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Miss Pauling adjusted the mirror for the fifth time, distracted frown creasing her high forehead under the wispy flyaway hair from her bun. Every single time she let anyone else drive the faux delivery van they used to haul away really large piles of corpses, they did something bizarre to the mirror and it took several minutes to get it back to the right angle. Every single goddamn time.
She blamed it on the fact that they were all so goddamn tall.
For a moment, the mirror reflected the mercenaries sitting on the bench seats that lined the truck’s bed. The whole thing had not been her idea—in fact, she’d had one of her rare arguments with the Administrator when the trip was suggested, and been overridden with a single phrase: they’re your fuckups. You keep ‘em out of trouble.
With a labored sigh, Miss Pauling turned in her chair. “Let me make myself abundantly clear. You will not, cannot attract the attention of law enforcement while we are in Vegas. You will not, cannot attract the attention of organized crime while we are in Vegas. If I discover that any man has taken a temporary contract during the week of our stay, I will terminate him with extreme prejudice.”
The last part, though they did not know it, was impossible. The company would terminate her with extreme prejudice if she tried, though the words were such a relief to say that she couldn’t quite help herself. She’d been scrambling about cleaning up their messes for years, pulling on clothes in the middle of the night to jump on her scooter with a corpse kit before local law enforcement were called, bailing them out, killing witnesses to the deadly combination of carelessness and violence the mercenaries called work. Just once—once—she wanted them to know how very frustrating it had been.
The next few days were going to be hellish. She was sure of it.
The back of the truck was silent for a moment, but only for a moment. The Demo’s raspberry didn’t surprise her in the slightest. It didn’t offend her, either—the boisterous Scot was, despite his reluctance to obey directions, more than capable of controlling himself. His companion, the Soldier, worried her. After a brief, disinterested look, the Soldier went back to staring at something on the floor between his feet and the Scout. The rest of the mercenaries grumbled, or hissed, or simply ignored her as the Soldier had. With an irritated sigh, Miss Pauling turned back to the wheel and started the truck, wrestling it through the gears with a mechanical growl as she pulled out of the concealed gully onto a highway crowned by pale grey sky.
The trip was going to end in her having to bail them out. She was sure of it. With a tremendous frown, she turned her attention to the dusty, two lane highway as it cut through sand and rock toward Vegas.
Leaned over the jolting floor of the truck, the Soldier frowned at the cards fanned across it by the Scout. “So what you’re saying, soldier, is that it has to add up to 21?”
At the Scout’s wildly exasperated nods, the Soldier continued. “Just 21? Nothing else?”
“Oh my freaking god,” the Scout bellowed, smacking himself in the forehead with both palms. Turning toward the Demo, he added, “Can you get through to him?”
A bump on the highway scattered the cards and sent the Scout clambering all over the back of the truck to gather them, sprawling and climbing over the mercenaries to reclaim his deck. The Soldier looked over at the Demo from under the brim of his Fedora with a faintly pleased expression that faded into a question.
The Demo stared at the Soldier’s expression. I cannae’r tell, he thought, if yeh know or yeh don’t. Do yeh? Do yeh know what yeh sound like? After a moment, the Demo gave him a smile, a wry twist of the lips. “Donnae worry about it. I’ll help yeh.”
He didn’t mean to like the man, much less to so often end up taking care of him one way or the other. Anyone you had to explain a simple card game to multiple times was typically too much maintenance for him, and the convention in Vegas they’d successfully petitioned to attend as part of their leave was going to mean trouble one way or the other.
The Soldier beamed at him.
But the man was so hard to dislike. The Demo shifted on the uncomfortable bench seat, staring between the shoulders of the Scout and Pyro next to him. The Soldier was infectiously excited about life. Everything occasioned comment, his laugh as explosive as the rockets he fired on the field. He was never half-hearted—not his performance on the field or anything he did during leave. It was hard to stay mad at someone who was that enthusiastic about seeing you, someone who managed to drag you into having fun no matter how you felt when they started.
The Demo would be the first to admit he was a bit moody sometimes, and that the tight conditions they lived under put him right out on a regular basis. Somehow, the Soldier managed to drag him right out of even the deepest funk. For an apparent idiot, the Soldier had the most suspiciously excellent timing.
The Soldier leaned back against the metal shell of the truck, tilting his hat over his eyes, and napped. After a few hours of half-hearted conversation, the Demo joined him, the steady drone of the road a lullaby he could not resist as the miles ticked down. Both woke as the truck stopped with a squeal and a jolting bounce from the overtaxed springs, engine stuttering to silence.
“Must be there,” the Soldier said, hands slapping down against his knees before he stood, stooped, and yanked on the door handles.
The Demo could hear Miss Pauling swearing through the truck walls and pulled the Soldier back, letting her open the doors.
“Soldier,” she said, voice already tired, “you could have waited.”
The Soldier jumped out of the back, knees flexing to take the small shock. “I could have,” he agreed, neck craning to see around the edge of the truck doors, “but it would have meant waiting.”
Miss Pauling spun on a heel and stomped away, muttering to herself.
