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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R.
Pairing: Ljungberg/H. Larsson, Lehmann/Van Persie, Deco/Giuly.
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: This is absolutely fiction and not real and I don’t know these people at all. Any resemblance to any real-life record company is completely accidental.
Notes: Titled after the song by The White Stripes.
Summary: Crazy Frenchmen and epiphanies. Somehow it works.
***
Some days Henrik really missed the tranquilizers he used to keep in the egg shelf of his fridge. “Technically he is fulfilling his contract.”
“And that just pisses me off even more,” Freddie ranted, waving his hands around over his head as he stomped about. Thick as the hotel carpet was, he was beginning to wear a ring into it. “He’s doing it on purpose! I just know he is.”
“…because otherwise FC will stop paying his expenses?” Henrik mildly suggested.
The other man snapped around and lasered an angry look at him, but disappointingly, Freddie stayed where he was. He kept opening and closing his hands, but somehow he was staying in sufficient control of himself to avoid actually lunging at Henrik. “No, to keep me from being able to take his goddamn rhinestone belt and—”
From there it degenerated into a flurry of vicious curses and even more vicious imagery, which had Henrik raising his brows at the number of couture-house mentions Freddie could pack into a single second. For a moment Henrik contemplated pointing out the various rhinestoned items he’d found in Freddie’s closet, but then he remembered his goal was to bring Freddie’s fit of temper to a head, not to have to knock him out. Sighing, Henrik just felt grateful that watching Cristiano at least meant Freddie was required to stay in business attire the entire time.
“Cocky little shit,” Freddie finished, stalking past Henrik.
Or he attempted to, but Henrik didn’t move out of the way and so his shoulder drove into Freddie’s chest, forcing the other man back. Freddie jerked up his chin and looked down his nose with eyes that were flaring…and then merely pressed his lips together as he irritably dropped into the chair beside Henrik. Damn it.
Henrik rubbed his temple, then took out his PDA to check his email. “Has Jens gotten back to you yet?”
“No,” Freddie muttered. He dug his fingers into the ends of the chair arms and slouched more deeply into the cushions.
“He hasn’t?” It hadn’t been that late even with the time difference when Freddie had sent off his report about the bad interview. Usually Lehmann got back on that sort of matter within the hour, if not instantly—it made Henrik a touch nervous that he’d missed a bug or two, because Lehmann seemed to have an almost preternatural awareness for when things were going wrong.
Freddie shrugged, then looked questioningly up at Henrik. “Well, I said I had it in hand, because you said you did, so I don’t see why he’d be worried.”
“I wasn’t implying that. I was just wondering…of course, I don’t know him well,” Henrik said. He still wasn’t completely reassured, but Freddie tended to snap at the slightest hint that Jens was perturbed, and Freddie didn’t appear anywhere near that despite his irritated mood, so…
“When Jens sends Cristiano off like this, he’s basically saying he wants them out of the way—as close to off the damn planet as he can get,” Freddie explained after a look at Henrik. “He still wants updates, but otherwise he doesn’t want to have to think about Cristiano. So he’s not going to get involved unless somebody’s in the hospital, at the last.”
“Ah.” Actually, Henrik might have to put someone into urgent care. It really depended on whether he had to be at the evening event. Contractually he didn’t, but letting Freddie chaperone Cristiano in a club seemed like a recipe for imploding the entire block, so he did have to. But the club was too far from where he’d be beforehand for him to walk, and he’d noticed that the traffic at that time of day was absolutely horrible. So taking that into account…Henrik frowned and looked up, then turned to Freddie. “Hmm?”
The other man blinked, as if he was the confused one, and moved his hand from Henrik’s belt to firmly on Henrik’s ass. “It just occurred to me that we have to sit here for a goddamn hour and a half to make sure the brat doesn’t go anywhere, and a great way to annoy him is to fuck. What do you think?”
Well…first of all, Henrik needed to put away his PDA before his thumb slipped like that again. He undid that, locked the PDA and shifted his weight from his right to his left foot as Freddie’s hand wandered further. “Wouldn’t that contradict your sense of professionalism?”
“Weren’t you trying to tick me off into doing that two minutes ago?” Freddie mused, stroking Henrik’s inner thigh.
“No, I believe we were having a very professional discussion.” Also, Henrik was going to need to locate a good dry-cleaner’s. He’d been planning on waiting till the weekend, but he could already tell that Freddie had ruined the inside crease on this pair of trousers and he suspected more pieces of clothing were going to suffer the same fate. “Also—”
“Reschedule it,” Freddie said, hand suddenly snapping around Henrik’s leg.
He hauled Henrik sideways so quickly Henrik lost his balance and fell over the chair, across Freddie. One of Henrik’s hands was still filled with the PDA and his other hand wasn’t positioned to grab anything, though he did try. His fingers touched what he thought was part of the chair, and then grazed over the top of Freddie’s head as the other man shucked Henrik of his trousers, leaving them to slide down to Henrik’s knees as they inevitably fell off the chair.
The thick carpet somewhat broke the impact of the fall on Henrik’s elbows and hips, but it couldn’t do anything about the teeth that were biting at the base of his throat—was Freddie gnawing off his tie? Probably not, but Henrik didn’t have time to check as his tie went off…somewhere, and he’d lost track of his PDA as well. He—
“Henke,” Freddie said, levering himself off Henrik’s thoroughly mashed lips, “It really, really annoys me when you Zen out during sex.”
“Sorry?” Henrik tried. Not that hard, frankly, with the way Freddie’s nostrils flared out.
“Oh, for…” Rolling his eyes, Freddie attacked Henrik’s mouth again, and proceeded to render any such composure utterly undesirable as well as impractical. If Lehmann called now, it would be extremely hard to take that call.
* * *
Jens considered his phone for another moment. A small part of him continued to nag that he was avoiding Freddie’s message simply because it was about Cristiano and that was a silly personal preference. But the greater percentage of him sensibly argued that the message didn’t seem to need immediate attention and could easily wait till Jens had neutralized a much more serious threat. If he could find that goddamn Frenchman.
Between himself, David and Senderos, many of the usual hangouts had been checked and there was no sign of Giuly. Of course, that was the opposite of reassuring, since there’d also been few of Giuly’s men around and that hinted that Giuly was gathering his resources for a truly spectacular disaster. Robin had indeed gotten safely home, and so far the information he’d sent confirmed that expectation. If Jens couldn’t locate Giuly soon, he’d have to call Kahn and that would be require using up precious blackmail to keep everything from the board.
