Title: Binary Numbers
Author: Mirabehn
Fandom: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Rating: R to be on the safe side, though it's probably nearer a PG-13.
Characters, pairing: Number Two/Younger Number Two. Also references to one other pairing. I know, I'm crazy. g
Disclaimer: I think Mike Myers, Robert Wagner and Rob Lowe (among others) might have a prior claim on this one. ;)
Archive: Sure, just let me know first.
Warnings/spoilers: Slash. It also helps if you have the DVD of the movie and have watched the deleted scenes, though it's not essential
Acknowledgements: Enormous, hug-filled thanks to Ixwin for her usual helpful beta-ing. Also thanks to Abigale, Kmazzy and Jen for friendly encouragement. :)
Feedback: Would make me very happy. :)

"So the plan failed?"

"Doesn't it always?"

A grimace crinkles the one visible eye. "Yes. Yes, I'm afraid it does."

Brandy sloshes into tumblers, loud on ears beating in the sudden silence. The older man is quiet and his hands are calm as he passes the younger man a glass.

The younger man is used to being the still, sinister centre of a room. Tonight the stillness is affecting his brain in ways he does not want to think about.

"That's why I came here," he says, trying to find a way out of the hole his mind seems to have fallen into. Drinking his brandy might be another way out. Or filling the growing silence. "Today I felt – disillusioned. So it seemed like it might be a good idea. To see what it was like. To see what you were like."

No, speaking doesn't help. So he finishes his glass and then another and passes each back to the older man who refills them without speaking, but with the ghost of an encouraging grin.

"I kept his corporate interests running the whole time he was away, you know. I made millions for him. More than his plans have ever produced. And what did I want in return?" he takes a deep gulp from his glass. He is perspiring, and uncomfortable. His bandaged hand is itching. And he is not holding the drink as well as he would like.

"You wanted nothing," replies the older man. "Just his respect, his regard. His gratitude. And for him to put as much ingenuity into his part of the business as you did into ours."

"That's right. Just… just those things." The older man's gaze is intense upon him. "He made me cry," he adds, bitterly.

The older man looks away. "I remember."

"Will I…" his voice is unrecognisable to his own ears: high-pitched, vulnerable, slurred. "I don't want to ever feel like that again. I should be so much stronger than that." He runs his good fingers around the rim of his glass, frowning. "Will I be stronger?"

The older man says nothing for a moment, his face frozen. Then he gently takes the brandy glass from the younger man's hand and puts it back on its coaster. "Let me add some light," he says.

The younger man is glad of it. In the semi-darkness the vast emptiness of the control room is looming and depressing. The older man reaches for a small remote device on the coffee table and taps out a small sequence. Their corner of the immense room – a few leather armchairs scattered around a small mahogany table – is now lit with warm spotlights. The effect is entrancing.

By some sleight of hand the older man is now holding two cigars. "Sometimes I like to take a cigar here, when everyone else has gone home for the night. May I offer you one?"

"You are very generous. But I've had a little too much brandy. And those look fine. Cuban. I wouldn't want to waste something so precious."

The older man lays the cigars back carefully in a small box beside him. "Then I will wait for you to sober a little. You'll want to appreciate these. They're the best I have."

He stands, presses another button on his remote and from somewhere around them comes the soothing beat of peculiar but pleasing music.

"Do you like that?" asks the older man.

The younger man exhales and allows himself to relax a little. "Yes. Thank you. It's charming. Far better than anything else I've heard recently." He lies back in his chair and gazes up at the ceiling. Then he closes his eyes, feeling his pulse adjust to the rhythm of the music. A strange day. Such a strange day.

"Who are you with now?" inquires the older man, abruptly.

"Who am I…?"

"Your partner. If you have one. I've forgotten."

The younger man sits up, interested in the question. "Well, now. There is Brigitte. And then there is Lucia. But there are always other encounters," he chuckles. "Wouldn't do for any of those lovely ladies to get complacent."

The older man chuckles too, and takes a quiet sip of his own small drink. "I remember now." He passes the younger man's half-empty brandy glass back to him. "You might need this. I have a fiancé."

The younger man splutters and nearly chokes on his drink. "You have a…?"

"She's Italian. She is…" he waves his hand, theatrically, "she is exquisite. Voluptuous breasts. We had an open arrangement for a time but now we've decided to, well. Cleave to each other. The wedding is next August. I have a terrible suspicion that I will be wearing white."

The younger man knocks back the rest of his brandy with a flourish and slams it back on the table. "I don't believe it. It's not possible."

"It works for me now." The older man's right eye crinkles again in a smile. "You're still a predator, of course."

"It's better than being the prey."

For a time they are both silent. Lost in a shared memory, of thunderous footballs and a harshly-accented voice that taunted and frightened and threatened so very much worse. If beauty is not the arrow it will be the heel. Especially for a man. Remember it. And always, always be the arrow.