The Demo crawled out of the truck, pushing past the Soldier to look at the eye-watering profusion of lights around him as he stretched. Vegas was everything he expected—bright, overcrowded, and irresistibly gaudy. The press of the crowds on the sidewalks, weaving in and out of the casinos, was oddly exhilarating, despite the fact that he didn’t like crowds. It was almost too easy to be invisible in the thousands of people drinking, singing, staggering, vomiting and spending far too much money under the shrill songs of the machines. Even the badly recorded swing of Frank Sinatra tinnly celebrating the love of lady luck didn’t annoy him as much as he thought it would.
The Soldier wrapped a hand around his arm, tugging, and broke the Demo’s reverie. They walked into the lobby together, ignoring the glares from tourist and staff alike at their linked arms. The Soldier started whistling as they walked, carrying the tune of “Viva Los Vegas” like water in a sieve, notes tumbling and trembling horribly.
While Miss Pauling talked to the concierge, both men wandered over to the convention sign-in table, snagging name tags under the names Smith and Jones with a snigger that struck the attendant as oddly sinister. The Soldier saluted the attendant’s stupefied face with a crooked grin before being dragged off by the Demo to wrestle their suitcases to the elevator.
Miss Pauling had put them in adjoining rooms, unequivocally nominating the Demo as the Soldier’s nanny for the Vegas trip. He’d expected it. The woman probably had her hands full making sure the Pyro didn’t have one of his little episodes during the trip. The boy could get his hands on matches and lighter fluid in the most unlikely of circumstances and the flashing lights and crowds were almost guaranteed to make him anxious enough to think a fire in his hotel bathroom would be soothing.
The Demo just wished looking after the Soldier didn’t mean making sure the man didn’t manage to get them kicked out of the hotel or the convention, something quite likely to occur without someone following the Soldier about and preventing fights and explosions. The Demo hung his bag in the suite closet with a sigh and unzipped it, checking the line of his suits for wrinkles. A thud and fading squeal made him turn as the Soldier flopped down on the bed in the Demo’s suite.
“Convention doesn’t start ‘till tomorrow.” The Soldier jerked a thumb toward the door. “Let’s go. Pretty sure Sun Tzu said the best way to wind down involves making lots of girl friends.”
The Demo didn’t have the heart to see if the man knew what kind of girls he’d be making friends with. Besides, there was a glitter in the Soldier’s eye that promised a damn interesting night.
<<<< ---- >>>>
Out of the desire to survive the night—the look in Miss Pauling’s eyes had promised painful, potentially slow death if they were arrested or kicked out of their hotel—the Demo and Soldier walked several casinos away from their own to start drinking, both men in what they considered to be protective coloring: Hawaiian shirts and slacks. A SWAT team couldn’t part either man from their boots, however, and the contrast between bright print, light cotton, and battered, steel-capped leather drew a few wary glances from the bartender and waitresses. The Soldier flopped across the bar, resting his chin on his elbows and waiting for the bartender to make his way over. The Demo, more careful, sat gently down on a bar stool.
With a grunt and an out-thrust chin, the bartender silently asked what they wanted. The Soldier ordered for them both, the same order they always started their nights out with: a shot of whiskey and a beer. Finally settling on a bar stool, the Soldier turned toward the room, elbows on the bar and scanning for a fight or the right kind of woman. Neither took him long to find. A small table of men in the corner of the bar eyed them both with a generic malice that spoke more loudly than words of violent emotion that needed an outlet, and two extremely well-dressed and made-up women smiled at him from the other end of the bar, one waving her fingertips coyly at him as he smiled back.
The Soldier leaned toward the Demo, already exchanging glances with the table of belligerent men in the corner. “What do you think,” he said, plotting the arc of his hefty beer mug across the face of the closest man, “fight or fuck first?”
The Demo took a swig of his beer, considering. The alcohol opened a languid flower of heat in his chest. “I dunnae feel like fightin yet,” he drawled. “If it comes ta it, yea. But I want ta get quite pissed first.”
With a grumble, the Soldier turned back around and applied himself to his beer. Both watched the table of men out of the corner of their eye, the Soldier collecting a small herd of beer steins that he refused to let the bartender collect as weapons, and the Demo idly wondering if the bartender had a friend beneath the counter or if he merely relied on the casino security. The bartender seemed like the cautious type, and sensing the tension between the groups of men, had drifted toward what was probably a bat or cosh hidden under the edge of the counter.
When one of the women tapped the Demo on the shoulder, he jumped then cursed himself for not paying attention to anything else in the room.
“Hey, Honey,” she purred. “My friend and I were wondering if you two would like company.”
The Demo eyed her while she waited patiently, a small but smug smile on her face. Professional, he thought. A lush pout beneath the dark chocolate of her hair, the tuck of her waist broadening sinuously, one manicured hand resting on the curve of a hip, her high hemline exposing the hint of stockings where they bit gently into the soft skin of her thighs and the wickedly high points of her heels—expensive, he thought, and probably worth it.
