Still Waters Run Deep
I know that Abe/Daimio isn't exactly a common pairing, yet I've been fascinated by the thought of them together since reading the B.P.R.D. comics. Consider this fic an experiment to see how they would work together.
For those who have read the comics: this takes place around the beginning of Garden of Souls, where Abe and Daimio are in Indonesia. For those who haven't read the comics, then I highly recommend them!
Enjoy. Reviews would be much loved.
It was hot; the little hotel room in Balikpapan was thick with the smell of coriander, or curry, or some other spice Ben Daimio had tasted before but couldn't really name. He wondered if someone was cooking nearby, or if the smell was impregnated in the curtains and bedspread from a past occupant. Probably the latter; his own room had smelled the exact same way since the first day they'd checked in, just as stifling and overheated.
Daimio sat on the untouched bed of Abe's room, listlessly holding his satellite phone in one hand. He was about due for the nightly check-in with Kate Corrigan back in Colorado, though he hesitated. The washroom door was half-shut and there was the sound of running water as Abe filled the bathtub for a makeshift bed. Third night in Indonesia, and it had become a little ritual; sit by the docks in Balikpapan waiting for God-knows-what, get some takeaway from the little place across the street from the hotel, make a point of not talking about why they were there, retreat to the hotel—and the moment Abe retreated to the washroom to begin filling the tub for the night, that was Daimio's cue to exit, go back to his own room and call Kate to tell her the same damn thing.
No, no progress today. No, still not a damn clue what they were looking for, waiting for. Yeah, Abe's fine. Yeah. I'll call tomorrow again. Good night.
He sat unmoving, though feeling twitchy, staring at the blank screen of the phone. The sound of the rushing water was echoing off the cheap washroom tile. He knew why he kept putting off the call; though they still hadn't found whatever the hell they were looking for, for the first time in days, Abe had finally volunteered some information about why he'd felt the need to come down to the docks in Balikpapan. Though it was obvious that what Abe did know only served to frustrate; so there was something about a fellow named Langdon Caul who could have been Abe 1.0, and that was about it. That, and the fact that someone else knew about Abe, and about Caul.
He'd pried the information out of Abe, but he wondered how many people actually knew about the great mystery. The fact that he, and he alone was accompanying Abe on his little mission, had to be significant. For Daimio's part, he'd jumped at the chance to follow Abe to Balikpapan, so eager for a distraction from the jaguar prowling and clawing at his sanity. He hadn't really stopped to ponder why Abe had wanted him, of all people, to come along. Sherman would have been a better choice; they seemed to get along pretty well. Or Corrigan. He wasn't surprised that Abe hadn't asked Kraus, though; that guy was one complete asshole.
The water stopped as the faucet was twisted shut. The room suddenly felt conspicuously quiet, and Daimio felt he really should be leaving, though he couldn't help but feel like he needed to stick around. Hell—three days in Indonesia, and Abe had finally opened up to him, and Daimio wouldn't be surprised if it was the first time he'd really spoken about all the weirdness surrounding his past. He owed him to at least stick around, and talk.
To talk about what, though, he had no clue. He wasn't good at that sort of thing. Never made friends easily, let alone knew how to talk. Not much occasion for heart-to-hearts in the Marines. But Abe… Abe was different, now. Guys like them… freaks like them… understood one other. Christ; he hadn't given it much thought, but that was it for him. Not much to live for out there, not for a guy who was missing enough skin from his face to be legally dead. No wife and kids and house and dinner reservations waiting for him out there. The BPRD would be his home, his—God, what a thought—his frickin' family from here on now. Assuming the worst wouldn't happen with the jaguar—and that was a pretty big assumption, he mused darkly, and sweat prickled at the back of his neck as he felt the menacing hiss of the beast somewhere deep in his brain.
"Ben?"
Daimio jumped a little at the voice, at the creak of the washroom door. Abe stood in the doorway, a little surprised to see Daimio still sitting on the bed—surprised, but certainly not upset, at least as far as he could tell. It was so damn hard to read that implacable fish-face, with the browless forehead and the deep, solid blue eyes. Was it Daimio's imagination, or did Abe even look a bit relieved that he'd stuck around?
Maybe he did need to talk. Maybe he needed company. Nothing wrong with that, Daimio reasoned. He knew what it was like to need, to crave another body close by just for the sake of sanity. If anyone in the world understood was that was like, the need to hear someone else's voice drowning out your own dark thoughts, it had to be Abe. Yeah, he understood. Love, like, or hate, you sure as hell couldn't deny that kind of bond.
Abe still stood in the doorway, unmoving. Daimio cleared his throat, desperate to fill the silence. "It's been a long day." It really hadn't been.
