hand in unloveable hand

by forgotmenot

Summary:

His bullet wound was almost healed over, but the edges were still jagged and sore. He pushed into it, just enough to feel the burn, and thought about the weight of Pete on his chest as he lay dying. No one had cradled his father as he’d died. In that, they were different.

The aftermath of the aftermath.

Notes:

written in the wake of vegaspete and my severe need for post-canon content. i have not read the books nor will i, so this is based completely on the show!

this is a work in progress, but the next chapters should come quickly! i'm writing them as we speak :)

Chapter 1: i. return

The car that picked them up belonged to the main family. 

He refused a wheelchair for the trip downstairs, and almost regretted it in the elevator, but he leaned against the wall and pretended he felt stable. Macau and Pete led the way outside, chattering about a show they both liked, hands waving and voices giggling, and Vegas kept his eyes on the door. When he saw the car, he didn’t pause. He wondered what had happened to his car. His bike. He trailed his fingers across the hood of the car on his way around, half because he felt like his knees were going to give out, half because he wanted to make it dirty. He wanted to put his hands all over it and make it his own. He left fingerprints on the glossy finish and felt a little better about himself. 

Pete opened the door for him, and Vegas didn’t look at him. 

There weren’t words for the shame. Only the tight feeling of his wound healing and the clinical smell of hospital soap. 

The air conditioning was going strong inside the car, and he could feel the sweat cooling on his skin more than he could feel Pete beside him, or Macau’s jittering leg on his other side. Pete nodded at the driver, like a friend would. The man’s pinned lapel was just visible, so very neat and tidy. He looked back in the rearview mirror as Vegas settled into the seat, but his eyes shifted away once they made eye contact. Once all the doors were closed, he tapped the side of his earpiece. 

“Returning now, sir.” 

Vegas wondered who was on the other side. Kinn would want more tabs on Vegas, but technically they were driving into Porsche’s territory. Maybe Porsche was sitting at his father’s desk. Maybe he’d been fucking Kinn in Vegas’s bed. 

Pete was looking at him. Vegas could feel his gaze, because he could always feel his gaze. He tried to imagine which kind this one was: the soft one, the hungry one, the unreadable one, the pity one, the pity one, pity one – 

Pete’s hand landed on his knee and squeezed, not gently, but when Vegas looked over, Pete’s face had turned to the window. 

It was mid-afternoon on a Friday so they got stuck in traffic, and Vegas spent most of the drive playing a game of dissociation. He’d gotten very good at it in the hospital. He wasn’t allowed to hit things there. And Pete had an eerie sense of whenever Vegas wanted to hit himself, because he would always put his hands all over Vegas, grab his hands, his face, whatever he thought would shock Vegas out of it. (Vegas’s fingers in his mouth. Vegas’s hand around his neck.) But there was only so much they could do under the watchful fluorescents of the hospital, and so he'd taken to staring off into the distance and pretending he wasn't a real person.

Macau was the first to disappear inside the house when they arrived. Over the past few weeks he’d fluctuated between hovering over Vegas and lashing out in the face of his weakness, and today’s mood was mostly the latter. He probably didn’t want to see Vegas struggle to get out of the car in front of everyone. Vegas didn’t want to be there either. He maintained the farawayness he’d crafted during the drive, and didn’t really notice anything until he was standing in front of his bedroom door. 

Pete wasn’t there, having been pulled away by someone Vegas didn’t recognize as soon as they'd stepped through the front door. The upstairs hallway was quiet like it normally was, it being far away from the guard’s rooms and the bustle of the courtyard. He pushed open the door and stepped into the office, half expecting it to be cleared out. But it appeared untouched; the lights were turned off, so the red walls were somewhat dulled by the bit of sunlight coming in from the half-open curtains. The chair of his desk was pulled out. The hedgehog cages were empty and sullen. 

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and nearly flinched, not recognizing himself. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes were hollow. He looked away and moved on into his actual bedroom. 

His bed was unmade, exactly as he’d left it. He changed his clothes first, tucking himself into his biggest hoodie and throwing his hospital clothes into a corner. He settled for just washing his face and hands, because he probably couldn’t pull off showering by himself like this. Once he smelled more like himself, he crawled under his blankets and pulled a pillow over his head. He held his breath until he felt dizzy. And then he went to sleep. 

You’re a disgusting boy, you know that? You’d let them in your house like that? Walk all over you? Fuck you? You’d give it up for them that easily? You’ve always been easy, though, haven’t you.  

Vegas dreamt of killing his father. It didn’t feel nice. Sometimes violence felt nice. Sometimes it felt inevitable. But this was out of control, and it was bloody, and his shirt was soaked through and his cheeks were wet with it, and he couldn’t stop hitting him. His father had a bullet wound in his head but Vegas held a knife. He was always supposed to be the one to do this. He was supposed to control his own fucking succession to desolation, but he’d been removed from the equation entirely, and he was restless, and angry, and nothing –

It was dark when he woke up. 

He didn’t feel much except for hunger, or maybe that was nausea, and sometimes he got the two mixed up, the wanting and the repulsion. He considered the path to the kitchen, and who he might have to encounter on the way. He was a hostage in his own fucking home. He could just shoot anyone who looked at him. If the minor family’s bodyguards had decided to swap allegiances without a second thought, he was happy to provide them with the doubt he was owed. But really he just wanted a bowl of something warm and homemade. 

He rolled out of bed once his stomach was cramping, and steadied himself on the wall to calm the wave of dizziness. He considered changing, but most of his shirts would show off his bandages, and he didn’t want anyone to know where to hit him. Instead, he put a chain around his neck and some rings on his fingers, tucked a gun into his waistband, and scowled at himself in the mirror until he felt real enough to leave his bedroom. 

He emerged into the office and stopped short at the sight of Pete. 

He went unnoticed; Pete’s back was turned, and he was slowly walking around the perimeter of the room, studying every inch of it. He was carrying a bowl of soup. Vegas crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe to watch him. Pete peeked into an empty cage, nudged a desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary with his pinky finger. He came to a stop in front of the coat rack, his eyes flickering uninterested past the handcuffs but lingering on the ropes. He picked up a gag from the side table and frowned down at it in thought before putting it back gently. His fingers grazed over a silk blindfold and the handgun next to it. He looked into the mirror on the wall and locked eyes with Vegas. 

“Oh.” He turned. He was smiling, that fake smile he used when he wanted to get out of something and thought he could fake innocence. “Hello.” 

“Find anything you like?” 

Pete blushed easily. Vegas was obsessed with it. 

“I brought you soup. Are you hungry?” 

“I don’t need you to feed me.”

Pete approached him. “Are you sure about that?” He peeked over Vegas’s shoulder, completely unsubtle, and Vegas reached behind himself to close the door. 

“Did you make it yourself?” 

“It’s leftovers from dinner. You missed it. I reheated it.” 

Vegas cupped his hands under Pete’s and took the bowl from him. It was almost too warm in his hands. He moved it to one hand and grabbed Pete’s hand with the other, pressing his thumb into Pete’s palm. His skin was burning hot. Vegas pressed harder. 

“You’ve had some already, then?” 

Pete's eyes bore into his, dark and too close to be able to hide anything. He was a hungry thing, especially when he thought he’d been cornered. “No. I was waiting for you.”

“You only brought one bowl.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would still be asleep.”

They stayed like that for a moment, and then Vegas linked his fingers with Pete’s and pulled him towards the door. 

Maybe it was the nap, or the feeling of Pete following him obediently through his own house, but he felt awake for the first time in weeks. He knew the best route to the kitchen to avoid most people on the way, and they only passed three guards; two he recognized as the minor family’s, and one of Kinn’s men. He didn’t look at them. He knew they looked at him, and at his hand around Pete, and he hoped they thought that Pete belonged to him now. Pete would probably stab him for thinking that. Pete would probably stab anyone who thought differently. Vegas welcomed either option.

The only person in the kitchen was the cook, and Vegas dismissed him for the night. Apparently Vegas still held some sway over the place, because he listened. Once they were alone, he pulled out the ingredients that looked the best and that he could work with. Pete sat on the counter and watched him. 

“Is the soup not good enough for you?” he asked, but he wasn’t being serious. 

“I’m not eating their scraps.” 