After some minutes the older man puts down his glass again, and sits down beside his companion. "Are you okay there? Those bandages don't look comfortable."

"I got bit."

"I know. How are your fingers?" he puts down his glass and takes the younger man's injured hand in his own, feeling carefully around the bandage, tracing the exposed skin with a touch that borders on a caress. The younger man rests his head back again against his chair. Despite the music, the stillness of the room again threatens to engulf him. And something else, something that starts with the fingertips pressed against his palm and that moves through him like an unexpected wave of heat…

"Oh, I see. You're trying to seduce me," he murmurs.

"My dear boy," agrees the older man, drawing gentle circles with his fingers over the younger man's wrist, "but of course I am. Did you only just realise?"

"Some part of me... suspected," allows the younger man with a nervous laugh. "I do know all your moves. And I think," he swallows. "I think I'm beautiful enough even for you."

"Oh, you are. You certainly are," smiles the older man. "But you know, you have that the wrong way round. I know all of your moves. You know some of mine." He smiles, and this time it is the smile of the century, the one that has opened the legs of women all over California and beyond, and they both know it. "I have a few new tricks that you haven't thought of yet."

The younger man feels light-headed, unfocussed. And still the older man holds his hand in his own and caresses his wrists with ever-changing circles, working out and in, stroking his pulse point, playing with the beads of his bracelet, reaching underneath the material of his jacket and sweater to touch the skin of his inner arm. The cavernous room is suddenly very warm indeed.

"You're hot," says the older man. "Take your jacket off."

The younger man nods and complies, unable to speak. Jacketless, his sweater seems a flimsy article. No defence at all against the determined man at his side, who regards him with a cycloptic look of calm and complacent desire that sends the blood rushing straight to his cheeks and, indeed, to certain other parts of him that he uses very frequently but would never presume to mention.

Yet again the older man reaches for the remote, only this time the effect is rather less subtle. A large circle in the centre of the floor of the bridge spins and undulates and at last rotates on its axis, producing to view an elegant double bed covered in red silk sheets. It is deeply silly. They should both find it ridiculous. But machines like this are their life-blood and passion, so the younger man bypasses amusement and gets straight to alarm.

"Please… please, this isn't what I…"

But his companion kneels before him and takes his hand again and brings it to his lips. "It is a wonderful thing, to be a predator. A beautiful thing. It gives power, it gives pleasure, it gives delight. It's why you and I do everything that we do. But it is also very tiring, and you are very tired tonight." He reaches forward and delicately strokes the younger man's cheek below his eye-patch. "You know you can trust me. Wouldn't you like to take the easy road for a change? Just for this one night, wouldn't you quite like to be the prey?"

And then he kisses him. And the older man's mouth is hot and persistent and perfect and the younger man's mind goes entirely blank and he opens before him, moaning. Those strong, delightful hands are suddenly everywhere, pressing him back against the armchair, running over his hair, his neck, down to his thighs. Finger-walking below his sweater, rubbing his belly, wandering in loose, playful circles over his chest. And now somehow his sweater isn't there anymore, and those warm lips are at his throat, at his collarbone, working lower, and his pants are tight, and the groan that escapes his own lips as the back of a hand brushes lightly across his zipper is loud enough to echo in the empty space around them.

The sound of it brings him back to himself with a start. "No, please… don't…" he gasps. The older man ceases immediately, retreating to the armchair beside him with a look of consternation. "This isn't… this isn't me."

Another smile. "Au contraire, mon cheri."

For the first time since he reached adulthood, the younger man blushes.

"What are you afraid of? It's not the first time you've been with a man, is it?"

A denial would be a lie, of course. In recent weeks there have been five frantic, testy experiments with a boy whose aura of hair-dye and anger and thrash metal both compelled and puzzled him. Familiar as breathing with the art of elaborate seduction, those encounters were alarmingly undignified, and the participants retained as much clothing as possible because to do otherwise would have been too intimate, too honest. Too much like trust, or forgiveness.

The older man stands, and offers the younger man his arm.

"Come to the bed," he says. "Those sheets are the finest I've ever bought, and they could have been made for that body of yours. I want you to lie naked in them, and I want to see you when you do. Let's leave the rest of the night up to the Fates, hm?"

"You know," says the younger man with a catch in his throat, "if Freud were here he would have a great deal to say about you and me."

"Well, Freud isn't here, dear one. And you and I are. Which is good, wouldn't you say?"

And the younger man stands and walks with his fellow to the bed. And the night becomes all exultant sweat and skin and the scent of man, and then the dark, intoxicant taste of cigar-smoke and brandy.

"Well, that was just… yummy," smiles the younger man, a little before dawn. He has lost count of their movements during the night but he is sated and sober and blissful and he thinks that for this man he could happily do the being-the-prey thing forever.

"And you know what the best thing is?" grins the older man, with a twinkle that borders on the mischievous. "Technically, it isn't even cheating..."