For all of that, Jens felt strangely…not resigned or unhurried, but he certainly lacked his usual sense of urgency and it puzzled him. He fully comprehended the situation, and yet he—honestly, he wanted to go home and see for himself that Robin was fine and then deal with Cristiano. And it wasn’t that Cristiano—or Robin, much as that would irk the other man—necessarily looked that much more appealing than the current problem, but that Jens was…
He was tired. Tired. That was the word. Everything he did simply to maintain his present place, to not try to take over the world but to ensure that he kept his little piece of it, and always, always this sort of nonsense would crop up. And it had nothing to do with what he actually did, what pushed him to wake up every morning knowing that no matter how careful he was and how many precautions he took, this sort of danger always lurked around the corner.
Jens pursed his lips, then looked with narrowed eyes out the window before him. He was certainly in an odd mood, if nothing else. He didn’t sound like himself, and he needed to.
After giving himself a good shake, Jens began to put his phone away. Then he stopped and looked at it again. No, he could and was going to leave the newest Cristiano issue to Freddie, but that wasn’t…Deco. He’d had some sort of hold over Giuly—not everyone got French street rats guarding their hospital room—and then Giuly had let Deco leave, which argued even more strongly for Deco’s ability to influence the man.
* * *
“I don’t see the reasoning here, but I don’t have any vodka in me so maybe that’s why,” Andriy muttered, dabbing at the spot on his shirt-cuff. He swiveled to let Lilian go before him, then sighed and walked out of the bathroom when the other man merely held open the door.
After they’d exited, two men wearing disposable surgical caps, booties and gloves silently slipped into the bathroom with a bucket of cleaning supplies. Lilian didn’t even look at them, though one murmured something to him. Instead he strode on ahead, car keys already out.
“Like I said, it’s probably about Deco, but we know Deco’s not anywhere in town. At least, I don’t think even he’s that stupid. So why are we still here?” That damn spot just wasn’t going to come out and probably Andriy would have to burn this shirt. He needed to do better about not standing in the way of the splatter.
When he pitched his tissue at a trashcan, Lilian leaped forward to intercept it, then handed it off to a third young man. Not a disapproving look at Andriy, or any sign that he was thinking about Andriy as a person instead of just a pair of latex gloves, a silencer for his gun.
Lilian did reply. “We’re not looking for Deco.”
The car was waiting for them, of course. Andriy automatically got into the door that was being held open for him, then flopped into the passenger seat. When he finally roused himself to notice that they were moving, the car lurched over a crack in the road and Andriy had enough to do with keeping his head from slamming into the windshield.
Once he’d pushed himself back and had buckled himself down, he risked a look at the other man and found…cold fish, that was what that expression was. A snort escaped Andriy and he glanced out the window, telling himself that the next stop, he was getting something to eat. It wasn’t like he needed to be around for the business end, after all, and in the areas of town that they were going, he had to come back if he wanted to survive the night.
“I don’t think I can find Deco on such short notice,” Lilian abruptly added. He adjusted his glasses. “I put the word out to our outside associates, but I can’t rely on that.”
“So what, you’re trying to think like a crazy lovelorn Frenchman? God, it’s just like being back in Italy.” Andriy thumped his head against the chair, then slumped in his seat. He drummed his fingers against the window.
An electronic beep echoed loudly through the car. Then it came again and Lilian roughly pushed his hand into his coat to turn off his phone. He’d only turn it on in another minute when he needed to call for another clean-up team; he’d been doing that ever since they’d left Andriy’s apartment. “Ludo has not left town. Of that much I am certain, and there are a finite number of places he would choose to be.”
“Really?” After a glance at Lilian, Andriy shrugged off the other man’s irritated look. “Well, like you say, he’s crazy, not stupid. So you think, he’s called you, he knows you, he’s not going to be where he thinks you’ll look, no?”
“I’m not looking where he would normally go,” Lilian told him through gritted teeth. Then Lilian jerked his head to the side, cracking his neck-bones again. Up till tonight, Andriy hadn’t even known the man had the capability for that: Lilian always moved as if his joints were perfectly lubricated. “And what about the nature of Italy involves crazy Frenchmen?”
Andriy shrugged again. “Are you trying to make a joke? It’s not really your forte.”
The car stopped. Hard. Its momentum attempted to carry the bulk of the car over the front wheels. Then the car fell back with a bone-rattling jolt that left Andriy numbed for a few moments, and then gasping as a strip of fire burned across his chest and waist where the seatbelt had cut. He yanked the belt off, then rubbed hard at his shoulder and throat, coughing.
“I know I don’t make jokes.” It appeared that the universe hadn’t dared to inform Lilian of their stop as brutally as Andriy, since the other man didn’t look affected at all. Instead he sat there, ramrod straight, his hands…well, his hands were clenching and unclenching on the wheel, switching between the two states more and more quickly.
“I’m just trying to make conversation,” Andriy said after a moment’s contemplation.
Lilian twisted around, then twisted back against his seat so fast that Andriy didn’t have time to react. The other man’s eyes closed and for a couple seconds he just rested there, like a corpse propped up against the head-rest. Then he slowly brought up his hands, and when they were about level with his head, he leaned forward till he could rest his elbows on the wheel and clasp his hands about his head. “Why would you make—”
He stopped there. He knew why; even if he hadn’t guessed, Andriy had told him that Andriy didn’t much care. This was what Andriy did when he didn’t care, yet had to do something anyway. If one must, then one might as well chat. Not talk. Talking was too risky.
Talking, Andriy thought, was also so damn difficult. “Look, it doesn’t help to get mad that he left you—”
“I am not—”
“Of course you fucking are. He left—he left,” Andriy said, raising his voice with the repeat. “He did. For fucking Deco. You’re mad. For fuck’s sake, you can fucking hate him and love him at the same time. It’s not that hard.”
Lilian’s hands flexed against his skull, beautifully-shaped fingers bespeaking their power. But then Lilian took a breath—made himself, it sounded like—and carefully sat back. “I am trying to find Ludo because he cannot act as if he’s walking away from nothing. He is not.”
“You know, I think he knows that? He called you.” Then Andriy exhaled impatiently and pushed his hand against the side of his head. “Oh, look. So you don’t like Deco—”
“It is not about Deco.”
“Of course it fucking is! He’s the reason Giuly’s gone off his head, he’s the…okay, you don’t like him, but you aren’t fucking stupid. You can see…” God, he sounded upset. Which was a disturbing realization for Andriy and which made him lose his train of thought.
Just as well, since Lilian had made another one of those aborted but still frighteningly quick moves. Now he had one hand wrapped about the wheel and was biting his lip.