“Porsche isn’t here.” 

Vegas pulled out a cutting board and his favorite knife. “What do you know about it?” 

Pete kicked his legs against the cupboards lightly. “He won’t be moving in here permanently. At least not yet. He wants to live with Kinn. He’ll be visiting this week to set up some allies and get a hold of things, but I don’t think you’ll see much of him.” 

“That’s not going to work. No one will listen to him if it looks like he’s ashamed to be associated with us.” 

“He’s not ashamed. He just wants to live with his boyfriend.” 

“His boyfriend’s ashamed.” 

Pete nudged his arm and the knife slid across the board. “You’re projecting.” 

“The people here know deep down that they aren’t as important as someone who works for the main family. You don’t understand the way things work here. We’re treated like disposable goods, and so we believe we’re lesser, and there are certain mitigation tactics that need to be used to control a group of people like that.” 

“Paranoid.” 

“I’m right. They’re going to kill him and then they’re going to kill each other. Hand me those peppers.” 

Pete handed him the peppers. He rested his chin on his shoulder and watched Vegas’s hands, and then his face. Vegas kept his focus on his work, but he could feel Pete’s gaze, because he always could.

“Did you teach yourself how to cook?” 

The worst thing about Pete was that he inspired honesty. “My mother liked cooking.” 

“So she taught you.”

“No. She was killed and I decided I wanted to be like her.” 

"Oh.” 

They ate at the counter, and Pete enjoyed it, although he didn’t say so. He just looked like he enjoyed it, and he displayed joy so easily – in his eyes and his dimpled cheeks and the little hums he let out here and there. Vegas wanted to eat him alive. He would if Pete would enjoy it like this, with his whole body, and it would be the right thing to do, because anything that Pete liked was the right thing to do. Vegas sometimes thought that meeting Pete was the worst thing that had ever happened to him because it made him unrecognizable to himself, but was also the only thing that made him feel known at all. 

The halls were empty on the way back. Next to Vegas’s room was Macau's, and then his father’s room, and then two guest rooms that were reserved for important guests and those close to the family. They’d never been used in Vegas’s lifetime, because they’d never trusted a guest enough to let them into their den, and they despised everyone else in their family. Vegas stopped in front of the guest room closest to him and opened the door. 

“You can stay here.” 

Pete walked into the room and turned in a circle, eyes landing briefly on the bed. 

“Come see me if you need anything,” Vegas said. 

Pete sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back, studying the ceiling. “Alright.” 

Vegas returned to his room but didn’t shut the bedroom door all the way, because it required a code to get in. He turned on the lamp next to his bed and texted Macau. 

Okay? 

Okay. 

He thought about going to sleep, but his nap had made him restless, as had hiding up here and avoiding establishing himself as he should have, and – Pete. Pete being next door, and Pete eating his food, and Pete looking at him and thinking, alright . Alright. 

He wanted Pete in his bed. He didn’t think he’d let Pete leave if he had him here. He’d chain him up and keep him where he could see him, because everything left him, but not this one. Maybe Pete would let him. Vegas didn’t trust himself to find out. 

He drew his hands up his chest and traced a finger under his bandage. His bullet wound was almost healed over, but the edges were still jagged and sore. He pushed into it, just enough to feel the burn, and thought about the weight of Pete on his chest as he lay dying. No one had cradled his father as he’d died. In that, they were different. As a child he’d liked to think he was like his father, and as he’d grown older, he’d realized he was condemned to be. Vegas should be dead. And he should be alone.

A creak from his office had him reaching for his gun. The office lights were off, so it wasn’t until Pete’s face appeared in the thin crack of his open door that he could figure out who was there. 

They both looked at each other for a moment, and then Vegas let go of the gun. Pete inched the door open farther and looked into the room, from the bookshelf to the overflowing closet to the king sized bed. 

“Do you need something?” Vegas asked, even though he knew exactly what Pete needed. 

Pete entered the room and closed the door behind himself. “Did you think I wanted to be left alone?” 

“I wanted to see if you’d come here if you were.” 

“Were you scared to invite me into your room?” 

“Don’t be stupid.” 

“Okay.” Pete walked over to the bookshelf and studied the titles, his arms crossed behind his back. Vegas watched him and waited. Pete drew a finger along the spines and then leaned against the wall, facing Vegas. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been waiting to have me here.” 

“Is that what I’ve been doing?” 

Pete didn’t answer. Instead, and very slowly, as though afraid to scare Vegas away, he knelt on the bed, inches away from Vegas. He put his hands in his lap; crossed them together, so very neat and tidy and in control, and Vegas wanted to make him messy. He wanted to see where the seams fell apart. He’d seen it before, and it belonged to Vegas, that ability to see Pete like that. It was his.

“So you were scared, then. To have me here,” Pete said, teasing but cautious, because maybe Vegas was scared, and maybe he was dangerous when he was scared. But Pete liked that. 

Vegas sat up straight. “You’re projecting.” He wrapped a hand around Pete’s throat, just enough to feel his pulse, and Pete didn’t flinch. His mouth opened on a sigh, pretty and pink and eager, and Vegas dropped a kiss onto his lips because he could, not because he planned on kissing him for long like that. Pete liked when Vegas took what he was given.

He pushed Pete away and then guided him onto his back, keeping his hand on his neck. Pete’s eyes were dark and glassy, flickering from Vegas’ eyes to his mouth to his arms to eyes again. 

“You want this?” Vegas asked, because he wanted Pete to say it out loud. He could read Pete – the way his hands clenched in the sheets as though afraid to reach out and touch , the way his hips arched upwards as Vegas settled on top of him. But it was different when he said it. It was unavoidable that way, and he liked when Pete was backed into a corner. He liked that Pete liked it that way.

“Yes.” 

Vegas dropped his face into Pete’s neck and kissed him there, right where his fingertips ended. When Pete swallowed, shakily, Vegas could feel it in his whole body. “And how do you want it?” 

He tilted Pete’s chin back with his thumb until he couldn’t look away from Vegas. Pete licked his lips and Vegas could imagine the feeling of that tongue on his own skin. 

“Are you planning on using all those things on me?” Pete asked.

“What things?” He dropped a kiss onto Pete’s cheek, exactly where a dimple would be if he was smiling. 

“The things in the office.” 

“Name them.” 

“I don’t even know what they all are.” 

Vegas kissed the other side of his face, and then his lips, tracing the line of them with his tongue. “Name the ones you’d want me to use.” 

“Not the handcuffs.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

They were close enough that Vegas could feel the heat of Pete's exhale as though it was his own. “You didn’t answer my question either.” 

“Pete,” Vegas said into his mouth, and kissed him for real this time, again and again until Pete was straining against his hand, trying to get closer. Vegas pulled away and pushed Pete back down into the pillow. “I’m interested in what you want. I already know what I want, and so do you.” 

Pete drew his hands up along Vegas’s torso and stopped at the bandages. He put a hand over Vegas’s bullet wound and Vegas could imagine him ripping it back open, taking him in hand and owning him, but instead Pete drew his hands out from under Vegas’s shirt and raised them by his head. 

“You know more about what I want than I do,” he said.

Vegas used his free hand to grip Pete’s wrists together, just tightly enough to feel a pulse. He felt like he had Pete’s heartbeat in his hands, steady and wanting.“I don’t think that’s true.” 

Pete blinked up at him, and then he tilted his chin up. “I want you to kiss me.”

So Vegas kissed him. 

Usually when he slept with other men, he was annoyed by how much they wanted to kiss him. They were always touching his face unless he tied their hands away, and he preferred it that way, because he didn’t hold any affection towards them. He didn’t like the charade of having to love them. 

But he could kiss Pete for hours; Pete took his kisses like he was supposed to have them. His face was open and his mouth was slack and whenever his eyes opened, they were greedy. He gave it up so easily, shuddering and loose under Vegas, and Vegas wanted to thank him, wanted to praise him, wanted him . 

“I don’t need those things,” Vegas said, removing his hand from Pete’s wrists and moving it to cover Pete’s eyes instead. Pete's breath left him shakily, and it felt fragile, Vegas owning his sight and his breath. He leaned into Pete’s ear. “You just tell me what you like. I can do it however you want.” 