"Yeah," Abe said. He wasn't stammering or fidgeting, but there was something there, something about the slump of his shoulders, the catch of his body, the tired expression, that made him look vulnerable.
It was rapidly becoming awkward; Abe looked like he wanted to say more, to anchor Daimio to him with speech, but couldn't think of what to say, and Daimio didn't feel like babbling away and making a fool of himself. He made a big show of noticing the satellite phone in his hand and got up from the bed, slowly and deliberately. "Yeah, hell of a day," he said. He walked towards the door, though he desperately wanted to stay. His hand was poised on the rusted door-knob; If Abe was going to say anything, now was the time, and—
"I'm tired," Abe said, almost a whisper.
"Same here," Daimio said, though he really wasn't. Still, sleep was a better idea than sitting somewhere and thinking. He added, uselessly, "Damn jet-lag, never got used to it…"
"I'm tired," Abe said again, and this time there was a heart-wrenching hint of vulnerability. So Daimio hadn't been imagining it.
"Tired of waiting?" Daimio asked. His hand fell away from the door, though he stayed where he was, watching as Abe walked over to the bed with oddly inelegant steps, sitting down on the wrinkled coverlet where Daimio had been moments before. He didn't look up.
"Tired of not knowing what I'm waiting for," Abe said. "Of not knowing what kind of answers I'm going to find. Of hating the things I already know."
"Better not to know sometimes," Daimio agreed. "Sometimes life is just one big shithole mosaic. I know some people who'd love to have a few holes in it. Forget a few things. Hell, I'd pay good money for the privilege."
Abe made a sound that could have been a bitter laugh. Hard to tell with him; he never really laughed.
Before Daimio could think about it, the words were out of his mouth. "Want me to stick around? For the night? It's not like you're using the bed in here."
He expected a sarcastic answer; an evasive 'sure, why not, if you want' response. A tightly-wound shrug. A disbelieving laugh.
He wasn't expecting a brutally frank, "Please."
Damn. He didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't too good with words of comfort, but he had a feeling it wasn't pity Abe was after.
He was still standing by the half-open door, leaving the convenient barrier of dead open space between them. Now that Abe had accepted his unexpected offer, he found himself torn between fear, and an odd sense of thrill. There was something he needed to know.
"Back at the dock, you said you asked me here because I was a man who respects privacy," Daimio asked. "But that's not why you asked me to come with you, right?"
"No," Abe said, unblinkingly meeting Daimio's eyes. "Not entirely. I asked you because…"
He left the thought unfinished, instead giving Daimio a look, a smouldering look that was raw and cracked and filled with more emotion than anyone at the Bureau had probably ever seen.
"… I needed you with me."
The reply with a dozen different entendres, and Daimio sighed tensely. Couldn't be. Couldn't be what he thought it was, because as much as the idea freaked him out, it also thrilled him, and he wasn't about to say no. Maybe it was the heat, or the damn smell of coriander frying his brain, or the jaguar prowling at the edges of his mind; but he knew, just knew, that he was staring at the only person in the whole God-damned world he'd ever again feel something for, even if he didn't know what the hell it was.
And damn it if Abe wasn't thinking the exact same thing.
"Listen, Abe…" he began, and still he stayed by the door, looking for all the world as though he was covering his escape route, though in actuality it had nothing to do with a lack of desire. Abe's dark, exposed look was getting to him.
"You don't want this," Daimio said, utterly unconvincingly. Please say it. Please say you do. Damn it, I want to hear it. "You don't want to get involved with me."
"I don't," Abe said, his voice as unreadable as his face. "I just want to feel something that isn't..."
He left the thought unfinished, but Daimio could guess at what was left unsaid. Something that isn't pain. Something that isn't darkness or disappointment or another damn piece of the shithole mosaic. Something that isn't....
Something he could remember, and cling to. Even if it wasn't love or anything close to it, it was something, and it was something Daimio thirsted for just as much.
"Aw, hell," he said. He slammed the door shut and locked it in one clumsy move.
In two strides, he had crossed the room, grabbed Abe by the shoulders, and kissed him.
It was weird at first, and awkward, too tense and frantic to be entirely pleasant. Daimio hadn't kissed much of anything since half his face had gotten torn off, and he was pretty sure that Abe had never kissed much of anything, period, but they found their rhythm quickly enough. They had each other by the shoulders at first, like awkward teenagers, but then Daimio felt Abe's arms go around him, fingers digging deeply into his back—a hint of pain, no tenderness there, and that suited him just fine.
