Regret

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Kink: In the unlikely event that someone else ships this and wants to write it, Matthew/Legault. Er... partially inebriated one night stand?

NOTE: This was not a fill I intended on posting, especially since it's literally the first slash fic I ever wrote. And. Uh. Yeah.
(Even if I don't write smut and the focus on this is in the interaction between Matthew and Legault.)

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The tavern is a run-down place, home only to the scum and lowlifes of the city. Barmaids wearing low-cut blouses and pretentious smirks work the dimly lit room, sauntering through the flickering shadows and clouds of pipe smoke that fill the room. One of them approaches him, arms across over her chest coquettishly, and smiles flirtatiously at him.

"Hey," she says. "What's a good-looking man like you doing alone in a corner? Want some company?"

He looks at her and lifts his mug to his lips—she has a mole just below her mouth, and for a moment he wonders what it would be like to kiss it. "I'm waiting for someone."

She shrugs. "If that's what you want." She turns away from him and tosses him a careless glance over her shoulder before walking away. "I'll be here all night, if you're looking for a good time."

The mug finds its way to his lips once again as a tall, lanky figure approaches his table and takes a seat on the bench beside him. "I didn't think you were coming," Legault says as he tilts a dirty glass bottle to his lips.

"Business," Matthew replies. "That's all this is."

"Ah." Another sip. "I see." The bottle comes down again. "How about we ignore business for now and you tell me what's bothering you instead?"

Matthew chuckles. It is not a pleasant sound. "Why? I'm a pawn, remember? You are too—that's our lot in life. No one's going to give a damn about us."

Legault takes another drink from the bottle and looks at his companion out of the corner of his eye. "When did you become so depressing?" he mutters.

"Do you really want to know?" Matthew turns toward the older man, eyes bright and glittering in the dimness of the tavern. "It's hard to keep smiling when your sole purpose in life is to hunt down men and sniff out information and the only woman you've ever really loved is dead and there's nothing you could've done to help." He is panting now, but he doesn't care. "That's what it is, Legault. I'm fucking sick of smiling while everyone else gets their happily ever after and I can barely get through a day without thinking of her body on that damned island."

Legault is silent for a moment, then reaches over and gently pries they mug from Matthew's hands. "You're drunk, kid." He stands up and lifts his companion up, supporting Matthew's weight by putting the younger man's arm around his shoulder. "How much did you have, anyway?" he mutters.

Matthew doesn't reply. Perhaps it is a good thing that he doesn't.

The trip upstairs to the rooms the tavern's owner keeps aside for nighttime liaisons and his more inebriated guests is grueling; Matthew, it seems, refuses to move his own legs, and so the task falls to Legault to bring him to an unused room at the end of the hall. Finally they arrive.

Legault leaves Matthew slumped on the bed and takes a seat beside him. He closes his eyes, lost in memories from years ago (had he really been that young when he first joined the Fang?) when the sensation of rough fingers running through his hair brings him back with a jolt. "Matthew?"

"How can you stand having such long hair?" Matthew wraps a few strands around his fingers. "Doesn't it get in the way?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I'm just used to it now." He sighs. "I told you about Aesha, right? She liked my hair long, even if it the only the reason I didn't cut it was because I was too lazy to do it myself."

"Leila hated having long hair—she said it got in the way, and she said she hated how it tickled the back of her neck." He leans forward until his lips were brushing against the older man's neck. "Like this—she hated whenever I did this, too."

Legault freezes. "Matthew. You're drunk."

Matthew continues his ministrations, the warmth of his breath fanning pleasantly over Legault's skin. "So?"

"You've never done it with a man, have you." It was a statement, not a question.

Pausing long enough to trace the shape of the other man's ear with the tip of his tongue before speaking Matthew replies, "But you have?"

"And if I did?" Legault turned to face the Ostian spy and scrutinized his face in the dark. "We all have regrets, kid. You and I both. Do you want to add another one to that list?"

For a while, Matthew says nothing. "If I told you 'no', would you believe me?"

"No."

"Good," Matthew replies. He leans closer until their lips were barely a hairsbreadth from each other. "Business can wait until morning."

Legault chuckles. "That's going to be one hell of a hangover, you know."

"I don't care."

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Xirysa Says: Mmm yeah. Like I said, no smut-just the interaction between Matthew and Legault.