“Vegas,” Pete said, half-gasp, half-something else, an exhale, a prayer, a whisper, a promise. 

Vegas nuzzled into the side of his neck, and smiled so that Pete could feel his teeth where it would hurt. “And you’ll tell me, won’t you? You’ll tell me exactly what you need.” 

Pete nodded and kept his wrists above his head, clenching one hand around his own wrist as if to replace Vegas’s touch. Vegas took his hand off Pete’s throat and traced a finger over Pete's lips, and Pete opened his mouth for him, because he was nothing if not obedient when he wanted something. Vegas dipped two fingers into his mouth and Pete curled his tongue around them, sucked them in further, unclenched his jaw so that they could sink in without Vegas even having to push. 

Vegas removed his hand from Pete’s eyes, because he needed to see him. Pete blinked up at him, eyes dilated and dark and heavy . His tongue licked in between Vegas’s fingers, and it was wet and tight and Pete was perfect, he was made for Vegas, Vegas didn’t deserve him. Vegas curled his hand around Pete’s cheek and rubbed his thumb across his cheekbone, and Pete leaned into his touch. Vegas didn't move his fingers much; he wasn't trying to fuck his mouth as much as occupy it, to see what Pete liked and what he would allow.

But Pete couldn’t speak to him this way, and maybe he didn’t need to, because he took hold of Vegas’s wrist and pulled the fingers from his mouth only to guide them down to where he needed them more. He was wearing sweatpants so it was easy enough to slide a hand under his waistband. Pete spread his legs and Vegas moved so that he could kneel in between them, resting his other hand next to Pete’s head.

“You just want to be touched, don’t you?” he said. 

Pete looked up at him, unafraid and unashamed, but also expectant – he was waiting for Vegas to do what he’d been told. 

So Vegas touched him. He slid his hand over his dick and down farther, keeping eye contact with him as he slid a finger inside him, and then two, because Pete was open for him, and eager for it. There was something very quiet in the way Pete took it, like he knew he was going to be satisfied, so he didn’t have to do anything but accept it. His hands twitched above his head and Vegas took hold of them, pushing them into the pillow as he fucked into him, and Pete tilted his chin up, asking. 

So Vegas kissed him. 

Kissed his mouth, and his cheeks, and his neck, and did so reverently, as you do with things that have given themselves to you. Things that are in your care. Eventually his hand started to cramp, and there wasn’t enough room to touch him like this, not with their clothes on, so Vegas pulled away just enough to take off Pete’s pants. And then he couldn’t stop there, so he pulled Pete’s shirt over his head, and there was something heady about leaning back over him while still fully clothed. He slid a hand along Pete’s thigh and opened it to the side and held it there, leaning down until they were touching chest to chest, and Pete shivered at the weight of him. 

He wanted to touch Pete everywhere at once. But he couldn’t, so he slid his fingers back inside and fucked him hard enough for him to like it, deep and slow just like he would with his cock, and he had once, just like this. With Pete underneath him, looking lost and glassy-eyed. He put his other hand back over Pete’s wrists, because he wanted Pete to remember that first time, and he didn’t need ropes. Pete only needed him. 

Pete started to rub himself up along Vegas’s torso, desperate for it, and Vegas let him. He wanted to see Pete chase after exactly what he wanted. He even leaned down to help him get there, grinding himself down until there wasn’t a single place where Vegas ended and Pete started. It was just Pete’s gaze, heavy, heavy , and his stuttering breaths, and his body pulling Vegas in like he wanted to become him. Vegas let himself be overcome. It was easy, when Pete was asking for it. 

“Vegas,” Pete said, and Vegas kissed his name from Pete’s mouth like it was being given back to him, and it would be unkind not to be grateful. 

“Are you going to come for me?” he asked.

And Pete did. He loved when Vegas gave him permission to do what he wanted. 

The first time they'd had sex – the only other time – Pete had come first, and then he’d laid back and watched with glazed eyes and long, deep breaths as Vegas had continued to fuck him. He’d been so quiet and good, and Vegas had come just watching him like that, deep under whatever spell Vegas had put over him. 

Vegas wasn’t stupid. He knew what game he was playing with people. He knew what it meant when people got clingy with him afterwards, and giddy, or jittery. He knew he’d done that. He didn’t always want to clean up his own messes. He wasn’t a good person. And until Pete he’d never bothered entertaining the weight of that responsibility, or knew where to start trying. Pete made him want to be gentle but he only knew how to hold onto hurt things, crying things, because that’s when things left him. He didn’t know how to be proactive in his love.

And this wasn’t like the last time. Not exactly. It wasn’t nearly as intense, they weren’t – things were better . Pete was safer. But he still got a quiet look in his eyes after he came, calm and intense, and Vegas wondered if he would smile at him like he did last time, like Vegas was a wonder, like what they’d done was sinless and right. 

Vegas slid his fingers from Pete and used his other hand to brush the hair from Pete’s face. He was hard, but Pete was starting to shake underneath him, and Vegas wanted to do it right this time. So he kissed Pete’s cheek and then stood. 

“Wait there,” he said, and went to his bathroom to wash his hands. There was a mini-fridge next to his closet, and he grabbed a bottle of water. Pete stayed where he was, and Vegas could feel his gaze following him around the room. 

He crawled back onto the bed and Pete reached for him, touching his face, and his neck. He pulled Vegas on top of him, fully this time, smothering himself. He wrapped his arms around Vegas and tucked his face into Vegas’s neck; Vegas let himself be maneuvered, and cradled the back of Pete’s head to tuck him closer. 

“Was that good?” Vegas asked. 

Pete nodded. 

They stayed like that until Pete stopped shaking, until his breathing was calm and steady underneath Vegas’s chest, until his hands rubbing along Vegas’s back felt soothing rather than desperate. Vegas sat up and had him drink some water, and then Pete pulled a blanket around himself. They settled against the pillows and Vegas pulled Pete’s hand into his lap. 

“Sometimes it scares me how much I feel about you,” Pete said. 

Vegas pressed a thumb into his palm. “Good or bad things?” 

“Both.”

“You can leave.” He brought Pete’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the delicate skin of his wrist.

“That’s not what I want. I’ve just never felt so much about one person before. You’re very intense.” 

“You’ve called me worse.” 

Pete slid his eyes to Vegas, and there was darkness there. “You’ve been worse.” 

“I know.” 

And there was no point in denying it, or excusing it. But Pete was still there, after everything, in Vegas’s bed. 

Pete untangled his hand from Vegas and reached up to touch the soft skin under Vegas’s eye. “And you’re never going to hurt me again. Not unless I give you permission to.” 

Vegas wanted to kiss him, then, but Pete’s hand was keeping him there, and he wouldn’t push him away. “I’ll do whatever you want me to.” 

Pete tapped his thumb against Vegas’s face. “Good.” 

And then he settled himself into the blankets, fluffing the pillow and letting out a little hum when he was satisfied. He shut his eyes and smiled, because he knew that Vegas was watching him. 

“Turn the light out?” 

And so Vegas turned the light out.

Chapter 2: ii. hostage

Summary:

vegas pathetic mode: activited

Whatever peace they’d given him on his first day back apparently wasn’t meant to be permanent. 

Pete was gone when he woke up, but that was always the case even in the hospital, because Pete was still living on bodyguard time and woke up at dawn. Vegas woke up around noon, spent an hour getting dressed – mostly because it hurt pulling things over his head and he had probably overexerted himself the night before – and walked down to the courtyard. 

They were serving lunch, as they always did around this time until dinner, and then they served more food until dark. He greeted everyone like he was meant to be there, and they smiled at him like he hadn’t almost died, like he hadn’t lost his seat at the throne, bowing their heads and saying his name. 

His father’s seat was empty. Porsche was seated in the one beside it, and Pete was on his right, laughing at something Porsche had said and shoveling food into his mouth like he’d never been properly fed in his life. 

“You’re in the wrong seat, Khun Porsche,” Vegas said, as venomously as he knew how. 

Porsche looked up at him, lowering his fork and smiling that sweet smile of his. “I don’t think I am, actually. It’s good to see you back, Vegas.” 

Pete was still smiling, looking back and forth between them. Vegas stared at Porsche, half because the thought of sitting in his father’s chair made him want to throw up, and half because he wanted to break Porsche’s hand for having the nerve to show up like this. 