He elbowed the Soldier, who turned, tense and primed to fight. “I dunnae think we’d mind keeping yeh company, lass.”
The Soldier deflated and left his collection of impromptu weapons reluctantly, but quickly brightened when the other professional, a small blonde, plunked herself down unceremoniously on his lap and asked him to tell her stories with a giggle that the Demo was entirely sure was fake. It was also charming, and the Soldier launched into a familiar round of stories without so much as a polite protest. The blonde stroked his chest as he talked.
The Demo took a swig of his beer and nearly spit it out as the brunette’s hand crept up the inside of his thigh. With a heavy swallow, he turned to say something to her, and was stopped by the expression of sly humor on her face.
“Well,” she said, lips quirking. “I know you made me early. I’m just checking to see that you are what you seem like. Am I gonna find a badge or a wire if I go exploring?”
The Demo cleared his throat repeatedly, a flush climbing his cheeks as he tried to decide whether to be offended. Her fingers stroked deftly up and down both thighs, wandered briefly across his torso, then went back to exploring the painfully tight seam of his slacks. When he glanced about, wondering why no one had kicked them out, the bartender merely shrugged and went back to chopping lemons for the bar.
“You seem,” the brunette said, watching him squirm for control, “like two men on leave from the military. Attending a convention at one of the hotels or just burning off some steam?”
“Yeh might….” The Demo cleared his throat again, blood pooling with a tingling rush under her skillful fingers. “Yeh might say that.”
“Is that so,” she said, voice trembling on the edge of a laugh as she watched him fight for composure. “And you’re looking for a good time?”
The Demo’s eye closed. He heard a chuckle and opened it to glare at the Soldier, whose flushed cheeks told him that the blonde, whatever else she appeared to be doing, was working a similar magic on him.
The Soldier raised a conciliatory hand at the embarrassed irritation on the Demo’s face. “No offense, scot. You look distracted.”
The blonde wriggled and the Soldier took a deep breath, mouth closing with an audible clack.
“So,” the brunette said, voice deepening, “did you boys have a room here?”
“No,” the Soldier said, his hips moving once against the blonde before he stopped them. “But we can get them.”
The blonde spoke, her voice as professionally perky as the Demo had expected it to be. “Boys, we do have a little… proviso.”
“I know,” the Demo said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Well that, too, Lover,” said the brunette. “But I meant that we work together. For safety.”
The Demo blinked, startled, and looked over at the Soldier, who shrugged at him.
“I don’t care,” the Soldier said. “Do you?”
The Demo took a breath to tell them it was off, to protest the oddness of fucking someone next to a teammate, but the brunette’s fingers twitched, then rubbed a long, slow, lingering line down his painfully swollen cock.
“You weren’t going to say no, were you, Lover?” A carefully manicured eyebrow arched over her dark eyes. “Trust me, it’s worth your while.”
The Demo took a lingering breath, preparing to say no again, but the Soldier spoke for him. “The scot’s a little shy, but he’ll get along fine.”
The Demo glared at him, into the infectious grin and the dare dancing in the Soldier’s eyes. He could almost hear the man calling him a coward, telling the women what a bashful boy he was, and his drunken warmth tipped over into the need to prove something, to make the Soldier swallow the shit-eating grin under his often-broken nose. Dare meh, will yeh, he snarled silently. We’ll see aboot that, won’t weh?
“Yeh get tha room,” he told the Soldier, whose grin widened again. “I’ll make arrangements with our friends.”
The Soldier bussed the blonde in his lap lingeringly, then ambled off toward the concierge still grinning.
“Right,” the Demo said. “I dunnae know if he realizes yeh are pros, so I’ll handle tha arrangements.”
“Sure,” said the brunette, sliding her hand away from him and sitting back up, business flattening her voice from its playful purr. “Going rate is eighty for straight up, a hundred and twenty for a girl show, and two hundred for anal. Per girl.”
The Demo peeled six hundred out of the massive wad in his wallet without a flinch and handed it over, watching the brunette mentally weigh his wallet and re-evaluate the evening. “Just… do meh a favor and make tha other fella happy, yea? He’s pretty simple, but he gets a bit… tetchy sometimes. I dunnae know what he likes, either, so I cannae help yeh figure it out.”
The brunette tucked the wad of bills into a sleek purse, briefly flashing the hot pink edge of a bottle of lube. The Demo’s estimate of her increased—preparation, he thought. Yeh cannae beat a woman who comes prepared.
“A challenge,” she said, tapping a short red nail against the laminate of the table. “And how about you, sugar? What do you like?”
The Demo shrugged. “Isnae complicated fer meh.”
She leaned forward, her breath feathering his face. “Why don’t we see,” she said, eyes ticking up and down his face to catch his expression, “if we can make it a little complicated?”
<<<< ---- >>>>
The clerk glared as they escorted the women up the sweeping stairs that lead to the rooms. The brunette blew him a mocking kiss, wriggling her ass as she crossed the lobby. Catching the Demo staring at her, she spoke, her eyes steely.
