Chapter Two

Only for Tonight

The bar is a dive that I've never been to. Located in darkness and back alleys, the old jukebox plays some song I don't know and the room is filled with smoke, the low lighting making the whole place seem small, dark, oppressive. It seems appropriate for you. For me. For tonight. I spot you, leaning over a pool table, the braid trailing down your back and I scan up and down your body, feeling something in my mouth go dry.

You're back and I knew it as I'd seen the body.

The body looked like all the others I'd ever seen. There's no artistry or elegance in death the way people like to romanticise. There's only blood and dead flesh and parts of brains on white plush carpets. He'd been a rising star politician and a sniper's bullet had obliterated his potential and at the crime scene and I'd stood at the window where the bullet had entered and figured out where you'd shot from. And I'd imagined you, crouched, waiting, biding your time for the moment to act and then firing the single, perfect shot, a body crumpling to the ground. I knew we wouldn't find any evidence, not from you. Even when we went to the room in the large apartment complex opposite, there was no sign you'd been there. You'd slipped away. Like you always did.

Though not now. Now you were in my sights as you straightened up, as you took a swig from a glass of clear liquid, as you saw me and flashed me a smirk. It was that look that made me want you and I hated how pathetic that was. That you sent the message and I came, walking away from the place I called home, from the man I'm supposed to love and care about.

But for you? Fuck. I did things I shouldn't. Go to a dive bar, walk towards you and take the drink you offer me, downing it to get some courage. To get the courage to do what I should – walk out over the sticky floor, take the bus back with my anger and guilt, and slip back into bed with him, kiss the spot behind his ear that turns him on and fuck him like he means something to me. Instead, I'm here and you're here next to me and you're you and I'm fucked.

"You're back," I say.

"Always come back, babe."

You're already close, too close, and I can smell the vodka on your breath, the salt of your skin, the scent of your shampoo, and I'm already forgetting everything but you. I'm forgetting that I was at a crime scene caused by you hours before, that I had imagined how you coolly looked down your scope and pulled the trigger without remorse. I'm forgetting that I should arrest you, the way I always damn do, and when you reach out to touch me, I'm yours.

I know I should feel guilt, shame, regret as we make our way to the men's room, using the privacy of a stall covered in marker pen messages to kiss and touch. It's only been a few weeks since the club, the motel, since I fucked you hard into a mattress but my lips want to brush every part of you, want to lick down the side of your face to your jaw, find your pulse and bite down there and mark you and make you mine.

"Shit, Tro'," you pant out as I mouth at the wound, making the blood rush to the surface as I return to your lips, to your tongue, fucking your mouth and pushing you against the flimsy stall wall.

Your hands are in my jeans, the zipper already skilfully down and I almost feel my eyes roll into the back of my head as you stroke. It's a little rough, like I prefer to jerk myself off, and I moan, unable to kiss you anymore, my head resting on your shoulder, my skin against the soft material of your t-shirt.

You push, using your body, your hand continuing to tug on my dick and my back hits the stall wall, the bump of my body against it too damn loud even as I hear the sound of the jukebox from the bar outside. As you fall to your knees my hands dig into your hair and my head hits the metal behind me as you lick at the head of my cock before you wrap your lips around me.

I watch, look down at how your eyes are closed, how your mouth opens to take me in, how my dick looks sliding in the warm, wet heat. You moan around me and the vibrations make me clasp my hands hard in your hair, deep in your scalp as I force you further down onto me. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut at the pleasure that reverberates along my spine at each bob of your head. You know too much about me – even though you don't feel anything for me, you know how to lick and suck, how to use your fingers, and how to make me come hard in your mouth.

"Duo," I breathe as you swallow and I hate myself for saying your name.

You lap around the head once more before you are on your feet, your mouth on mine, and I taste myself on your tongue as you always make me damn do and I'm undoing your jeans, ready to reciprocate. I shove you hard to give me room to get to my knees, bringing your cock out of your boxers and taking you deep with one swallow.

"Fuck, baby."

The word 'baby' makes something inside me recoil and so I deep throat you, gag reflexes controlled from experience, as I want you to stop talking, I want you to not call me anything damn affectionate as there is no affection here for you. I think you fucking know I'm in love with you and I think you don't fucking care as I do everything I can damn do to make you come fast, feeling the way you move my bangs out of my eyes, hearing those little gasps and that word, 'baby,' again and again.

I move back, suck and lap around the head – taste you, tease you – before I take you all the way down my throat again, feeling you spasm, release, feeling you shudder from my skill and experience.

"You give fuckin' great head," you say as I get to my feet, as I leave the stall to wash my face, flushed from orgasm, and sip a little water to remove the taste of you from my mouth. It doesn't work.

You come behind me, look at us both in the mirror and lick at my neck like I'd done to you, biting down a little, marking the skin, the pain a little more intense without the high of sexual energy. I watch your eyes in the mirror, darkened blue, as you pull on the flesh and release it, the sting of it making me gasp.

"You do that for him or just me?"

I glare at you through the mirror and I see you smirk at my response. You never mention him and I never mention him.

"He knows right? He ain't stupid. Knows you're fuckin' me whenever you get the chance."

The response, the way your lips curve make me act and a hand is around your throat.

"Don't talk about him."

You laugh even with our faces as close as they are and my hand on your neck. "Okay, baby – off limits."

My hand squeezes for a second before I let go. I see the marks my fingers have left on your throat and I look down at my hand balled in a fist, at how you don't seem to damn care and I know you don't love me and I know Wufei does and I hate myself as I kiss you in apology for my violence, kiss you and taste us, and run my fingers down your back.

I leave you with a final drag of your bottom lip between my teeth, leave you in that dive bar and I make my way home. I don't even feel the guilt as all I feel is nothing, the sagging weight of my body in a bus seat, making my way back across the colony to the "good" area, to our glass and grey apartment complex under a metallic clear sky.

As I arrive home, I expect him to be asleep as he has been most of these damn times and I can shower away the smell of you under hot spray and crawl into bed with him. Yet this time he's there, dressed, his duffle beside him on the couch. He stands, elegance in motion, his loose shirt rippling in the limited light of our apartment and I see how his dark eyes narrow at me – at the state of my clothes, at the bite marks on my throat from you. I smell of cheap liquor and sweat.

"You know what he does," he says, grabbing his bag, "and I hope he's worth losing everything you worked for."

"Wufei."

He approaches, reaching for my arm and I feel the warmth of his touch. I see the curve of his neck. I almost imagine the touch of his hair in between my fingertips and the fire of his kiss. I remember him at fifteen, fierce and loyal, and I think of us, of all the years we spent together, and I feel a sickness in my stomach as his hand releases me and he speaks softly.

"I always thought it would be Quatre. I never expected it to be Duo."

He walks away and I turn to watch him, words sticking in my throat about how I never meant any of this to happen, but the excuses fall dead on my lips. Instead I just watch, my impassive, silent mask un-breaking as he walks out of our apartment.

I take a shower and try to drown myself in the water, letting it sluice over my skin as I touch the mark you made and I think of the one I made on you. And I think of his words as I still taste you in my mouth and I wonder if you are damn worth it. But as I touch the bruised skin, I know I am helpless because I'm in love with you. And fuck, you've never loved me.