“Finally,” Macau said, coming out from the house and running up to throw an arm around Vegas. “I’ve been putting off Porsche’s questions for hours, poor Pete had to entertain him.” 

Vegas grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “What kind of questions?”

“I don’t know, boring ones.” Macau took the seat to the left of his father’s chair and started filling up his plate. He looked up after a moment. “Are you not eating?” 

Vegas sat down and tucked his elbows onto the table. He stared down at his empty plate, and then a spoon of rice appeared. He looked up.

“The doctor wouldn’t approve of skipping meals,” Pete said. And then he filled up the rest of Vegas’s plate, all the while chattering away with Porsche, about main family gossip he’d missed and Tankhun’s newest TV obsession and who’d moved into their old room. It was hard to keep his eyes off them. It was easy enough to imagine Porsche in his father’s chair and Pete at his right, the two of them replicating the main family’s image like an infection. 

But Pete had quit the main family. For Vegas. 

Porsche kept stealing glances at Vegas, and while he continued to smile at whatever Pete was saying, his eyes said differently. I don’t trust you. I don’t like that he stayed with you. I don’t understand why he’d forgive you. 

After they finished eating, Porsche said, “Could we talk business somewhere privately?”

Vegas had a gun in his waistband. He didn’t know if he was going to use it yet. “Sure.” 

He took them to one of his father’s meeting rooms. Pete followed them. He did so casually, but when he passed Vegas in the doorway, he reached out and squeezed his arm. Vegas wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be supportive or a warning. He didn’t know what version of Pete was entering the room with them.

Porsche took a seat at the table and looked around curiously, at the liquor cabinet and the ornate wooden walls and then Vegas, who did not sit down. 

He crossed his hands in front of himself on the table. “I was given this position because I was told I was the rightful heir. But I didn’t grow up wanting it. You did.” 

Vegas didn’t say anything. Pete stood between them, hovering like he knew exactly what Vegas was thinking. 

“I’m not going to say that it would be easy to give it back to you. Kinn wants me in this position. And he hates you. But I am willing to fight for you.” 

“Why?” 

Porsche shrugged. “Lots of reasons. You know the position better than me. If you want it badly enough, you’ll do anything in your power to have me killed. If you do that, Kinn will have you killed. We’ve gone through enough bloodshed. I don’t feel like being at war with you.” 

“And what does Korn want?” 

“He doesn’t want you killed. But he’ll let it happen if you cause problems.” 

Pete shifted, but remained silent. 

“You act like you’re coming here with a fair offer,” Vegas said. 

“I’m not. I can try to convince them to give this position back to you if you want it, and maybe you could help me with that by being compliant, but if that doesn’t work then you’ll have to back down or be killed. What else would you have me do?” 

“I could kill you and convince all of my men to back me up against Kinn.” 

Porsche opened his hands. “You could do that.” 

Pete’s gaze: cautious, trusting, waiting, waiting for Vegas not to do that. Porsche hated Vegas because he thought Pete had granted him forgiveness; what he didn’t know was that Pete hadn’t done that, would maybe never do that, because some things are unforgivable. Vegas knew them well. 

And it annoyed him. That he was willing to give it all up just to hear those words from Pete’s mouth.

“Do you think you’re safe because I’m fucking your friend?” he said. 

“Vegas,” Pete said, not in chastisement but in warning. 

Porsche’s eyes darkened, and he leaned forward. “No. I think I’m safe because I trust that my friend wouldn’t be with someone who would kill me just to feel better about himself. But I don’t trust anything about you, and I don’t actually trust that you haven’t manipulated him somehow.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Vegas said, and he wanted a gun in his hand. 

“I don’t think you know anything about yourself. You’re not a real person. Nothing about you is genuine.” 

Pete took a step forward. “Stop. You’re both acting like children. Make a decision and then we can move on.” 

Porsche leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “I’ve laid out your only options. Do you want some time to think it over?” 

“Fuck your time. Learn your place. You think you can just come in here and take over? You know nothing. They don’t fucking trust you.” 

“So help me.”

“And be second again? To him, to that family?” 

“Yes. Learn your place, Vegas.” 

Vegas left the room, because he was going to kill Porsche, and he didn’t want to do it in front of Pete. 

He went to the training rooms, and a single glare from him sent everyone running out the door. And then he hit the punching bag until his hands were red and nearly splitting and his wound felt like it was going to tear open, and he still didn’t feel good enough so he shot at it until the bag was hanging in shreds.

He wanted to burn everything to the ground. 

Instead, he crouched down and buried his head into his knees and bit back a scream until it turned into tears. His father would hit him. He was losing everything they’d worked for. And he was going to let it happen, because the cost of fighting for it would kill him. He could just die now, and spare himself the humiliation of continuing on this way, or the inevitability of being killed by Kinn when he asked for too much. He’d only ever given one other person permission to kill him and that person would never do it now. 

Someone gently pried the gun from his hands. 

“Vegas,” Pete said, and Vegas tucked his face in closer to his knees. A hand carded through his hair and then tightened, pulling his head back. Pete was kneeling in front of him, his eyes concerned and soft and tinged with the slightest bit of panic. “Vegas.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, because Pete had slid the gun across the room, and his hands were on either side of Vegas’s face like he was going to disappear. 

“Okay.” Pete wiped the tears from under his eyes with his thumbs. “It’s going to be okay.” 

“I almost killed him.”

“I know.” 

“I should be dead.” 

“No, you shouldn’t.” And then Pete leaned in and tucked Vegas’s face into his neck, and Vegas let himself be led. He rubbed his nose along Pete’s pulse. 

“Do you actually want to be the head of the minor family?” Pete asked, and oh. Oh, Pete. 

“It’s not about that.” 

“It is now. He’s gone.” 

Vegas didn’t consider his father gone, because everything that Vegas was and everything that he wanted had to do with his father. As long as he was alive, his father was there. But he didn’t know how to explain that. 

“It’s not that simple.” 

Pete didn’t say anything. He drew a hand through Vegas’s hair, and Vegas closed his eyes, let himself be soothed and pretended it wasn’t happening. After a short while, Pete said, “You don’t have to adopt his failure. He died. He failed. But they want you to live because they know you can do more than him. If you try to walk in his exact footsteps, then you aren’t creating your own success. You’re letting him puppeteer you from the grave until you join him there.” 

“I can’t just give it up to them.”

“They already have it. What’s important is what you’re going to do next. What kind of person do you want to be?” 

He wasn’t real. Anything that he was belonged to his father.

“What kind of person do you want me to be?” he asked instead.

“Stop.” Pete pulled away and tilted Vegas’s chin up. He was mad; his eyes were steely, the same kind of expression he wore whenever he pulled a gun on Vegas. “You need to take responsibility for who you are in the world. He’s dead. Grow up, figure out what you actually want, and then take it.” 

His words made Vegas’s stomach twist, with anger but also want, because no one ever spoke to him that way and didn’t fear the consequences. The change in his mood must have shown, because Pete’s eyes darkened, and his chin tilted up in defiance. 

“And what if the only thing I want is you?” Vegas said, pushing Pete backwards onto the floor. 

“You’re deflecting.”

“You like it.” Vegas settled over him on all fours and dropped a kiss onto his neck. “Does that mean I can take you?”

“You already have me.” 

Pete was blushing, but he still looked ready to argue, and a smile was tugging at his lips. He was so many things at once that Vegas didn’t know how to categorize him. 

Vegas leaned down over him, just inches from his face, and tilted his head. “Do I?”

“Yes,” Pete said, and looked down at his lips. He wanted Vegas to kiss him. He was waiting for it. When the kiss didn’t come, he looked up, his brows furrowed. “Do you want me to prove it to you?” 

“And how would you do that?” 

So quick that Vegas couldn’t react, Pete had him flipped onto his back. He crawled onto Vegas’s lap, bodyguard-efficient but still careful to avoid pressing on his wound. Vegas let his hands fall onto his waist, half-delighted and half-disturbed at how fast the tables had turned. 