“The staff hates us, but we increase their business and we don’t make trouble. The manager lets us stay no matter how they feel about it.” She reached for the Demo’s arm and he obligingly hooked it for her. “Besides, darling, we’re good company.”
Ahead of him, the Soldier wrapped a meaty arm around the blonde’s shoulders and she leaned into him, matching his carelessly long stride despite her heels.
The room they’d rented was on the third floor. The Demo realized his hands were sweating by the time they reached the elevator, and by the time the Soldier fumbled the key in the lock, the Demo’s hand was shaking. He’d spent time with professionals before—they were the best answer to his needs—but he’d always been private about it. He’d never bragged, never told stories, and aside from a few jokes about women, didn’t discuss this part of his life at all. Less embarrassment than simple reticence on his part, he’d tried to stay aloof from the inevitable conversations about sex around the base. He wasn’t sure if it was habit or simply the way he’d grown up, keeping parts of his life separate from others. Somewhere in his head, a small part of him threw up its hands in exasperation. The Soldier had done it again, had dragged him into something he’d never done with a charm that seemed one part sneaky and entirely thoughtless. He closed the door behind them all with an ominous click.
The Soldier plunked down on the bed and the blonde hiked her skirt up to straddle his lap. Over her shoulder, the Soldier turned his head to look at the Demo. “Don’t get shy now, scot, or you’ll be watching when you’d rather be doing.”
Slowly, hesitantly, the Demo walked toward the bed and took the chair the brunette pulled out for him. That glitter was back in the Soldier’s eye, the dare and a satisfaction that made the Demo wonder again if the man realized how he seemed, what effect he had on others. The Soldier turned back to the blonde waiting patiently on his lap, cuddling her into him, and kissed her.
Behind the Demo, the brunette reached forward gently, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Tell you what, sugar. Why don’t I just try to get some of those knots out of your shoulders while your friend has fun.”
When he didn’t pull away, her fingers probed his tight shoulders, finding the paired knots between his shoulder blades and coaxing them in tight circles. Despite himself, his tension started to fade with a gusty sigh. The brunette gave a satisfied grunt and pushed him forward slightly, kicking off her heels for better leverage. The Demo obliged, resting chin and elbows on his knees to let her keep finding the knots.
On the bed, the blonde deftly unbuttoned the Soldier’s shirt and laid it back, exposing the broad planes of his chest and tracing the scars with a finger. “You must have had a rough tour,” she said, following the zig-zag of one scar from just below his nipple through the sparse brown hair on his chest and to the small folds at his waist.
“Something like that,” the Soldier agreed, distracted, and scooted them both back. When the blonde reached behind herself, he took the zipper from her and peeled the top of her dress down, exposing the pale pink satin of her bra.
“What can I do for you, big guy,” the blonde said, pulling the dress over her head.
The Soldier buried his head between her breasts instead of answering and inhaled gustily. When his head raised again, his voice had deepened. “How you doin’ over there, scot?”
The blonde’s hand disappeared and the Soldier made a querulous noise, somewhere between a grunt and surprise. He captured her wrist, waggling a finger at her.
“Ah-ah, not yet. You know what I want, sugar? I want you to go help your friend relax my friend.”
The Demo blinked, the flush climbing back up his face as the blonde crawled off the bed with a shrug and stood in front of him.
“How about it, scot,” she said, a studied writhe dragging his eyes from her face down to the curve of her hips. “How can I help you relax?”
Behind him, the brunette spoke. “He’s a tense man, this one, but he’s coming along.”
When the Demo sat up, she leaned back, draping her hands over his shoulders to press her breasts against the back of his neck. He rolled his shoulders, finding that the brunette had found and soothed many of the aches that plagued him.
“How about,” the blonde said, her voice echoing the brunette, “we see where else we can rub him?”
The Demo sat back, letting her slide onto his lap and deftly unbutton his shirt. Over her shoulder, the Soldier lay on the bed, head propped up by his arms. When he saw the Demo looking at him, the Soldier nodded, expression suddenly both permission and something oddly like need.
It was the pleading that did it, the Soldier’s vulnerability tipping the Demo’s habitual reluctance into a surreal eagerness to see what the night held. The Demo let the women finish undressing him, their fingers dancing gracefully through the buttons and zippers that held his clothing together. They parted him from his beloved boots without so much as a complaint, leaving him naked and slightly cold. When the women tugged him toward the bed, the Soldier stood and took his place in the chair silently, his silence making the whole thing seem dreamlike.
The Demo watched the brunette step out of her dress, the black scallops of her bra stark against her pale skin. He nearly jumped when the blonde exhaled against the inside of his thigh, a moist heat that turned him toward her. She winked.
He sighed as she took him in her mouth, the silky texture at the back of her palate drawing the breath from him as the brunette sat down beside him and captured his lips with hers. The Demo reached out, working his fingers into her bra with his eyes closed to find the stiff peak of her nipple.
When the brunette pulled back, he turned his head to find the Soldier, to see what the man was doing. The expression on the Soldier’s face was hungry, a great, naked need that lit his entire face. He stayed in the chair, but his whole body yearned toward them, weight shifted onto the balls of his feet and breath short.