The kissing wasn't sweet, or tempered, but rough, and full of need. Lips and teeth and tongues slid together with heat and aggression, channelling into arousal as they began to fit together. Daimio felt Abe quaking against him, raw and needy, hands pulling and pushing at him as though he wasn't sure if he needed more, or if it was too much.
Daimio didn't give him the chance to figure it out. He pushed Abe onto the bed, rough, enjoying the sound of the breath rushing out of him. He felt the air against his face, the kiss broken, and something inexplicable passed between them as fevered blue eyes met his.
"Yeah?" Daimio ground out between heaving breaths. "I won't ask again."
"Then don't."
Daimio felt those long, stretchy legs curl up and wrap around his midsection, pulling him down, and soon he was wrapped in a tangle of green limbs as though Abe was clinging to him, ironically, like a life preserver.
Kind of sad, Daimio mused, that of all the people Abe knew, he'd chosen to cling to him.
They kissed again, hard, fervidly. It was difficult to get any kind of suction going, what with Daimio's destroyed cheek, but he managed to bite and pull at Abe's tongue, relishing the primality of it. The kissing felt remarkably like fighting, setting Daimio's blood on fire.
There was a distinct hardness prodding him in the hip, and that was it, Abe definitely did want this. Daimio growled at the thought, angling his hips and pressing his own erection against the narrow pelvis. He felt Abe react, a deep shudder running through those tense limbs, but he didn't make a sound.
There was still no sound as those narrow fingers went seeking for the waistband of Daimio's pants, sliding inside, pushing them down with little hesitation. Daimio broke the kiss, pushing himself up and contorting on the bed to slide his pants off, then pulled off his sweat-soaked shirt. Abe, still flat on his back, his hands poised in mid-air as he drew air into his heaving chest, watched him move. His eyes flickered up and down Daimio's body, and Daimio wondered what he was thinking; was he looking at his cock, free and hard and bobbing against his thighs? Was he looking at his beaten and roughened skin, he wondered? His scars, the kinds no man should be able to walk around with? Didn't seem fair; Abe's bare skin was rough and green, but pristine, unmarred by the scars that should have been there after being shot, cut, and mangled in the line of duty. Did it have something to do with the deep-sea mystery of his origins?
Afraid to stop the action for too long, in case they started realizing what was happening and got to talking about being rational about this whole thing, Daimio went for Abe's shorts, fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar clasp, and pulled them down slim thighs and slim legs, a little surprised—though he didn't know why—that the revealed cock was perfectly normal-looking, even if it was flushed and dark green. There. One less mystery about Abe Sapien, for his eyes at least.
He covered Abe's lanky body with his own and they kissed until there was the taste of something that might have been blood. Abe's hands moved restlessly against Daimio's back, sliding and catching against skin and muscle and scars until his fingers wandered down over Daimio's hip, reaching beneath to grab hold of his cock.
No hesitation, no trepidation, as Abe's fingers wrapped around him and stroked with an oddly-textured hand, and Daimio broke the kiss to grunt, shifting up onto his knees to give Abe better access, one hand depressing the bed by his head.
He twisted and groaned at Abe's fast, assured strokes, because damn if it didn't feel good to be touched by someone who knew what they were doing, even though they'd never done it to another person. Guess they were equals in that regard. Daimio ran his hand down Abe's heaving chest, feeling a little silly for noticing there were no nipples. He noted, absently, that while Abe's skin was growing warm from the exertion, he did not sweat.
He grabbed onto Abe's hip with enough force to bruise, hoping it would, and wrapped his other hand around the hot, hard organ. He was disturbed at how right it felt, how easily it slid against his palm, how vividly Abe responded under his touch.
He moved as though electrified, twisting the coverlet beneath his body as he shook and moved his hips in time with Daimio's pumping. But still, not a sound. Not a moan, not a whimper, just hard, heaving breaths, teeth clenched, eyes hooded and fastened to a spot somewhere beyond Daimio's shoulder.
Blood pounded in his ears, nearly drowning a faint, distant growl, and he knew it was the damn jaguar. But to Daimio's relief, though he could feel the jaguar reacting to the adrenaline, prickling with heat and sweat, it stayed right where it was, content, rather than trying to claw its way to the surface, as he'd feared.
He pushed all thoughts of the damned beast out of his mind, because that was the point of all this, to cancel out the white noise of the deep and the dark and the secret. He glanced down to where their hands were working, fingers curled and sliding around hard, ruddy flesh. Daimio watched his own hand stroking, watched the green, wet flesh disappearing in and out of the crook of his fist. He wondered what it tasted like.