He looked at Andriy, and then he emitted a strange sort of snort, like a stillborn laugh. “I don’t frighten you. You’ve made that clear.”
“No, I’ve…it’s not you, it’s pretending you have no soul. That doesn’t frighten me. Men with no souls aren’t frightening—they have no sense of what fear is so they can’t really create it,” Andriy muttered. He was still shaken up from himself, and now Lilian was showing some humanity again, and why on earth hadn’t he gotten something alcoholic on his way out? Oh, because he was an idiot. “For fuck’s sake. I don’t like Deco. You don’t like Deco. But it doesn’t matter, because Ludo does and it is about Deco and I don’t care if you don’t want it to be, you’re not going to change that just by wishing.”
Lilian took his teeth out of his lip. He looked down, then back up with cool, cool eyes. “I dislike you more than I do Deco right now.”
Andriy surprised himself with a laugh and reflexively cut it short. He thought about it, then laughed in full, gesturing vaguely behind himself. “Well, I can…”
“Stay in the car,” Lilian told him, back to demanding. Lilian turned around and put both hands on the wheel. He pressed down on the wheel, then breathed deeply in through his nose as he relaxed his arms. “I cannot find Deco. I cannot sit still, and I cannot think like Ludo.”
“Can’t find or won’t find?” Andriy asked.
The car started slowly, but then smoothly accelerated till the buildings they were passing were little more than blurs. Then Lilian answered, voice low and constrained. “If I could—I would, for Ludo’s sake.”
“Well, bless you for that.” Andriy put his seatbelt back on, then grimaced as his chest ached. “You’re keeping me sober for this. I fucking hate you right now, do you know?”
“What does a crazy lovelorn Frenchman think like?” was Lilian’s response.
“You…you bastard,” Andriy slowly said. Almost admiringly—well, fine, admiringly, since it was well beyond what he’d figured Lilian was capable of. Contempt was one thing, and complete disregard was another. “Oh…I think you’re right, I think he’s suicidal too. And you said he’s about the grand gesture of benevolence, no?”
“Not in such words,” Lilian said after a moment. As slow and thoughtful as the car was suddenly blisteringly fast. Good, he was thinking so Andriy could stop.
* * *
“I think he said he had a meeting come up?” Michael said. He was careful to look more at Jens’ computer than at Ruud’s annoyed face. “Maybe you could ask David?”
Ruud compressed his lips. “Odonkor isn’t in. Otherwise I obviously wouldn’t bother coming all the way in here to ask.”
“Oh. Oh, that’s strange. Well, then I don’t know.” Shrugging, Michael pretended that he saw something important on the screen and hunkered down, typing with more vigor. “You want to leave a message or something?”
“Thank you, Ballack,” was Ruud’s clipped, dismissive response. With that, the other man turned on his heel and strode out of the office.
Once his footsteps had faded, Michael let out a gusty sigh of relief and deleted the nonsense he’d been typing into a blank command window. He closed the window before he did something by accident, then flopped back just in time to yelp as somebody else came in.
Thankfully, it was only Lahmi, and judging from the deliciously-smelling paper bag in his hand, he had lunch. “Micha! You went all bug-eyed—are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine…” Michael belatedly remembered he didn’t normally hang out in Jens’ office “…did somebody tell you I was in here?”
“Torsten, in the middle of an argument with Pirès. He said you needed food, and work’s pretty slow for me since Cristiano’s out of town, so I volunteered,” Phil explained. He started to set down the bag on Jens’ desk, then lifted it back up. Then he looked about the room.
Michael regarded the pristine desk, then the bag’s grease spots. “Put down napkins?”
“Oh! Right, I got plenty of those.” Phil took care of that with brisk efficiency, and in the space of a minute, they were both sitting down to a wonderful spread of piping-hot Indian food. “So how are you?”
About to dig into a green-colored curry, Michael nearly dropped his spoon in trying to switch from desperately hungry to damage-control.
“Er. Micha? So…Torsten sort of filled me in. He figured you could use help with keeping Bastian and Lukas out of your hair,” Phil apologetically added. He tilted his head. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine!” All right, that was so fake-cheery even Cesc couldn’t have pulled it off. And clearly Michael couldn’t do anything with his stomach twitching to life, so he bolted a couple mouthfuls before continuing. “No, really, I’m all right. I’m just…it’s just weird to be sitting in Jens’ office. I keep thinking he’s going to storm in and ask what I’m doing.”
“Well, better than wondering what he and Van Persie have done on all the furniture, right?” Phil nibbled at a piece of flatbread, then dipped it back into his chutney as he looked up. He blinked, then grimaced. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Michael shook his head till Philipp stopped trying to apologize, but still got up and put a napkin between him and the seat. Then he sat back down and picked up his spoon, but his food suddenly was noticeably less appetizing.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Phil muttered, hanging his head.
“It’s okay. I’m a little surprised I didn’t think of that.” And now Michael was going to stop thinking about it. Right now. Because he was already tired from pretending he didn’t know where Lehmann was, and he was also hungry, and that was good food, damn it. He was eating it.
He lifted his spoon, began to put it down and then with a frustrated snort, shoved it in his mouth. Phil started and caught Michael’s eye, which distracted Michael enough to swallow the food. The moment it hit his stomach, his gut obligingly roared for more and he knew even Lehmann storming back in to throw Robin over the desk wasn’t going to—not thinking about it.
“So I don’t think anyone’s noticed!” Phil said a touch too cheerily. He tore into his meal with the same forced enthusiasm. “Ruud probably won’t be back. When I passed him in the hall, he was on the phone to someone and sounds like he’ll be busy all day. And Thierry’s kept Cesc doing errands out of the office, so I haven’t even seen him come in.”
“You talked to Thierry?” Michael asked. “I haven’t seen him since early this morning.”
Phil blinked. “Oh, yeah. He came by my studio to see if Cristiano had called me and if I thought things were going well in Portugal, and then he went off. I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’s on the floor anymore. I think he’s trying to cover Jens’ meetings.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fine. I didn’t really need to talk to him, just…” With a sigh, Michael looked down at his food. He’d stopped eating again, even though his stomach was putting out some vigorous protests. He made himself take up another spoonful, then got some of the flatbread. “Never mind. God, I hope they fix this soon.”
Curiosity and sympathy warred on Philipp’s face for a couple seconds. He licked at his lip, then opened his mouth.
“No, no emergency. I’m just…this is not what I do, and there’s a good reason for that,” Michael explained. Then he grinned wryly. “Even if I’m all right at this. It’s just I wonder how Jens does it day after day after day, you know?”