Pete looked down at him, his eyes serious. “I slept in your bed last night.” He kissed Vegas but pulled away as soon as Vegas started kissing him back. “And I let you in the same room as Porsche, knowing everything you’ve done to him and everything you want to do to him. I prove it to you every moment I stay here and every time I let you put your hands on me.” 

Vegas let his hands fall next to his head, and he could imagine Pete taking hold of his wrists, breaking Vegas’s bones and putting him back together, because he owned Vegas in his anger and in his care. The good and the bad. Vegas was his.

Before he could say anything, the door to the training room opened and a lost looking bodyguard came through carrying a gym bag and a bottle of water. He spotted Vegas and Pete on the floor and came to a stop. 

“Khun Vegas,” he said, his eyes shifting to the ground. 

Pete took his time getting off Vegas. 

The man didn’t belong to the minor family. It seemed the ranks had already started shifting. The loss of bodies during the face-off had done neither side any favors, and Porsche would want to establish some familiar faces in the minor family to back him up. Vegas wondered if Pete knew this one. If they’d eaten together, trained together, slept together. He wondered if Pete felt ashamed. 

But Pete wasn't looking at him. He walked over to the gun he’d thrown away and kicked it back over in Vegas’s direction, and then nodded at the bodyguard before leaving. 

Vegas picked up the gun and tucked it back into his waistband. The man was still awkwardly standing in the doorway. Vegas stood.

“Did you work with Pete?” he asked. 

The man nodded. “I trained with him, sir. But he was higher in rank than me.” 

And they’d had him guarding the household pet. “You answer to him now.”

He shifted, his eyes falling once again to the floor. “Yes, sir.”  

In the hall, people looked at Vegas like he’d truly been dead, and he’d somehow been reanimated just to rip them limb from limb. He liked when people were scared of him. He liked that they knew when he was angry, and that his anger inspired fear, because that’s how his father had inspired control. He had no power here anymore, but no one looked at Porsche this way. Maybe that’s what he could be: Porsche’s dog, brought out with his teeth snapping when Porsche needed his dirty work done. Wasn’t that the minor family’s role, anyways? To be hardened and filthy from misuse until they were ready to do anything for approval? 

You need to take responsibility for who you are in the world.

He went to the garage to make sure his bike was still there. If it wasn’t then he might actually have a good reason to hurt somebody. But it was there, just as he’d left it. 

He told himself he was just going to take it for a spin, but then he was pulling into the main family’s driveway, and the pavement was cleaned of blood, just like he knew it would be. They didn’t let themselves stay dirty for long. He parked directly in front of the door and threw his helmet on the seat. 

“Do you have an appointment, sir?” The bodyguard at the front door said, and it wasn’t Chan, because his father had killed Chan. 

“I’m here to visit my cousin.” 

Someone must have spoken on his behalf in the man’s ear, because he stepped aside. Vegas was followed upstairs with two bodyguards at his back. His footsteps were loud on the shiny floors. 

Kinn was sitting on his couch with an arm around Porsche and a glass of scotch in hand. He took a sip with a small smile on his face, like he always did, smug and insufferable. 

“I see you ran back to your owner,” Vegas said to Porsche, stopping in front of them.

“I wasn’t sure how long your tantrum would last,” Porsche responded. 

“How are you feeling? I heard you weren’t doing so well,” Kinn said. He looked Vegas up and down as if he could see the wounds. 

“Don’t trust everything you hear.” 

“You never apologized for stealing one of my bodyguards.” 

“Not my fault you didn’t inspire enough loyalty.” 

Porsche rolled his eyes. “Loyalty was never the issue.” 

Kinn considered him for a moment, and then waved a hand at the other couch and smiled. “Sit. Explain why exactly you thought it would be a good idea to come here.” 

Kinn didn’t think Vegas was a threat. Vegas didn’t particularly feel like a threat; a fine bead of sweat was making its way down his back due to the exertion it took to stay standing and steady. He knew he looked ill. He sat anyway, because he actually needed to, and he might as well do it when it was being offered. 

“If I let Porsche take the position, I won’t help him. No more using the minor family as pawns to make up for your incompetency,” he said. 

Kinn’s jaw clenched but he nodded his head. 

Vegas continued. “And once I let you do this, you won’t threaten my family. If we do something that you don’t like, our lives will not be put at risk. We aren’t bargaining chips. You will talk to me and we will negotiate a solution.” 

Porsche flicked a hand. “That goes for us, too.” 

“And you won’t kick us out of our house. We are free to come and go. It’s no longer your business what we do. You will not turn the minor family guards against us.” 

“I never planned on doing that,” Porsche said. 

“And Pete is free to come back here if he so chooses. You will welcome him and treat him as though he never left.” 

Kinn smiled. “So sure he’ll leave you?” 

“I’m sure you would be careless enough with his life that you would punish him for ever choosing me over you.” 

Which wasn’t completely the truth. But Kinn had never inspired honesty. 

Kinn’s smile dropped from his face. He took another drink and then leaned over to put his glass on the table. Vegas draped an arm across the back of the couch, because he’d lost everything but was slowly starting to feel like he could win things back. Not by killing for them but by asking for them, because when you’re bleeding out on the ground, people often forgot about your sins in order to keep you from dying. He couldn’t beat Kinn, but he could use Kinn to make the life he wanted, and Kinn was stupid enough to let him.

“You won’t purposefully impede Porsche's succession in any way. If you do, you will be removed from the home,” Kinn said. 

“No.” 

Porsche raised his eyebrows. “We’ll discuss further if it becomes a problem?” 

Vegas smiled. It was just like Porsche to sense he’d been trapped long after the ropes had bound him. “Exactly.” 

The two of them sat in silence for a moment. When no refusal seemed forthcoming, Vegas stood. “You have no idea what kind of hell you just inherited. I hope you rot in it.” 

And then he left. 

He didn’t feel good about it. But then, he’d never actually felt good about taking over after his father; he’d felt important, and needed, and he’d felt like maybe he could be good at it. It was what he’d been born to do. But many things were born to be slaughtered and were rarely given the chance to think twice about it. He should be dead, but he wasn’t. 

Dinner was being served when he got back, and he stole a few things off the table and talked to Macau about his day, and school, and his friends, and it felt normal. It was almost summer. They’d have time to do anything they wanted; they’d never actually gone on a vacation together, unless being dragged on their father’s work trips counted, which it didn’t because it always ended with bloodshed. 

“My friend has a beach house in Phuket. He says I’m invited to go if I want, after school ends,” Macau said, fiddling with his placemat. He wasn’t a nervous kid, but normally this would be out of the question. They were to remain on site, in sight, at all times. 

“Would you be embarrassed if I came?” 

“Oh god, maybe. Bring Pete if you do.” 

“Why? Is he less embarrassing?” 

“No, but he has a better sense of humor.” 

Vegas ruffled his hair. “You’re not allowed to say that. Where is he, anyways?” 

“I don’t know,” Macau shrugged. “He disappeared after he ate. He was asking where you’d gone.” He paused, and then looked up smiling. “Oh, and I gave him the code to your room.” 

“Of course you did,” Vegas said, turning to walk away. 

“Just trying to help you out!”

He walked through the halls that no longer belonged to him, that had never really belonged to him, and when he got to the room that he rarely let anyone see let alone have access to, he found Pete. Pete, in his bed, reading his book, wearing his shirt. It was silky and black and fit like it was made for him. 

Vegas shut the door behind him and Pete looked up from the book. 

“So you didn’t get yourself killed.” 

“You didn’t think I would,” Vegas responded, circling the bed until he was standing in front of Pete. He reached out and slipped a finger under the silver chain around Pete’s neck. It was also his.

“I didn’t?” 

“You would have come after me if you thought I was in danger.” 

“I’m not a bodyguard anymore.” 

Vegas tugged on the chain and Pete looked up at him through his lashes, as if he didn’t do it on purpose, as if he didn’t put Vegas’s chain around his neck for any other reason than boredom. “No. But you’re mine.”

Pete smiled, a small little thing that teased more than it agreed. “Would it make you feel better if I said I was?”

Vegas wrapped the chain around his fingers, enough so that it would tighten across Pete’s neck, and leaned down to tuck his mouth close to Pete’s ear. “They said they’d take you back. If you want to leave.”

Pete’s hands came up to pull Vegas closer. “I don’t.” 