They stared at each other, the Soldier and the Demo, until the surge of tingling heat running through the Demo broke his gaze and sent his eye rolling into the back of his head. The Demo made a choked sound, the blonde’s mouth and hand skillfully milking him of the last drops and placing him gently down against his own thigh. He realized the brunette was laying beside him, the underwire of her bra poking one of his ribs. As the blonde sat back, he reached around the brunette and unhooked her bra, freeing her breasts with a heavy bounce. She wriggled out of her panties without comment, both women sensing the mood.
The condom the brunette rolled onto him with her mouth was a tight fit. With a gesture, he pulled her up toward his face, settling her thighs on either side of his head. There was a faint gasp somewhere behind her and the Demo wondered what the Soldier was doing, what the blonde was doing to him, and then he opened his mouth, fingers cupping the globes of her ass.
The Demo’s tongue moved skillfully, but his attention was focused on the great void of sound behind the brunette. He jumped slightly when he heard the gasp again, accompanied by a familiar, wet sound. The brunette growled over his head and he turned his attention back to her, finally wringing a moan from her and a flood of wetness that dribbled slowly off his chin. When he let her swing a thigh over his head and crawl down his body, his eye arrowed toward the chair at the end of the bed.
The Soldier had buried himself in the blonde, her thighs hooked tightly over his knees as she bounced. His fingers were pale on her waist, digging tightly into the flesh, but his eyes were on the Demo, the same pleading in them intensified with the flush climbing his face.
The brunette looked between them and chuckled. A moment later, the blonde giggled as well, drawing an embarrassed blush from both Demo and Soldier. The Soldier growled and came up hard, bouncing a loud moan from the blonde and breaking her giggle.
The brunette turned toward the Demo. “Tell you what, sugar. Why don’t you sit up a little? I’ll face away from you.” She didn’t say anything else, but they could all hear her add so you can see him, the words floating in the air between them, heavy.
The Demo’s eyebrows met, anger flashing in him like heat lightning, and he turned to tell her he wasn’t gay, that they weren’t gay, but she simply shrugged, her expression neither mocking nor surprised.
“Maybe,” she said, “I’d like to watch my friend.”
He knew she was giving him an excuse. When he sat up, she slid down on him, her breath escaping as she wriggled, then leaned forward to dig her fingers into the mattress. The Demo gripped her hips from habit, his eyes sliding back to the expression of anguished need on the Soldier’s face and the satisfaction on it.
It took seconds for them to be moving in tandem, bodies echoing each other with a familiarity born on the battlefield, eyes still locked over the women’s shoulders. The dare was gone from the Soldier’s expression and had left behind a strange honesty. The Demo could not tear his eyes from it, from the nakedness of the Soldier’s face, from the way the Soldier searched his face over and over, looking for something he did not know how to give. Emotion, raw and drowning, the warmth of the body next to him on the truck, the way the man simply filled the space between them both, the way he could sense the Soldier as rockets and bullets flew around him, a soundless explosion behind his eyes and he came with a guttural sound that ripped itself from him and was echoed.
The Demo shook himself as the brunette pulled herself off him, heart hammering at the cage of his ribs.
“They say,” she panted, sweat-slick and prostrate on the bed, “that you get close out there.”
The blonde stood and leaned against the wall, chest heaving. “I’ll say.”
The Soldier leaned forward, resting his forehead on his crossed arms for a moment. The Demo let himself fall back against the headboard, still studying the man as they waited for their hearts and breath to slow.
The silence grew heavier and heavier as the harsh, ragged sound of their breath wore down. The Demo had no idea what to say, what there was to say. The emotions stayed with him, and behind them a question that he had no idea how to ask.
“Ladies,” the Soldier said, his voice muffled by his arms, “we appreciate the company but you should go.”
The Demo watched irritation cross the brunette’s face before the blonde took her arm. “Let’s leave these gents alone,” she said, patting her buddy. “They have some things they obviously need to talk about.”
The brunette let her friend escort her from the room, a slam of the door turning into a quiet snick as the blonde stuck her hand out. When they had left, the Soldier looked up, eyes once again searching the Demo’s face.
The Demo didn’t know what he saw, but his expression hardened.
“Let’s go finish getting drunk,” the Soldier growled.
The Demo dressed without a word and followed the Soldier out, matching him drink for drink until they both staggered back to the hotel, falling into their lonely beds without a word.
<<<< ---- >>>>
The Demo woke first, blinking at the harsh morning light streaming through his crooked blinds. The previous night clamored for attention, and anger scalded him out of bed, propelling him into the Soldier’s room with a snarl. He stopped abruptly at the door, the Soldier’s naked ass pale against the maroon comforter.
“I… uh...” The Demo realized his fingers were wrapped tightly around the door frame.
The Soldier turned over, cranking an eye open. “What do you want, scot,” he grumbled. “What’re you waking me up for?”
The view from the front was just as bad—the Demo realized he was following the dark trail of hair that arrowed down the Soldier’s stomach to the tangled profusion that utterly failed to cover—he jerked his eyes away.