“I think the whole group wonders about that. I mean, he’s so pissed off all the time…but he’s lasted a really long time, so he must like something about it. I don’t think somebody could keep doing what he does if they didn’t.” Philipp paused to insert a wedge of flatbread into his mouth, then eeped as the chutney on it dripped off one side. He tried to stick his hand under the falling bits of food, but was too slow and they hit the desk.
The other man stuffed the bread into his mouth, then grabbed a whole fistful of napkins and frantically scrubbed at the desk for long after he’d gotten all the chutney. Finally Michael had to reach over and push Phil away. “Phil, Phil, you got it all. It’s not stained, and I promise not to tell Lehmann you did it.”
Phil looked up with a panicked expression, as if he actually thought Michael had been thinking about telling Jens. Then his sense visibly returned and he sat down with a sigh of relief. “Well, you must be all right. You’re making jokes.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Michael asked, frowning. He mentally started to review the last few conversations he’d had with Phil, just in case he’d been especially snappish or had done something else to convince the man he was losing it. He didn’t think he had—he and Torsten had gotten much better about the whole mutual-stress-relief thing—but he did kind of lose track of his mouth when he was really tired or worried. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing! Really.” Large, round eyes from Phil. Then Phil seemed to realize that Michael wasn’t quite buying it—it was hard, but Michael was building up a resistance—and shrugged, looking down at his food. He fiddled with another piece of flatbread. “Seriously, nothing’s going on. I just came by to see how you were doing, since…well, since I know you’re kind of iffy about things like…breaking the law, and…”
Well, that hadn’t been what Michael had been expecting. At first he got distracted in wondering just where Phil had gotten that from, since he hadn’t been…he hadn’t been thinking about that, he suddenly realized. And now he was, and he wasn’t jumping for the door and that had been the weird feeling that’d been nagging him this whole time. “Oh.”
“Because I know, I’m that way too, but I’ve been here long enough to know that being nice doesn’t cut it. Not every time something you really care about is on the line, and so I care about protecting that more than I do about—sometimes the ‘right thing’ doesn’t feel like being good, you know?” Phil glanced up at Michael, then laughed nervously as he got himself some tandoori chicken. “That sounds really horrible.”
“I—not—I understand.” Michael tipped his head, then smiled wryly as he picked up the plastic container of curry. He stirred the curry around with his spoon. “I was just thinking that.”
“Hmm?” Phil blinked.
“That crazy as this place is…with the non-stop public sex, the diva singers and our psychotic boss and all that…I’m really fond of it. This is nothing like where I thought I’d end up, but every morning I’m glad I get to work here. I don’t want to work anywhere else,” Michael said slowly. Then he looked up at the other man. “So I don’t mind fighting for it.”
Phil leaned forward a little, looking hard at Michael. He started to say something, but changed his mind and instead sat back. Bit off a piece of flatbread then washed it down with a loud slurp at his drink; he winced, then shot an apologetic look at Michael.
“Well, I’m glad,” Phil said once his mouth was clear.
“Me too.” Michael’s stomach grumbled and he instinctively looked at the curry, then dug into it with much more gusto. His appetite was back.
* * *
Andriy put down his menu, then looked quizzically at the plate of pie that had appeared before him. Then he looked at Lilian, but Lilian was gazing at the pie like he had no idea from where it’d come either. After another moment, the other man turned around while slipping his hand into his coat, and Andriy decided that one, the pie probably wasn’t dangerous and two, he was tired and cranky and didn’t want to get any more blood on him. “Oh, that was quick.”
Still frowning, Lilian turned around. “Did you order that?”
“No, but after it came I didn’t feel hungry, so I told the waitress to just give it to someone who needed it,” said Lehmann. Strolling by, casual, buttoning up his coat as he went from the men’s room at the back towards the front door. Just another anonymous would-be good Samaritan wandering around at night. “I just didn’t want to waste good food. Good evening.”
Of course Lilian wasn’t going to leave it at that—he wasn’t supposed to. He got up and just as casually followed Lehmann out the door, thanking him; the stiff set of his shoulders somewhat gave away Lilian’s true feelings on the subject, to anyone in the know. Which was only Andriy, since the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen, and Andriy…
…could look at the pie, and get the signal and the darker, more mocking point Lehmann was trying to make. ‘Needed it.’ Ludo with his restaurant, always pressing a meal on anyone that came in no matter whether the meeting was intended to end well or end badly. The last time Lehmann had come by, he hadn’t eaten a thing and the chef had been rather annoyed, given the special effort he’d put into it. Andriy could figure all those things easily enough, but instead he picked up his spoon and sliced off a corner of the pie slice.
It was all right. He wasn’t expecting gourmet, what with the dingy zinc counter and the flickering, piss-yellow fluorescent lights, but it was edible. Probably canned filling, but probably the cook hadn’t included anything that would test Andriy’s stomach.
A couple minutes later, Lilian came back in, wiping one hand against his thigh as if he’d been at something dirty. But he was free from blood, and as he slid back into the booth, a car engine purred to life somewhere outside—expensive, Andriy thought, and then had his guess confirmed as the car cruised by the glass front.
“I didn’t think Giuly liked that man,” Andriy mumbled. He spent a few seconds working up and swallowing spit instead of drinking some water to wet his throat. His water-glass was cloudy, and he couldn’t tell if that was from the glass being dirty or was an inherent trait of the water itself. “All the sunshine jokes aside.”
Lilian looked askance at Andriy, but then shook his head and pressed his fingers to the side of his head. “Ludo doesn’t. He thinks Lehmann is efficient but soulless.”
“Oh, so it’s a revenge thing?” Then Andriy shrugged off Lilian’s second sharp look, which was clearly on purpose. “Look, I don’t know what he thinks. I’m not fucking Gallic.”
For a moment Lilian’s expression was surprised and wounded, and Andriy did think the other man was going to ask him why the fuck had he suggested—but Lilian also had a working memory, and so knew that Andriy had said no such thing. All Andriy had done was blurt out some things that Lilian had taken seriously, God knows why, and then it’d actually worked out.
“I think…” Lilian dragged his hand over his face “…I think if anything, Ludo believes he’s doing Lehmann a favor. He doesn’t hate Lehmann. He thinks the man has potential, if Lehmann would simply relax and enjoy himself once in a while.”
Andriy wiped a smear of pie filling off his lip, then sucked it off his finger. Then he wiped the finger off on his neck, looking at Lilian. “What’s going on?”
