thought that’s been boiling underneath his tongue since Pete returned. 

“Am I better than Kinn?” 

Pete shudders. But he doesn’t respond. Did he ever—with Kinn— Vegas thinks, but then Pete moans and Vegas reaches down, dragging fingers between Pete’s thighs and finding his balls. 

“Remember what I did to these?” 

Pete shudders. “Yes,” he finally says. It comes out in a sob. “I—you—” 

Vegas frowns. No, that’s too easy, he thinks, and he pinches at the delicate skin and rubs his nose against Pete’s face, watching for the flutter of desperation, the way it butterflies across Pete’s mouth as his toes try and find a hold—to find the edges of the bathtub, maybe—but Vegas doesn’t let him. Won’t let him.

Smiling, he reaches over and angles the showerhead at Pete’s chest. Yanks the hot water knob up. “Do you think I want to hear about it?” he says, pulling his hand away. For a while, he watches as Pete gasps, the way he pinks up. Luscious, isn’t he? the voice says, and this time, when Vegas reaches out and digs his nails in, all five of them, from throat to cock, Pete screams—aching and hungry and shivering and hot, and Vegas swallows it—covers Pete’s mouth with his and swallows the sound, sucks up the spit in Pete’s mouth and spits it back, lets Pete howl, the vibration fanning its way into his chest. 

You wanted this,” he says, pulling away to look at Pete. He gives Pete an assessing look: he’s hard. They’re both hard, Vegas realizes, and he reaches around to kiss Pete once more, sinking his teeth down, tasting blood and gum—the flavor of it so similar, so close to the way he remembers Pete’s insides tasting: hot and warm and—

Maybe you should try , the voice in his head says. Maybe, if he likes this, he’d like—

Vegas closes his eyes. Smooths a tear away from Pete’s cheek. 

“You want to be a clean pet, don’t you,” he says.

Pete splutters. “Yes,” he says. He whines when Vegas cranks the water cooler, then hot again. Cries out when Vegas twists the showerhead so that it mists across their bodies instead of landing in a focused jet. “Want you to own me,” Pete breathes. “I want you to own all of me.” He opens his eyes wide, his lashes jeweled and dripping. “Yours,” he says, and he’s smiling again, serene and prowling and beatific. 

He could be one of those immortals , Vegas thinks briefly. On an impulse, he folds forward, rubs himself against the inside of Pete’s knees. Then he parts Pete’s thighs, nosing his way up. 

This is how I’d worship you , he writes with his tongue against Pete’s hole. This is how I’d own you. Mine. Mine , he writes, swirling his tongue into that dark empty space, that space that reminds him of a warm, sheltering blankness. This game that Pete so wants to play—this live wire to his cock. 

After a while—when Pete is pliant and shuddering and sobbing again—Vegas crooks a finger in, then two, and then he unties Pete ( just like that one time , his brain helpfully notes), and half-carries him to bed, damp-bodied and trembling, before tying up his wrists again. Same belt, no preparation. In the background, the shower continues running: white noise that only sharpens the moment. 

“You’ll take my cock,” he says grimly, and then before Pete can inhale, he shoves it in with a grunt because he’s impatient—because this is what he does to the things he owns: he uses them. He gives them a purpose and that purpose is his and his alone. “I want to use you,” he whispers into Pete’s ear, and from the tight press of Pete’s cheek, Vegas knows he’s grinning, that he’s taking Vegas to the hilt, switchblade cock and all, because the things that you own can sometimes outlast you , he imagines Pete saying. 

And maybe that’s what Pete is saying; maybe that’s what Pete is doing. The things that you own can leave their own impression too. 

He fucks Pete hard into the mattress, hands gripped around both hips. It’s raw. All of Pete is pink now: his cock, the way it dribbles between their bodies before Vegas turns him around and presses his hand along the back of Pete’s skull, thumb along the soft spot where it meets the neck, and then he shoves himself in again, fucks Pete till he isn’t sure who’s gasping, and then comes with a snap of his hips. 

He doesn’t let Pete turn around afterwards, just holds him down and sneaks a hand up and around. Pete comes the moment Vegas curls his hand around his cock. They’re back to chest, the little bits of Pete’s cut hair still spackled across his skin, a million little black holes sucking Vegas in. 

For a moment, Vegas struggles to breathe. There’s a sob in the space between them, a disgustingly wet thing, but then Pete turns around, working his way out of the belt. He reaches for Vegas. 

“You,” he says, smiling. The sunset lances its way through the blinds and carves out his face. “You were beautiful.” 

Vegas bows his head. He touches Pete’s lips with his own. You, he thinks, I would burn for you . 

###

Pete’s neck is a fragile shape, a swoop of a hand, from wrist to index finger. Pete could press down on the jugular but he doesn’t. 

“Yours,” Pete says, nestled into his chest.  

“Mine,” Vegas whispers back. He buries his nose into Pete’s hair and from a great distance a memory flies back to him: that afternoon, the both of them at the temple, the way Pete had shimmered, had soaked in the smoke and the curl of the incense, had closed his eyes as the afternoon danced across his nose. 

Vegas shifts. He thinks about merits—thinks about reincarnation—thinks about the way Pete tastes in the back of his throat. 

The night is warm. The last of the day beams through the windows. For a long, wavering moment, there are no shadows in the room; light, brilliant and gilded, rivers itself across Pete’s hair. It’s so black it’s bright. 

It hurts Vegas’ eyes—it hurts to look at—but he doesn’t look away.