“Uh….”
“Spit it out, scot.” The edge in the Soldier’s voice cut the air and startled a flinch from the Demo. “Get it over with, babysitter.”
The word hung between them before lighting a fire between the Demo’s ears. “Yeh do know! Yeh utter bastard.” He stepped into the room, fists balled and shoulders vibrating with tension. “I’ve been covering up fer yeh fer years and yeh ken what yehr doin.”
The Soldier looked him up and down with studied insolence, before his tension dissolved in humor. His crooked smile wrenching at something in the Demo’s chest. “Let’s call it my little joke, scot.”
The Demo realized he was standing at the edge of the bed, looming over the Soldier. It was an insult, the way the man had simply relaxed, as if the Demo couldn’t… as if he couldn’t….
The Soldier said nothing, his infuriating smile simply there and filling the space between them the way the rest of his body did, somehow all the larger for its nudity.
The Demo flung himself out of the room, tripping and falling in his haste. He was standing on the edge of something, right on the razor-thin edge of something dangerous and if he didn’t leave then he would…
He didn’t know.
He did know.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
<<<< ---- >>>>
The Soldier emerged from his room an hour later—shaved, showered, and seemingly as ignorant of the world as he had ever been. The Demo followed him out of habit into the convention hall. Now that he knew it was a joke, he could see the small breaks in the Soldier’s act.
Furrowed eyebrows at a gun control protester became a goofy smile and clumsiness that sent the Soldier crashing into the protester. A sly comment by the Spy was revenged an hour later as the Soldier tripped a convention attendee into the man, sending his precious coffee down the Spy’s expensively tailored shirt. The Soldier, seeing the Demo watching him, flashed the Spy’s wallet, sent flying with the Spy’s coffee. A moment later, a loudly confused Soldier accosted the Spy with it, asking how his wallet could have gotten into a potted plant in the first place.
As the Spy turned away, swearing sulfurously, the Soldier held a calloused finger to his mouth, making eye contact with the giggling Demo.
His giggles slowed, the pale sliver of the Soldier’s eyes magnetic where they lay shadowed in mirth. As the Soldier’s face relaxed, the strange pleading returned and was buried quickly, the Soldier turning to duck through a doorway and into the drone of a talk.
The Demo opened his mouth, then shut it again. The warmth of his amusement faded, and beneath it lay something else, a whisper that teased the edge of his hearing. How could he not have known? How could he not have seen it before, that teasing and the heat that lay beneath it?
This was his friend. His friend. This was the man he’d come to know, and it was not, this hungry stranger who had replaced laughter with something more serious.
Who was this man?
After a moment, he followed the Soldier into the talk, taking the empty chair beside him.
Their shoulders brushed as he sat, sending a tingle that ricocheted madly and maddeningly inside the Demo. He leaned away, a social reflex, and the Soldier took a small breath that sounded like disappointment. On impulse, the Demo leaned back, the Soldier’s warmth trembling on the skin of his shoulders.
The talk washed over him, murmuring waves and eddies of meaningless sound. The Soldier’s breath echoed, the wash of it in brushing their skin together beneath the cotton of their shirts and away as it came out. The Demo stared fixedly forward, thoughts flooding through him.
His friend. His friend who made him laugh. His friend. The Soldier’s long joke, joke that he knew nothing, that he saw nothing, the man who saw him every time depression threatened to drown him.
When the Soldier grabbed his hand, eyes still fixed on the speaker, the Demo realized his hands were shaking. The Soldier squeezed, then let go lingeringly, fingers dragging rough along the Demo’s skin, which rang and reverberated. When the Demo turned to look at the Soldier, he was still staring at the speaker. But his cheeks were flushed again, the Soldier’s eyes slightly glossy, his breath just a little too high.
This man I take care of, the Demo thought, stunned. This man who takes care of me.
When the talk finished, he stood. After a moment, the Soldier stood, looking anywhere but at the Demo. The hall was mostly empty before the Demo spoke.
“I need ta talk to yeh,” he said, surprising himself at the steadiness of his voice. “Lunch?”
The Soldier followed him out without a word. When the Demo selected a booth for them both, the Soldier sat down, uncharacteristically docile.
“Look at meh,” the Demo whispered when the waitress left them to get their coffees. “Please.”
The look the Soldier finally aimed at him was miserable, then angry, then miserable again. He turned away to stare out the window, his fists balled in his lap.
They stayed that way until the waitress came back, pulling on something like normality long enough to order before the Soldier returned to staring out the window at the Strip, its night-time glory made tawdry by daylight.
The Demo picked at his food, then paid the bill. The Soldier, after a single desultory poke at the burger, ate nothing.
Crossing the street back to their hotel, the Demo finally sorted his emotions enough to come back to anger. Grabbing the Soldier’s arm in a bruising grip, he marched the man back up to their rooms, refusing to let him tear the two of them apart. The Demo shoved the Soldier through the door hard enough to send the man staggering and turned back to the door, kicking it closed.