“You want to know?” Lilian asked, raising his brows.
“No. Yes. I—look, you dragged me here, I can’t get back, just fucking tell me,” Andriy snapped. He shoved away his plate. “What’s going on?”
With all that, Lilian managed to wait it out another couple of seconds, so it must have been good news. “Ludo told Lehmann he was going to assassinate Domenech and Kahn next week during lunch. We’ve been looking in the wrong places for that, but now that I know, I know which ones to go to.”
“Great,” Andriy muttered, flopping back in his seat.
“You were right.” It sounded as if Lilian was trying not to swallow his own tongue. “From the mouths of madmen sometimes come—”
“First, I’m not crazy. Second, I don’t care if I’m right. Third—third, what, you’re calm now? This doesn’t sound better than where we were before. We still have to find him, and now you have to talk him out of being suicidal and stupid.” Andriy pushed his fingers through his hair, then sighed as he stared into the aisle. “You are a fucking awful philosopher, and even worse at panicking. Why are we still sitting here?”
Lilian half-cleared his throat, moving in his seat. His heels clicked against the floor. “Andriy, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Lilian said. The threat curling into his voice made Andriy look at him, and then the other man seemed to realize that menace and apology were somewhat incompatible. He looked genuinely regretful about that, anyway. But he got up, and then looked sternly at Andriy. “Come. We need to find him.”
Andriy began to correct the man on the ‘we,’ but decided that that was pointless by this stage. He just got up and went after Lilian.
* * *
Figo was enjoying this far too much. Granted, he’d earned the right to be that way with his foresight, but acknowledging that didn’t prevent Jens from wanting to punch him in the face. “Oh, come on. You want me to not only sit on this, but also help you, and all you’re willing to offer is guaranteed interviews with people who maybe might make it through your boot camp? That makes me a little more like a pimp than I generally like at my advanced age.”
This was a formal negotiation, but more importantly, Jens was in a hurry, so he did Figo the favor of not glancing towards the washed-up but pretty rock star curiously peeking out of Figo’s kitchen. Speaking of pimps. “What do you want?”
Blink. “That was a little quick. I know you’re older than me, but—”
“If you’d like to discuss personal issues, I can always bring up the files and files I have on Mutu,” Jens snapped. He immediately regretted the slip—more for losing control of himself than for the way the planes of Figo’s face went cold and hard. “Figo. I’m not here to gossip. I’m here to do business.”
“In your own inimitable way,” Figo dryly said. He put his hands down on the couch and reseated himself, then slowly twisted his head till his neck cracked. Possibly he was also trying to get in a peek at his kitchen, but Mutu had already ducked out of sight. “Fine. For that you get to know that I don’t just know where Deco is, but have his contact information. Your turn.”
Jens needed a moment to swallow down his anger and make sure he wouldn’t lose his temper again. Right now Figo might not be the most worrying thing on his plate, but the man had proven to be a serious nuisance and Jens was here to get rid of those, not to make them multiply. “I just asked you what you wanted.”
“Oh, it’s Christmas already? Well, if I was good, which I’m not, I’d want you to deep-six whatever you have on Adrian, stop harassing my reporters when they cover FC events, take Villa’s name off all those club blacklists, and…” Figo pretended to look upward in thought “…how about an exclusive with Cristiano? Frank, open, no spin. Just getting the real truth behind all the rumors you’ve diligently been suppressing for the past few years.”
The first three weren’t too much trouble and would easily undo themselves, with the tendency of Figo’s staff to make fusses. The fourth one, on the other hand—years, literal years that Jens had given up to keep Cristiano’s reputation half-decent, even when he’d privately felt the little shit deserved a few hits. All those years with their time and effort that Jens could’ve spent elsewhere, not wrapped up in such stupid…Jens realized he was gazing distractedly into space and gave himself a shake. He thought a little longer. “Fine. But one, my influence doesn’t go to every event and club—your reporters have gotten on the bad side of other people at FC and I can’t do anything about that. Two, you understand that ‘open’ with Cristiano means no guarantees about him. I won’t pressure him in any way.”
Figo was silent for a while. He leaned back in his chair, narrowly staring at Jens as he absently pushed his hand into the chair’s overstuffed arm. Then he exhaled and sat up, raising his brows as he glanced to the side. “Well. Just like that. This must be damn serious.”
“But first I need Deco’s number,” Jens added.
“Of course,” Figo said with mock-courtesy. He got up, looking around while patting at himself, then sat down with a frown. Then he made an ah-ha noise and reached into the cushions of his chair. A moment later, he had a cell-phone out and was dialing. “Lehmann? Just out of curiosity, why on earth would you think I’d know where Deco is?”
Jens checked his watch, thinking that it’d been a while since he’d heard from Robin. Then he took out his PDA and checked his email. “You knew about half of his break-down. It wouldn’t be like you to not find out about the other half, even if you couldn’t write it up.”
“Good point. And good God, we know each other too well.” Figo put the phone to his ear, frowning. The phone crackled and he started talking in Portuguese. At first he sounded amused but that rapidly deteriorated.
Thierry and Michael apparently were doing fine at work, and Senderos had finally found where Thuram had gotten to. And Robin was a half-step from doing something stupid out of sheer nerves, judging from the grammatical errors in his near-instant reply to Jens. “What?”
“I think he would rather flush his phone down the toilet, but here’s Deco,” Figo said, holding out his cell.
So would Jens, but instead he was taking the phone while one-handedly sending off his warning to Robin. Then he frowned and looked up in the middle of putting the cell to his ear and his PDA away in his pocket.
“I said, coffee? When he’s not being threatened with media smear campaigns, Adi does a pretty damn good cup,” Figo repeated. He was grinning, enjoying Jens needing a favor from him, but he was also half-turned towards the kitchen like he actually would get a cup if asked.
If he wasn’t careful, he would be choking on that pity, Jens thought wearily. Jens shook his head, then put the phone to his ear again. He paused, thinking again about his strange mood, and then he pushed that away. “Deco?”
* * *
No, Andriy didn’t know what he was talking about at all. Because if he’d been a suicidal, demented French gangster, he would’ve kept enough money to at least have checked himself into a good hotel for his last days. He wouldn’t have gone for this kind of dreary, backstreet dive.
A noise made him look over and he found Lilian checking the safety on a very, very large semiautomatic handgun. Then the other man stuck it under his coat.
“That was fucking Israeli military issue,” Andriy said. “What the fuck are you thinking? Is this why you need a doctor around?”
“No,” Lilian curtly replied.