Instead, he reared up for another kiss; Abe's mouth was cool now, a little dry from gulping in air. The kiss was less savage than before and now he tasted more than blood and heat; there was the taste of something cool, and earthy, salty, and so completely other. When he broke the kiss, it was only because he couldn't breathe anymore.
Daimio's head pitched forward and his sweaty, undamaged cheek landed against Abe's shoulder. Beneath his lips he could feel the movement of gills, fanning out and rippling along with Abe's heavy breaths. He wondered how they felt; he thought about touching them, about sticking his tongue right there on the soft-looking ridges to see how Abe would react, if it was just the thing to make him moan or scream. He wondered if the gesture would be too weird, too intimate. He watched them undulate, translucent and sinking into Abe's green-gray skin, and he laughed a small laugh that got lost in the tangle of breaths; he never thought he'd ever get naked with another man, let alone a fish-man, and yet this seemed more normal to him, more proper.
The ludicrousness of the situation nearly struck him until he heaved a breath and he felt the air running through the gaping hole in his face, a stark reminder that he was no normal prize human himself.
They moved together, breathing, pumping, careening towards orgasm, towards release, with single-minded determination. Daimio came first; it caught him by surprise, and he grunted, shaking, spilling liquid heat against Abe's hand and stomach. Abe's strokes slowed down, not stopping until Daimio was finished and spent, slumping heavily over Abe's body.
His own hand had slowed its pumping around Abe's cock as he caught his breath and listened to his pulse hammering in his ears. Abe's palm, warm and rough, went flat against his back and pushed a little; it was either a caress, or an insistence that he keep moving. The latter idea made Daimio smile a little crookedly as he squeezed the organ in his fist and ran his thumb over the slick head, a little disappointed though that it hadn't wrenched a moan or a gasp from Abe, just a deep shudder and a twist of his hips.
As Daimio stroked, their eyes finally locked, though there wasn't enough time to decipher that raw look before Abe was coming. He flinched as though Daimio had struck him and finally, finally made a concrete noise, a moan that sounded more pained than pleasured as he twisted and shuddered and came all over Daimio's hand.
It was as though the tension in the room had finally snapped; two freaks finding solace in an overheated hotel room in Balikpapan. His arms and legs shaking from the exertion, Daimio pushed himself off Abe and laid himself down on the cheap coverlet, staring up at the ceiling with an odd sense of serenity, listening to the sound of Abe trying to get his breathing under control.
It could have been minutes, it could have been an hour, before Daimio started with the sense of movement next to him, as Abe gingerly pushed himself up, walking towards the washroom. For a moment Daimio assumed he would close the door behind him and go to bed, and that would be the end of that, and felt strangely disappointed at the thought. But then he heard the sound of water running, and Abe was coming back with a wet washcloth, still naked, his own stomach now washed clean.
"Thanks," Daimio said as Abe handed him the cold cloth. The coolness felt nice against his skin, still slick with sweat, still overheated. When he was finished he reached for his clothes, flung against the headboard and the bedside table; he'd nearly knocked the ugly lamp over with his pants. Abe watched him dress, still standing naked by the bed, comfortable as could be in his own skin.
Daimio clipped the satellite phone to his belt and almost laughed. No really, Kate, it was an uneventful day. Take my word for it. Yeah, Abe's sleeping fine, like a baby. Can't imagine why.
"So we're good?" Daimio asked. He wanted to reach out, to touch Abe, just a little, to let him know it had meant something. Wanted to kiss him again, but no, somehow kissing felt too intimate after what they'd just done.
"Yes," Abe said. He didn't smile—he never smiled, and Daimio didn't either, for that matter. Abe didn't exactly look peaceful now, but there was something there that made Daimio feel better about the whole thing, a lessening of the tension in his shoulders, a relaxed look on his features. No more awkwardness, because they both knew what the point had been. "Yes, we are. I'll see you tomorrow morning-- Ben?"
"Yeah," Daimio said. Simple, but it was enough, and Abe understood. They weren't so good with words. It didn't matter though, when you knew exactly what didn't need to be said. It made more sense, to them at least, not to talk. Not to mention that Daimio had the weird notion that putting words to what they'd just done would undo everything. Like it was the kind of thing that only made sense under the cover of darkness, and not so much in the light of day.
Abe must have understood it, the unspoken agreement. He nodded by way of good-night, retiring to his little makeshift waterbed in the bathroom. He didn't close the door behind him.
Daimio waited until he heard the gentle slosh of water, then sat on the wrinkled and messed-up bed in the now-quiet room, which didn't really smell like coriander anymore, as much as it smelled like sex. If Ben Daimio could have smiled, he would have. Instead, he picked up the satellite phone, and dialled Kate Corrigan's number.