“What tha fuck,” he said, voice deceptively soft as he stalked across the carpet, finger extended, “do yeh want from meh?”
The Soldier flushed, then went pale, then flushed again. “Nothing, babysitter,” he growled. “Not a goddamn thing.”
"Liar,” the Demo hissed, face inches from the Soldier and flecked with sweat and spit. “Yeh lie all tha damn time, but yeh won’t lie ta meh about this.”
The Soldier’s face, brick red, twisted, and he reached for the Demo’s shirt, drawing a fist back. Quick as a snake, the Demo grabbed his wrists.
“No yeh don’t,” he growled. “Yeh want ta fight aboot this? Yeh want ta turn this in to a fight? Are yeh that much of a coward?”
Shock stilled them both, their breath feathering the scant space between them.
“Coward,” the Demo repeated, his voice soft and shattering their shock.
The Soldier lunged forward, crushing and bruising his lips against the Demo’s startled mouth. Pain shrilled through them both with the coppery taste of blood. Their arms came down together, the Demo’s hands still hard on the Soldier’s wrists. The Soldier freed his arms with a twist and wrapped them around the Demo as if trapping him there.
The kiss was an explosion, the world dissolving behind the Demo’s closed eye into a million lit fuses and a concussive flash of light that knocked his head back.
The Soldier, panting wildly, stared at him, his eyes rimmed in white. “Don’t,” he stuttered. “Don’t go.”
The Demo pulled his arms out from under the Soldier’s pinning arms. Panic shrilled in the Soldier, shaking violently as he tried to keep the Demo’s arms down. After a moment, the Soldier let his arms fall away, his head hanging down. The Demo contemplated him for a moment, his breath skittering as the Soldier sagged down onto his bed, his head in his hands.
A million fragmented thoughts—the Demo’s brain was full of bright shards, skin screaming and crawling toward the slumped figure on the bed. Friend. Not friend. The Soldier’s face as he came, the beautiful agony of it and the need that had transfixed the Demo, had matched their breath and bodies.
The Demo took a deep breath, then walked slowly to the bed. The Soldier flinched away from him, curling on himself. Gentle pressure did not raise the man’s head, and the Demo finally dug his fingers into the rigid cords of the Soldier’s neck and forced it up.
The Soldier’s face was wet, fear and despair tracing new lines from his eyes down his cheeks.
“Go ahead then,” the Soldier whispered.
A moment later, he added, voice barely audible. “I’m sorry.”
The Demo pulled him to standing, and after a moment of indecision, wrapped his arms around the startled Soldier’s waist and pulled him in until they were pressed together. The Soldier’s lower lip was split, blood still beading on the slick skin.
“Why don’t weh try,” the Demo said. “I don’t know… I mean I never….”
The Soldier sighed. “Me either.”
After a moment, the Demo saw the humor in that. His laughter, freighted by tension, startled a snort from him. The Soldier stiffened, insulted.
“Do yeh not see what a cock-up we’re making of it,” the Demo choked, arms still curled around the Soldier.
The Soldier sighed, resigned. “This was not my plan.” He eyed the chortling Demo, grin slowly spreading across his face despite his frustration. “But it is kind of funny.”
The Demo leaned forward and down to rest his forehead momentarily against the Soldier’s shoulder, a brief touch that made the Soldier want to cry. His feelings for the man were like falling off the edge of the world—a million miles from any road map he’d ever seen, and he’d been fumbling in the dark, hoping for, praying for the man to just touch him. To lean just like that, perfectly like that, against him.
Sensing his tension, the Demo looked up at the Soldier. Longing, hunger, need—and underneath that, something more than lust. The man stared at him like a life preserver and the soul of regret, and if he didn’t do something, the Soldier was either going to run downstairs and commit homicide as an outlet for his feelings or break down entirely.
The brush of his lips on the Soldier’s was at first awkward—his friend, his friend and this was not a gesture of friendship.
Then it was something else, the Soldier’s mouth opening wetly on his, tongue muscular, mouth hungry, arms flying around him as if he could press them together, into a single skin.
They were panting when the Demo forced the two of them apart.
“Do yeh,” he gasped. “Do yeh think weh should be naked fer this?”
The Soldier nearly fell over ripping the shirt off his head, a boot kicked off his feet denting the wall by the bed with a muffled crack. The Demo licked his lips and undressed more slowly. What was it that they were doing?
What came next? What did men do together?
He stepped back, evading the Soldier’s hands. “Sit down, would yeh, and let a man catch his breath.”
The Soldier threw himself at the bed, scuttling backward to sit against the headboard, fingers knotting together restlessly as the Demo finished undressing. He took a sharp breath, and then another as the Demo crawled onto the bed, then sat, knees just brushing the Soldier’s knees.
“I dunnae know if we should fuck,” he started, and the Soldier jumped, then settled back with effort.
“How about…” The Soldier licked his dry lips nervously. “How about we just kiss and see what feels good?”