He looked up the rusty fire-escape belonging to the bar by which they were parked. It went up four stories, clinging to the battered bricks like a spiderweb and looking just about as sturdy. Each story had two small windows, barely big enough to throw a cat through, and all of them were dark save for the uppermost one on the right.
Lilian twitched at his coat so it’d lie flat. “This used to be a very famous jazz club. People from all over came to hear music here, eat the food—the special was the coq au vin. They used to say Miles Davis was the first act.”
Someone screamed nearby and Andriy needed several seconds to realize he hadn’t looked round in response. He grimaced, then half-stifled a grim laugh at himself; they’d only been in this fucking place for a couple minutes and already he was falling into very, very old habits. Andriy looked up the building again, deliberately lingering on the crumbling frieze that scrolled about the top of it. The neighboring building didn’t have any such decoration, but was painted what must be a heart-stopping red in daylight. A lot of individual character in this street—not something that should be reminding him of Ukraine.
“It was out of the way, but it was a rite of passage,” Lilian continued, his voice growing softer. He kept fiddling with his cuffs. “The first time I killed a man, Ludo drove me here and we sat in the back till I could talk again. It was a while. The drive here alone was three hours.”
Andriy looked sharply at the other man, then shrugged as he leaned back against the car. “The first time I had somebody die on me, my supervisor told me I had five minutes to get his body out of the way. We were taking in people from a warehouse fire.” He looked back and found Lilian gazing slantwise at him. “This was when I was a student and working in a hospital emergency room. By the end of the night I was joking about the flaky skin with the janitor.”
“Sometimes you make me wonder if we should send our men to medical school,” Lilian said after a moment. He was making strained jokes again, standing around with a gun under his arm. As if hearing what Andriy was thinking, Lilian grimaced and turned to stare up at that lighted window. “Later Ludo told me this is where they used to make the new Seigneur. This is where he became it.”
“This place? It looks a bit shoddy, or do you only clean it up when you need to pass on the crown or however you do it?” Andriy snorted. He couldn’t help looking up at the light himself, since Lilian had been staring at it so long.
He thought he saw something move behind it, but when he looked at Lilian, the other man didn’t show any sign of a reaction. Lilian only moved in response to the nervous scrape of Andriy’s foot, and even then it was just a tip of the head so he could look sideways at Andriy. “There was no crown. Ludo says he used a nine-millimeter bullet.”
After a moment’s thought, Andriy let out a low chuckle. “Should’ve guessed.”
Lilian pursed his lips and rubbed at his jaw. Andriy looked at the other man again, then at the window. He drummed his fingers against the car, then abruptly slapped his hands down and pushed himself off the car, exhaling sharply. Before Lilian could grab him, he’d gone to the fire escape. It didn’t come all the way down, but he tried a leap for the lowest rung anyway.
The rough chill of the metal against his palms shocked the hell out of him, and not just because he hadn’t seriously thought he’d get the rung. He was no acrobat, and looked in shape more because he had a hard time sitting down to a meal these days than because he really worked at it. And frankly, he’d just been hoping to make Lilian do something.
Well, Andriy thought, he really was far gone. He snorted at himself, then realized that that was a bad idea, given the effort it was taking to hang onto the rung. And God knew what he’d do to his ankles if he let go—he breathed hard through his mouth, then jerked himself up. Thankfully his flailing foot caught something on the wall and he managed to lever that into getting his other foot high enough to brace it against the ladder. The next lowest rung bobbed towards him and Andriy gritted his teeth and pried one hand off the bottom rung to snatch at it.
Somehow he got it, and then he could put his feet on the bottom rung. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were screaming, and the ladder was rattling worse and worse, but Andriy…was an idiot. He made himself pull up a third rung, then scrambled off the ladder onto the lowest platform as soon as he could.
Just in time, because right after that, part of the ladder suddenly shook loose and shot down towards the ground. The horrendous racket made Andriy duck his head and slap his hands to his ears against the screeching. He must have closed his eyes as well, because he stumbled a little, lost his balance as one foot met thin air instead of metal grille, and overcompensated in throwing himself in the opposite direction into the bricks
“Andriy!” Lilian said. It was half a hiss, half a snap, and together those made for an oddly worried cry.
Well, the ladder hadn’t hit Lilian, Andriy thought as he pulled his hands from his head and opened his eyes. He took a step forward, then froze a heartbeat before Lilian had that massive handgun out and pointed over Andriy’s head, at whatever had made that clicking. It was a tiny, slight noise, but it was funny how that sort of sound always seemed to cut through whatever competition it had. Funny, or maybe it was just Andriy.
“Ludo?” Lilian said. The tip of his gun was beginning to shake. “What are you doing?”
Andriy lowered his arms slightly, since holding them up was getting tiring. When he wasn’t shot, he went on to ease himself into a more comfortable standing position, where he could see all of Lilian’s face.
Lilian took a deep breath. It didn’t steady his gun-hand any. “Ludo. Listen. I think I know what you’re doing—”
Oh, that wasn’t going to—Andriy shut his mouth. First, he didn’t know nearly as much as he’d need to about it, and second, he knew enough to know he was already involved as much as he should be. Hell. He hadn’t wanted to be involved. He still didn’t.
“—and you…you…” Lilian almost said can’t but his sense must have intervened “—you aren’t walking away free from this.” A pause, as if Lilian didn’t know what that meant, and then something must have happened above because Lilian suddenly threw back his shoulders, his voice strengthening. He did do better when he was outraged. “Do you hear me? Do you see me? I’m here! I’m here because you aren’t left with nothing. With people you can’t tell them they’re no longer something to you.”
That was too philosophical, Andriy thought. He raised his hand to scratch the side of his face, then went still as Lilian abruptly slapped his free hand under the gunbutt, supporting it better as he jerked its tip up a few centimeters.
Lilian shivered once, hard and violent, and then went so still that Andriy had to pick him out of the darkness by the gleam of his glasses. “Ludo. People will grieve if you do this. I will grieve. And I will—I cannot bring myself to cooperate, even if it’s your wish. I would miss you too much, and you cannot tell me that I won’t.”
A small part of Andriy idly wondered if Giuly had resorted to sign language. Another part wondered how he could think about something so mundane, given the shock of seeing Lilian this upset. But most of him just honestly wished that something would actually happen, and bring things to a fucking end.
He was wishing that so hard that he must’ve missed the growl of the engine, because the slamming of a car door made him jump. When his feet came down, one slipped on the uneven grille and he had to grab the ladder to keep from falling through the hole cut in the grille for it. Then Andriy hissed and reflexively hunched his shoulders, expecting a bullet between them.