“I gave everything to them. I have nothing left.” He bit Pete’s neck, just above the chain, and the cool feel of it on his lips made him feel very alive. 

“Good.” 

“And you don’t want to go back. Have you at all, since that day? You have friends there. Are you ashamed?” 

A hand clenched in his hair, and Vegas kept his mouth on Pete’s neck, and his teeth on his skin, because he didn’t want to see Pete’s eyes and what they might give away. 

“I’ve been back. I still talk to everyone.” 

“But you’re ashamed.” 

Pete pulled Vegas’s head from his neck and put his hands on either side of Vegas's face. He leaned his forehead on Vegas’s. “I don’t – what we do doesn’t always make sense to me. I’m not ashamed of you . I just don’t know how to explain you.” 

Vegas took hold of Pete’s wrists and traced over the soft feeling of his pulse with his thumbs. “Or is it that you don’t know how to explain who you are with me?”

“What do you mean?” 

He stood up straight and let Pete’s hands fall from him. Pete gazed up at him, and he looked good like that, kneeling on Vegas’s bed and dressed in Vegas’s clothes. He looked like he belonged to Vegas. 

Vegas reached out and touched Pete’s chin. “You know what I mean.” 

Pete’s eyes darkened, and no one else got to see that, no one else knew exactly how to slide the smile from Pete’s face and replace it with something real. Something hungry and wanting.

“Like that,” Vegas said in approval. “No one gets that.”

Pete lowered his eyes and frowned, a small crease forming between his brows, and Vegas tapped under his chin lightly until he looked back up. “You’re here because you don’t have to hide it. So don’t.” 

“All the worst parts about me led me to you,” Pete said, reaching out a hand to Vegas’s stomach. His eyes followed the path of his hand, down across Vegas’s navel, his belt, his dick. He paused and looked up. “No wonder you want me to embrace it.

Vegas shrugged. “I never claimed to be selfless.”

Pete laughed and dropped his hand, leaning his head on Vegas’s stomach. “No. But I think the best parts of you are what keep you coming back to me. Those parts of you are mine.” 

His breath was warm through Vegas’s shirt, and he kept himself hidden against Vegas’s body for a moment, and Vegas let him. He cradled his head, ran his hands through Pete’s hair. Vegas had very little left in the world. He had very few people in the world who would claim him as theirs, who would allow him to do the same in return. He’d lost so much that he no longer felt like clawing for things that would only turn to dust in his hands as a result of his sharpness. He could be soft in his wanting if it allowed the things he loved to remain untarnished and his. 

When Pete looked back up at Vegas, his eyes were resolved. And so, so dark, as they always were, at least when they were looking at Vegas. “Well, you have me. What are you going to do with me?” 

Vegas put his thumb on Pete’s lower lip, brushing over it softly before pulling it down just slightly. Pete’s mouth fell open. “I want to see you be good for me.” 

Pete’s eyes dropped to Vegas’s pants. He nodded. 

“Why don’t you unbuckle my belt?”

Pete’s hands came up and slowly unbuckled the belt. Then placed his hands on Vegas’s hips and looked up as if asking for further direction. 

Vegas tilted his head. “The zipper.” He watched Pete pop the button and then slide down the zipper. “Have you done this before?” 

“Does it matter?” Pete asked, and then pulled down Vegas’s underwear.

Maybe it did. He wanted to be the only one Pete thought about when he had his mouth on Vegas. 

“I would be gentle with you,” Vegas said, touching his hand to Pete’s cheek. 

Pete grinned. “Don’t lie to yourself,” and then he leaned down and put his mouth on Vegas’s cock. He was tentative about it, tracing small little licks around the head, and he looked up at Vegas while he did it, as if goading Vegas into doing something more. 

Vegas carded a hand through Pete’s hair and another hand under the chain around his neck. He pulled on both until Pete took him into his mouth, and Pete moaned as he did it, like he’d been waiting for it. He took a moment to adjust but then he sucked , and maybe he had done this before, with a bodyguard or some man from a bar or Porsche or Kinn . But it didn’t matter because that was Vegas’s chain around his neck and Vegas’s cock in his mouth. Vegas wanted to crawl into Pete’s body and stay there. He was the nicest thing Vegas had ever been owned by. 

Pete swallowed around Vegas, again and again, and didn’t pull back until Vegas loosened his hold on the chain. It left red marks on his skin. 

“Put your hands behind your back,” Vegas said, and Pete did, folding them behind himself without taking his mouth off Vegas. He put his tongue on the bottom of Vegas’s cock and then eased it back into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the head and looking up at Vegas as if for approval.

“You’re good,” Vegas said, because he was. Vegas brought one hand to Pete’s mouth, traced his lips and dipped a finger inside, and Pete let him, allowed it, swallowed around Vegas until his eyes watered. Vegas traced that same finger down Pete’s neck, felt it as he swallowed again, tucked a finger under the chain and then wrapped his hand around Pete’s neck. He squeezed until Pete opened his mouth for air, and then he moved his hand to the back of Pete’s neck to push himself deeper. 

“Breathe, Pete,” and Pete did, a deep inhale and an even deeper exhale, and then he sank further, until his nose met the bottom of Vegas’s stomach. 

“Oh,” Vegas said, because he was going to come. Pete moaned, like he enjoyed Vegas losing himself. And Vegas wasn’t particularly loud during sex, but he liked when Pete liked things, so he released a shaky breath and rubbed the soft skin behind Pete’s ears and told him exactly how much he was enjoying Pete’s mouth. 

When he came, it was on Pete’s tongue, and it was with Pete’s gaze on him, hungry and eager and glassy-eyed. 

He tucked himself back in his pants and grabbed hold of Pete, sat on the bed and pulled Pete into his lap. Pete straddled him, ground against him, put his mouth on Vegas’s neck and exhaled shakily as Vegas reached around and grabbed his ass. 

“You looked good with my cock in your mouth,” he said into Pete’s ear, and Pete tucked his face closer into Vegas’s neck, bit at him. “But you’re not really good, are you?”

Pete shook his head and pushed himself back into Vegas’s hands. So Vegas pulled his pants down and reached to the nightstand for the lube. When he slid a finger into him, Pete exhaled a sigh into Vegas’s neck, half-moan, half-relief. Vegas brought his other hand to Pete’s cock and got him off like that, with Pete melting into him, occasionally kissing Vegas’s neck or working a bruise into his skin.

After he came, Pete tucked his hands onto Vegas’s chest and his head down underneath Vegas’s chin. His breath slowed and his eyes closed, and Vegas traced the red line around his neck. After a while Pete lifted his head and blinked sleepily at Vegas, then kissed him softly. Vegas licked the taste of himself from Pete’s mouth, put his hands on Pete’s cheeks, held him there while he tried to translate gratitude into kisses. 

When they pulled away, Pete’s cheeks were flushed and a small smile had tucked itself in the corners of his mouth. 

Vegas traced it with his finger. 

“How do you feel about a vacation?” 

Notes:

my chapter three plans are so angsty im so sorry (dw nothing too crazy I'm a happy ending kinda gal) <3 thank you for reading!

Chapter 3: iii. safehouse

Summary:

A vacation.

Notes:

turns out it's hard to write fast when you also work full time. this one took it out of me <33

(also, extra trigger warning for mentions of self-harm and past suicidal behavior. nothing that didn't happen in canon but i just want to be careful).

They flew out a few days after Vegas signed away his legacy, and the day after Macau ended school. Pete had spent those last few days at the main family’s home, packing up the rest of his stuff and spending time with Porsche before he left. Maybe spending time with others. Vegas didn’t really know Pete’s friends, and didn’t know how to introduce himself to them. They already knew Vegas. They already hated him. Maybe it was better that Pete kept them separate. 

Pete drove their rented car from the airport, and Macau blasted his horrible music the entire time, and Vegas leaned his head on the window and tried not to feel too fond. Pete leaned over and poked his cheek, right where it creased from his smile. Vegas grabbed Pete’s hand from the gearshift and kissed his palm. Macau kicked his feet up onto the console and dislodged their hands.

“None of that while I’m trapped here. I’ll jump out the window.” 

Vegas tied his shoelaces together and Macau tried to kick him away and Pete yelled at them because they were distracting him, but he was smiling. 