The Demo leaned forward, closing the space between them and pressing his lips gently to the Soldier. The kiss was less explosion than a warm thrill that coursed through them both, flowing the rivers of their body with sparkling heat. After a moment, the Soldier leaned forward, finger hesitantly tracing the edges of the Demo’s shoulders, where they had touched during the talk. The Demo made a noise in the Soldier’s mouth and reached forward, pulling the man off balance.
They broke the kiss, and with a shrug the Soldier wrapped his legs around the Demo’s hips, letting him press their bodies together. Heat, sweat-slick, pressure against the demanding heaviness between his legs—it was natural to move his hips against the Soldier where they were pressed together, sending a shiver through them both at the friction.
“Can I…” The Soldier’s hand hovered, and when the Demo nodded, he leaned back slightly to wrap his fingers gingerly around the Demo’s cock. The Demo bit his lower lip, teeth puncturing it neatly as his head tossed back. The Soldier’s fingers tightened, then moved.
The Demo groaned, then fell back flat, leaving the Soldier to keep moving, his fingers almost perfect, almost exactly perfect. “Come up a little at tha top,” the Demo said breathlessly.
When the Soldier did, his fingers coming up at the head to brush over it at each stroke, the Demo could have cried. A tension he hadn’t realized he had carried seeped out of him, his body rushing wildly toward an orgasm. If he hadn’t grabbed the Soldier’s hand, he would have come immediately with a choked scream.
“Did yeh…” The Demo panted. “Did yeh want me ta go right there?”
The Soldier blushed. “I wanted to try to… I mean….”
The Demo lifted his arms, spreading them wide. “Have at yeh,” he said.
With a squirm and a frown of concentration, the Soldier slid down between the Demo’s legs and slid his cock into his mouth, the length of it disappearing between his split lips and parting the velvet at the back of his throat. The Demo came immediately with a bellow, his knotted fingers dragging the sheet from the mattress.
It was like nothing he’d ever felt, a drugged madness that snatched every thought from his head and poured him out into the Soldier’s mouth with a sensation that danced between pain and honey.
The Soldier sat up, watching the Demo twitch with a warm hand placed gently over his cock. “Did I do that right? That was right, right?”
The Demo sat up abruptly and pushed the Soldier flat on the bed, straddling him. The Soldier stared up, pleading, watching the Demo’s expression roll between the bright flame of hunger and an emotion too violent for words.
“I’m going ta make yeh scream,” the Demo growled, chest heaving, the Soldier’s cock throbbing once heavily where it lay trapped between them.
He glared at the blushing, trembling Soldier for a moment, racking his memories of all the professionals he’d visited, then sank down quickly and pulled the Soldier to the edge of the bed, letting his legs dangle over it.
The Demo looked at the long curve of the Soldier’s cock for a moment, jutting away from his body, and the heavy purse of his balls where they lay loose against the crack of the Soldier’s ass. Rising up on his knees, the Demo put his hands on either side of the Soldier’s hips.
He started with a tease, his breath trembling and warm, skirting but not touching the Soldier’s cock where it twitched, leaking a drop as the man started to beg. Skirting but not touching, closer by fractions of a millimeter, the Soldier starting to cry of frustration, then to small kisses that trailed up the inside of the man’s thighs and still skirted him.
The Soldier pressed both hands to his face to stifle a frustrated scream, and only then did the Demo let his lips drift over the reddened edge of the Soldier’s cock. The Soldier bellowed, his fist stuffed in his mouth, body rigid and shaking.
With a nasty smile, the Demo ran his tongue up the Soldier’s cock, the man tossing on the bed. That’ll teach yeh, he thought, fer daring meh.
When the Demo leaned forward and sucked the Soldier’s cock into his mouth, the man writhed. The Demo leaned forward, clamping his fingers in a ring around the base of the Soldier’s cock to stop him from coming.
The Soldier sat up, eyes glassy and angry.
“Not quite yet,” the Demo said, grinning up at him. “Or do yeh want ta go immediately?”
The Soldier’s eyes widened, then he giggled and lay back, arms spreading to demonstrate his abandon.
“What’re yeh laughing aboot?” The Demo’s fingers tightened.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun,” the Soldier gasped.
For that, the Demo moved his hand and let the man come, swallowing and depositing a final, gentle kiss before scooting up the bed.
They lay for a moment, looking at each other.
The Soldier reached first, but the Demo scooted in until they could lay, limbs twining together with the same ease that let them anticipate each other in battle. After a moment of squirming, the Soldier lay flat on his back, the Demo’s head on his shoulder.
He could hear the Soldier breathing, the twang of tendons in his shoulder shifting and the hollow inflation of his lungs. With his eye closed, the Demo could almost feel the man thinking, the thunder and echo of his body fading as he relaxed.
“I hoped,” the Soldier said softly. “I’d hoped.”
The Demo pressed a kiss against the Soldier’s chest. “Shhhh.”
The Soldier kissed the top of the Demo’s head and closed his eyes, breath slowing, the room reflecting the warmth of their bodies and the late afternoon sun. “It was perfect,” he whispered, slurred by exhaustion.
He could feel the Demo smiling.