Instead a pale, rather confused-looking man in a nice suit wandered into the alley. He looked round worriedly before slowly tipping his head up and holding out a…cell-phone. “Mr. Giuly?” the man said. The furrows in his brow deepened a bit at whatever Giuly’s reaction was. “I have a phone call for you from London.”
“Tell sunshine—” Giuly stopped “—he’s not in London.”
“Er, no, it’s not Mr. Lehmann,” the man replied. He stared up for another minute, then apparently received a signal because he started back out of the alley without delay.
Andriy slowly pushed himself off the ladder and edged back towards the railing. Down below, Lilian still had his gun pointed upwards. He stayed that way for God knows how long, but Andriy was considering whether he could sit down and take the pressure off his sore feet when Lilian abruptly lowered his gun and whisked it away. Then the other man jumped to get his hands about the ladder’s lowest rung, swung himself into a crouch around it and climbed up it to the balcony in what seemed like a single fluid movement.
“Show-off,” Andriy couldn’t help saying.
Lilian looked irritably at him, then twisted himself about the ladder to put himself on the side for climbing up to the next level. He had one hand up to do so when a door’s hinges whined above them. “Lilian?” Giuly said. “Can you bring the car around? It’ll make it easier to pack.”
“I think that’s the sanest I’ve ever heard him,” Andriy said.
At first Lilian rounded sharply on Andriy, but then something made the other man pause. He cocked his head, then instead merely walked about to get to the downward side of the fire escape. “Your French is better if you understood that.”
He wouldn’t talk any more, but climbed down and did, indeed, repark the car closer to the fire escape. By then Andriy had come dangerously close to spraining an ankle, but he’d gotten down by himself since he had no interest in spending the whole night up there and he wasn’t about to ask Lilian for help. The man was still trying to crack jokes, for God’s sake.
Giuly and the pale worried man came around the corner. The other man stayed at the alley mouth long enough to watch Giuly load several heavy-looking bags into the trunk, then left. Neither Giuly nor Lilian paid him much attention—Giuly was whistling cheerfully, and Lilian had come out to fold his arms along the car top and stare unreadably at Giuly.
Finally Giuly shoved down the trunk top, and looked up at Lilian. He stopped whistling.
“It might make no difference in the end, but at least you know now,” Lilian said, rather calmly.
“I knew anyway. Lili, Lili, you’ll be so much better at it than me,” Giuly said, shaking his head with apparent regret. Then he raised his head, smiling. “You should’ve—”
“I am unable to do that.” Lilian pressed his lips tightly together.
For a moment, Giuly’s smile smoothed away, and he looked genuinely sad. But then he tossed his head, laughing, and came around the front. He didn’t stop when Lilian expected him to, and while Lilian was trying to back out of the way, got the car keys in a jingling flourish. Then he was in the driver’s seat and closing the door.
Andriy blinked, then looked down at the handle to the back passenger door. When he tried it, it opened, so he got into the backseat. A moment later, Lilian got in from the other side, and then Giuly started the engine. “You’re up past your bedtime, Sheva,” Giuly said in his guttural Italian. “What’s wrong?”
“Coffee,” Andriy said after a moment. He winced at the ache in his shoulders, then gingerly put his head back. Breathed in, and he’d relaxed through the twinges into a comfortable slouch. “It’s funny, I already figured I’d sold off my soul. But what to do for a little peace…”
Something rustled near Andriy and he opened his eyes, which had been drifting shut, to see Lilian’s coat sliding over him. He lifted his head and Lilian put his arm behind that, as simply as moving it from one place to the other, no other meaning. The other man adjusted the lie of the coat over Andriy. “Go back to sleep,” Lilian said sternly.
Andriy looked at him and Lilian turned forward, looking as if he did this every day.
“Lili,” Giuly said, looking at them via the rearview mirror. “You would’ve been fine.”
“You don’t know that,” Lilian said sharply. He drew a deep breath, looking down, and then put his head back as he pulled his coat up a little higher on Andriy. When Andriy moved his own head onto Lilian’s shoulder, Lilian merely shifted that shoulder to support Andriy better. “And I do not care to find out for myself. You cannot have it all your way, Ludo.”
Giuly laughed again, and moved so he was no longer visible in the rearview mirror. “Oh, Lilian. I’m still leaving. It’s too much—Domenech and then the flics. You can’t have it all go down for me. It’s better this way.”
“This way. When you do not go off and…when you have the decency to look us in the eye, and tell us goodbye and—” Lilian breathed sharply; his shoulder shook under Andriy’s head “—and allow us to do the same. This way. This is the way, Ludo. Not on your own. We came together, we will go together, even if it’s to separation. Do you see?”
The car sped up as they hit the ramp to the freeway. Giuly cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was curiously heavy. “Lilian, I do love you. And you will be fine. You’ve just shown that.”
Lilian didn’t reply, but he relaxed a little. After a moment, he began to hum, and then to lisp very quietly the words to some French song. Too softly for Andriy to make out the meaning, but the tune was unmistakably a lullaby. Andriy sighed at the absurdity of it and closed his eyes.
* * *
So to what do I owe the honor—
You lunatic. Are you really trying to kill yourself? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you think this’ll impress me? I’m not—I am not that twisted!
Actually, I was going to kill somebody else and then see what happened.
So yes. So you are that crazy. You’re so crazy you don’t even—look, this is just going to make me roll my eyes and figure I was right to leave.
Deco, it’s not about you. I let you leave, remember?
Bullshit. You wouldn’t be doing this if I was still there. And don’t try to make nice now by calling me my name.
Deco. My organization is under a lot of pressure right now because of personal grudges of mine that have gotten out of control. I’m trying to make amends, and ensure that what I’ve built will last.
And be a martyr, and die because you can’t deal with the fact that I dumped you. You know, I might be a mess but I’m not that bad. And you know what else? This isn’t going to make me happy.
Well, obviously. You never liked it when Lehmann trapped you into something. Speaking of, this should deal—
Ludo. Listen to me. I don’t give a damn about Lehmann now. He called me but he can’t do anything to me that I haven’t already done to myself. And I don’t give a damn about your men. I just—you goddamn crazy shit, this won’t make me happy! This will just make me wish I’d punched you as a farewell. I didn’t fucking leave for you to—to fucking kill yourself.
Then what did you leave for?