The minor family had a home in Phuket, and Pete and Vegas planned on crashing there while Macau bounced between them and his friend’s house. They got to the house late and ate takeout over the kitchen island while making up plans for their week. Macau wanted to go scuba diving. Vegas wanted to sleep and maybe lay in some sand. There was some bickering involved. Pete grinned at them, mostly taking Macau’s side to annoy Vegas, but eventually pointed out Vegas’s still-healing wound and Macau’s friend, who was more likely to enjoy the exciting stuff, and the argument fell apart. 

When they finished eating they dragged their luggage to their rooms, and once their doors were closed, Vegas laid Pete out on the bed and fucked him, slow and sleepy and intense. Pete opened up so easily for Vegas, with his hands relaxed by his head and his eyes fluttering closed whenever he moaned. Vegas had to put a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet, and he dropped kisses into Pete’s neck, biting down whenever his own breathing got too heavy. 

After, they collapsed together, exhausted, and Vegas slept the hardest he’d ever slept in his life. 

Pete was still sleeping when he woke up. 

It was the first time he’d ever been awake before Pete, and he spent a little while just looking at him, the way his mouth was relaxed and soft, the way his pinky finger twitched occasionally in dream, the way his lashes fell against his cheeks and his hair across his eyes. Vegas wanted to touch him. Instead, he got up and went to the nearest market, and was preparing breakfast by the time Pete wandered out into the kitchen. He was wearing Vegas’s oversized t-shirt, and the collar was so stretched that it revealed the purpling bruises left by Vegas’s mouth from the night before. He was squinty with sleepiness and sat on the stool on the opposite side of the island, leaning his head on his hand and stealing a piece of mango from Vegas’s cutting board. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever slept so long in my life,” he said, and then reached for another piece of fruit. 

Vegas grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and filled it up with the various fruits he already had cut and placed it in front of Pete. “When’s the last time you took a vacation?” 

“A few days here and there when I was too injured to work.” 

“That doesn’t count.” 

“I don’t know, we never really took them when I was a child. We didn’t have the money for it, so I never got used to it.” 

Pete rarely spoke about his childhood. Vegas knew it wasn’t ideal – he thought about Pete’s father often, and a smaller version of Pete, wild and desperate and fighting, being beaten down and beating others. Sometimes he had a hard time matching it to this version of Pete, the soft one sitting in his kitchen and smiling at him. He couldn’t understand how Pete had turned out this way. 

“You can want things you’ve never had. Wanting doesn’t mean missing,” Vegas said. He couldn’t remember ever knowing gentleness, but he must’ve had it, at one point. Someone must have held him as a baby and kept his eyes from violence. Someone must have fed him. But he couldn’t remember it, so maybe it didn’t count as missing: that deep yearning he had to be soft, even if it felt alien in his hands, and all the more breakable for it. 

Pete hummed around a piece of pineapple. “I want to go swimming. And build a sandcastle. I bet I could build a better one than you. You don’t have the patience for it.” 

“Is that a bet?” 

“I don’t know, what will I get if I win?” 

“What do you want?” 

Pete smirked but before he could answer, Macau entered the kitchen. He was talking on the phone, excitedly going through his plans for the day, and Vegas made him a plate of food. 

“My brother will bring us. No, dude, he won’t mind he literally has a car and no plans. I know, that’s what I’ve been telling him.” 

Vegas glared at him until he hung up. 

“We’re going out tonight,” Macau said, starting in on his food. “And you’re driving.”

Macau left soon after breakfast. Vegas and Pete went down to the beach, which was a short walk from the property and secluded enough that they couldn’t see anyone else around. They swam for the first hour, splashing at each other and racing and floating in the sun. Then Vegas’s chest started to hurt so he had to lay in the sand, which wasn’t actually that much of a hardship, because there was a nice tree that provided good enough shade and it was so quiet that all he could hear was the sounds of the waves and Pete beside him. He accidentally fell asleep, and when he woke up, Pete had built one of the best sandcastles he’d ever seen. 

Not that he’d seen many. But it was very intricate.

“And this is the moat, so that the intruders can just fucking drown when they try to cross,” Pete said, pointing. “And this is the tower where the princess is kept away from all the bad men. That’s you, by the way.” 

“Oh? And who are you?” 

“I’m the knight, obviously. I stand at the door, here.”

“And if I have you to protect me, why am I locked away?”

“Maybe I’m one of the bad men,” Pete said, smiling. “Oh, and here’s the garage for all the cool cars. This is a modern castle, by the way.”

Vegas tried to build his own, but got frustrated after the first wave knocked out a tower, and so he scooped it all up and threw it into the ocean. Pete giggled the whole time, and after he’d given Vegas space to fume about it on his own, he pushed Vegas into the sand and crawled over him and kissed his cheeks. 

“I win.”

“Alright, fine. What do you want?”

He looked so good like this, sun-kissed and flushed with happiness and relaxed. He considered Vegas for a moment, then smiled. “One kiss.” 

“Easy,” Vegas said, leaning up onto his elbows so he could reach. He kissed him, and Pete’s mouth was warm and soft and gently curving into a smile, but just as Vegas opened his mouth for more, Pete put a hand to his chest and pushed him back down into the sand. 

“Just one,” Pete said. 

“Pete.” 

Pete smirked down at him, his hand still on Vegas’s chest, and he knew . He knew exactly how much power he had over Vegas. He leaned down and quickly kissed Vegas on the nose before getting up and running back into the water. 

They went back inside to eat lunch, and then they ended up in bed again. It was easy. No one was there to watch them, or judge them, or disrupt them. It was just Pete, on top of him and kissing him and touching him. Their bodies were warm from the sun and the room was dim, and the feeling of the soft sheets on his skin made him shiver. Pete rode him and Vegas laid back and watched him, the way his hair fell into his eyes, the way his mouth opened prettily on a moan when he felt good. Eventually Pete’s hands found their way to Vegas’s wrists, pushed them into the pillow, and Pete gave him endless kisses, taking everything from him and chasing exactly what he needed. 

“You’re so good,” Pete said when he was really close and his words had loosened from his mouth. He rarely spoke during sex, but when he did, it was always to say something like this. 

Vegas felt wrung out, from the sun and sex and relief, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy to be tired. They fell asleep until Macau came back, banging around the kitchen asking about dinner. 

That night Macau dragged them out to a bar, and Vegas did end up driving. His friend Bank was talkative and unafraid, and Vegas had to wonder how much he knew about Macau. About their family. It was the first time Vegas had met any of Macau’s friends from school. Usually he kept them far away from their home. 

Macau put two shots into Pete’s hand at the bar, did one himself under Vegas’s watchful eye, and then went onto the dance floor with Bank. Vegas stood with his chest to Pete’s back, leaning his hands on the bar on either side of Pete. He tucked his chin onto Pete’s shoulder, close enough that he could smell the liquor on Pete’s breath. 

“Do you want to dance?” he said into Pete’s ear. 

Pete shook his head. 

Vegas took his hand and dragged him off to the corner, where it was dark and cool and no one was paying attention to them. The music was so loud that nothing felt real. The lights occasionally crossed into the shadows and painted Pete’s face in hazy neons, coloring everything except his eyes, which remained dark and fixed on Vegas. A flash of red, a blush, a kiss; his hands on Pete’s waist and Pete’s hands in his hair. 

When Vegas was a teenager, he’d sneak out to bars and kiss people just like this, anonymously and dangerously. Sometimes they’d end up in the bathrooms and Vegas would convince himself he was the one in control, even when his own wrists were restrained and his mouth was bruised. One time he’d even recognized one of the men later, in the daylight and in his own courtyard, and he’d fucked him to see if it would make any difference in his father’s deal. It hadn’t. 

His hands found Pete’s neck, the edge of his jaw, his cheeks. His thumbs traced the soft line of Pete’s cheekbone and then dipped down to Pete’s chin, pulling it down to open his mouth. He flicked his tongue along Pete’s upper lip and felt the sharp heat of Pete’s exhale, the shakiness of his breath, the pretty wetness of his tongue when Vegas dipped into his mouth.

He’d liked sex before Pete, but not for any reasons that had to do with sex. He could imagine liking it, and how he would like it, but when he went out and did it, it always felt like harm. To himself. And maybe it had been, even if he’d been inflicting it upon others. 