So I could—oh, for God’s sake. Ludo, I woke up one day and I was fucking sick of my work, but I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t know how to be anything else. I was losing my mind and I didn’t feel like there being two crazy people, so I left. And I had a gunshot wound. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t like what I was doing anywhere near that much, except for—you, all right? Except for you, and I didn’t want to see you die either. I thought if I wasn’t around, then it’d be okay. But it’s not, because I’m calling you and telling you if you do this, I will come to your funeral and spit on your coffin. Spit on it and kick it and—
Anderson, I had no idea you were so fond of me.
…oh, you did. You did. That’s why you let me go. That’s why I hate you, you bastard. I don’t even know how to be—be fond of someone. It’s not how I’m made. I am losing my mind, and it’s all your fault, and if you think you can get out of that by dying, you’re wrong.
That wasn’t actually the idea, but you make a good point. All right, I’ll call it off and come to London.
What? No! Don’t come here—how the hell did you know—did Lehmann tell you? That motherfucking—
Love you too, Anderson.
* * *
Robin came into the hall so quickly that his socked feet skidded over the tile. He steadied himself, then began to say something. But he saw Jens was on the phone, and waited till Jens had finished the call. “So you called Kahn after all? I thought Philippe found him.”
“It was getting late and I hadn’t heard from Senderos yet, and talking to Oliver is not as bad as dealing with the fallout from him getting shot by Giuly,” Jens said.
Making a face, Robin scratched at the back of his neck as he edged closer. He looked tired, with dark bags under his eyes and a grayish tinge to the skin around his mouth. “You mad?” he asked after a moment. He tentatively flipped at Jens’ tie, then sighed and stood back. “Look, I’m too tired to figure out if you are or not. So—”
“He took it rather well. I’m surprised…he even let slip that he was regretting that he’d gotten involved with Domenech. He was talking about it being another sign he should retire and spend more time with his child.” Jens put his hands on Robin’s waist and pulled in the other man, then frowned and pressed again at the tops of Robin’s hipbones. They felt a bit sharp. “I think he might have been serious. He was sober, at least.”
Robin was silent. He picked at Jens’ tie, then took out its stickpin and began to undo its knot. “You wanna fuck?”
“I think I’d risk making my parents’ comments about your ability to ‘bear’ me come true. You haven’t eaten since you got back, have you,” Jens said dryly. When Robin tried to hit him, Jens jerked the other man close to weaken the blow and heard Robin’s breath hitch, though up close Robin’s fatigue was even more obvious. “Robin, eventually we’re going to run out of ways for me to throw you over a counter, and then you’re going to be bored.”
The tie pulled at the back of Jens’ neck, then went slack as Robin let go of it, leaning back to frown at Jens. His gaze flicked over Jens’ face a few times before Robin snorted disbelievingly. “What…what the hell is this? Just how weird was Kahn?”
“It’s not Kahn. For once. It’s having to do this over and over again, and…I’m getting tired, Robin. I’ve been doing this a long time and while I don’t expect to quit right now, I also never planned to do this forever. At some point I’d like to tell the board to fuck off, take my retirement funds, and be a law-abiding citizen with law-abiding hobbies.” Jens loosened his grip on Robin’s waist and his hands slid a bit to rest on Robin’s hips. “Be boring, basically.”
The corner of Robin’s mouth turned up, then straightened as he slowly took it in. Then it quirked up again, and he turned his head so he was looking sideways at Jens. “God, you love me but you’re still a bastard. Jens, you asshole, if it was about the kinky sex I wouldn’t lose my fucking mind every time I think you’re—” Robin’s voice shivered a bit “—dead. I mean, I walk into the bathroom to see you lining up the toothbrushes just so, and I…I just…it’s so goddamn anal of you but I love watching you do that. You’re so messed up in there, under all your nice clothes and nice manners.”
He tapped Jens on the temple and Jens grabbed that hand, then pulled it down rather gently for them. “I knew you were moving the brushes around on purpose.”
Robin laughed at him, long and jittery, and then settled with his hand on Jens’ shoulder and his eyes almost feverishly lit. “Besides, you can’t be boring. It’d break something in you. Retire…okay, you know, I wouldn’t mind getting to have you for a whole night for once, and not be always keeping an ear out for your phone or PDA. But boring? You’re never boring.”
Jens ran his hands up and down Robin’s back once, and then a second time with just his left hand. He put his right against the side of Robin’s throat, then moved it to cup Robin’s jaw.
Robin’s lashes fluttered, then lowered as he closed his eyes. He turned his face into Jens’ hand, dipping his head and nuzzling the center of Jens’ palm with his mouth, quiet and affectionate. Then his mouth curved in a grin, and he nipped at Jens’ thumb, looking with mock-coyness up through his lashes. “Look, you’re not getting rid of me.”
“I know,” Jens said. He put his other hand up against the other side of Robin’s face, tipping it back so it was straight, and then he bent his head.
After the first shivering touch, when it’d begun to warm and tingle, Robin threw his arms around Jens’ neck. He locked them, then pulled them down onto Jens’ shoulders, bending his back so he could meld his lips fully with Jens. His sweat-pants slid down his too-sharp hips, letting Jens round the bare skin of the tops with his fingers, and then Robin twisted himself so the cloth slipped further. He stepped out of the sweat-pants, fingers surprisingly nimble on Jens’ cuff-links and buttons and all the other fastenings.
“Not that the fucking’s not damn good,” Robin murmured, just before biting Jens’ neck, dangerously close to where a shirt-collar wouldn’t cover. He made an amused, aroused noise as Jens pushed him back against the wall, turning his right knee out so he could spread his feet to either side of Jens.
By now they kept a tube of something oily in every room. Jens had no idea what this particular stuff was, but it served its purpose well enough, for all that he hurried and had to pause half-in Robin to wait for the other man to stop clenching. He could’ve forced it—any other time, he would’ve—but right now he didn’t want to. He just put his head against Robin’s shoulder, pressing his mouth against the thin cotton shirt Robin wore till it was wet, till Robin’s gasps slowed and his body relaxed and Jens could have things make themselves fit instead of having to put in that effort. Just—all he had to do was roll his hips forward, measuring the distance by the clutching of Robin’s hands on his back, the way the pulse in Robin’s throat leaped against his mouth. And then settle back on his heels, and then again and again, till he breathed out with every sinew of himself and buried his face in Robin’s neck till he could breathe in again.
“About time you came home,” Robin said a little bit later, his feet newly on the floor, needing Jens to steady him. He slotted himself comfortably against Jens’ side, voice already sleepy. “C’mon. Stop making me think you’re crazier than usual and put me to bed.”
“You’re all right.” Jens slipped his arm around Robin’s waist. “Good,” he said, and took them towards the bedroom.
***