Pete said Vegas’s name, and Vegas couldn’t hear it but he could feel the shape of it against his mouth. 

He lost track of time. Pete eventually pulled back and leaned his head against the wall, his chest breathing hard, and he reached out to pat Vegas’s pockets. He smiled and dug out Vegas’s lighter, then dragged them both to the back exit. 

“You carry a lighter but never any cigarettes,” Pete said, once he’d lit his cigarette and had given Vegas his lighter back. They were alone in the alley, which was damp and smelled vaguely of piss and was lit only by the purple lights of the club that escaped through the windows. 

“I don’t really like to smoke,” Vegas admitted.

Pete exhaled a cloud of smoke and tipped his head back against the wall. His throat was shiny with sweat and his shirt was unbuttoned enough that Vegas could see the glint of his own chain, still around Pete’s neck. Vegas wanted to bite him.

“Then why the lighter?”

“It was my father’s.” 

Pete took another drag and then gripped Vegas’s chin and dragged his face closer until their mouths were almost touching. He slotted his mouth against Vegas, just enough for their lips to brush, and exhaled. Vegas knew this trick, he’d done it to others before, but it had never been done to him. Vegas breathed in the smoke like he was hungry for it, even though he’d just said he wasn't.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re predictable?” Pete said, still holding his chin. Still close enough to kiss. 

“No. You said the opposite once, actually.” 

“I just hadn’t figured you out yet.”

“And you have now?”

Pete smiled and rubbed his thumb along Vegas’s bottom lip. “Almost.” 

It shouldn’t have made him feel relieved. It should have made him violent, and scared, because it was too similar to weakness. But maybe he’d always sought relief where there was violence, and he’d only just now begun to understand where the tenderness was hidden. In the cracks of the world, and in Pete’s hands, knowing him. 

They went back inside and Pete had more shots, mostly because Macau convinced him to, and then they went to dance while Vegas watched them from the bar, jealous of their happiness, the way they were so free with it, unselfconscious of being observed while their guards were down. But their guards weren’t down, not really, because he was there to make sure they would be okay. Maybe that’s what he could be good for. 

He drove them all home and they tried to rap whatever songs Macau put on, but their voices were slurred and giggly. Pete fell asleep halfway through a song, his head rolling on the headrest, and Vegas took his turns slowly and his stops even slower. 

He could see Macau smiling at him in the rearview mirror, his eyes squinty with tiredness and delight. 

“Shut up,” Vegas said, because he knew what Macau was thinking. 

“I’m glad you met him.” 

And that’s not really the right way to say it. Met him. That was much too delicate for what Vegas did to Pete, at the beginning. 

“Are you happier now? That Papa’s gone?” Vegas asked him.

Macau turned his head to look out the window. “Everything’s different now.”

They’d never really categorized things into happy and not happy. There was winning, and losing, and waiting, and planning. Maybe Pete would categorize things into levels of happiness; maybe that’s why Vegas had even thought of it. Maybe everything was different now. 

“I’m not sad he’s gone,” Macau said, and that was good enough. 

Vegas convinced Pete to crawl out of the car and into the house, and drink some water, and take his shoes off. He struggled with the buttons of his shirt until he looked at Vegas with blurry eyes, and so Vegas did it for him. He crawled into bed and leaned into Vegas’s body, even though it was too hot for them to sleep so close.

“Vegas,” Pete said, soft as the fan whirring above them and the sound of the waves coming faintly from the window. He titled his head into Vegas’s neck and fell asleep almost instantly. 

Vegas made breakfast for them the next day, because Pete and Macau were pretty pitiful with their mussy-hair and baggy-eyes. 

“Scuba diving today, Macau?” he said, putting a plate of eggs down in front of him. 

“Not likely.” 

Pete mostly just leaned his head on the counter and drank the coffee that Vegas put in front of him, and hummed whenever Vegas said something to him.

Vegas wanted to go swimming again. He wanted to nap for hours with Pete. He was already thinking about what he could make for dinner. 

“Where’d Pete go?” he asked, when he was done with the dishes and only Macau was sitting at the island. 

Macau shrugged and leaned his head into his arms. “Don’t know. I’m sleeping now, don’t talk to me.” 

Vegas rolled his eyes and finished putting all the dishes on the drying rack, and then went in search of Pete. He wasn’t in the bedroom, and the bathroom door was open. The house wasn’t particularly large; it was one of the farthest safehouses from Bangkok, and was only used for real emergencies. He wasn’t even sure what was in it, apart from the guest rooms. 

“Pete?” he called. 

He went to the hallway opposite of the guest rooms, where he guessed there would be an armory storage room, and a safe room. He found Pete there, at the end of the hall, standing in the doorway of a room. 

“Hey,” he said, and then pulled up short. 

The room in question was meant for hostages. It had chains hanging from the ceiling, and a wall with various items meant to cause pain but not death. There was a small mat on the floor with a hole-ridden blanket, and the blinds were closed. 

Pete didn’t turn around. He stood there, unblinking, long enough for a hard stone of fear to drop in Vegas’s stomach. 

“Pete,” he said, and reached out to touch his arm. 

Pete drew his arms to his chest. “Why would you bring me here?” 

“Let’s just keep this door shut, okay?”

“No,” Pete turned, but kept his eyes down. “Is this another safehouse? Why would you bring me here?” he repeated, somewhat hysterically. He looked like an animal that had realized it’d been trapped, and couldn’t think of a way to escape. 

“I didn’t think.” Because he hadn’t. They never spoke about the other safehouse. But of course Pete would think about it. 

“You didn’t think. Okay.” Pete closed his eyes and took a breath. 

“Pete, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I’ve never been here before,” Vegas said, reaching out again. 

Pete took a step back, and then realized he’d entered the room, and quickly skirted around Vegas until he was in the hall. “Don’t touch me.” 

Vegas drew his hands back. “Okay. Okay, Pete.” He felt like the world was very slowly collapsing at his feet. 

Pete’s eyes scanned the floor frantically. “What am I doing?” 

And that – Vegas couldn’t have that. That was the worst thing he’d ever heard. But before he could say anything, Pete started to back away. 

“I think I’m going to throw up.” 

“Let me get you some water,” Vegas said, following, but Pete threw his hands up and finally met Vegas’s eyes. They were pleading and hunted, like Vegas was going to come at him with his fists or stop him from getting away. 

“No, Vegas, stop. Leave me alone for a minute.” 

And then he went and locked himself in the bathroom. 

Vegas stood outside the door for however long it took for his brain to start working again. He thought about knocking, or saying something, or breaking the door down. But that’s not what Pete needed. He didn’t know what Pete needed. 

He walked to his room with shaking hands and sat on the edge of the bed. He tucked his hands on his lap and thought about hurting himself. Pete wasn’t there to stop him; Pete was locked away, hurting because of Vegas. And maybe Pete would leave him. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Maybe it’d been inevitable, since Vegas first laid hands on him, and Vegas would deserve it. He didn’t deserve a lot of the things that’d hurt him, a lot of the things that’d left him, but he would deserve Pete leaving him. Because Pete deserved to not feel however he was feeling right now. 

He stayed frozen, his hands in front of him, like a gun with the safety turned off. 

Distantly, he heard the front door open and close. 

Vegas stood, and he couldn’t really think, not really, just frantic bursts of feeling that usually made him do unforgivable things. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a handful of garbage bags, and then went back to the room and dismantled it. The pliers, the blanket, the chains, the knives, the dog bowls, the rope, all of it went into the bags. They were almost too heavy to lift, and Vegas was sweating, but he double-bagged it all and brought it to the backyard, where he stashed it next to the bushes and the trash. Then he went back to the room and sat in the middle of the dusty floor and considered his life without Pete in it. 

It was difficult. He’d chosen to live because Pete hadn’t killed him, and Pete had convinced him not to kill himself. He couldn’t make a life on that. But he’d apologized to Pete three times, and each of those apologies were inherently laced with threats to himself, daggers pointed at his own throat in response to Pete’s pain, and Pete had never forgiven him. 

Vegas stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, and closed the door behind himself as he left. He checked on Macau, who was dozing in his room oblivious to it all. He couldn’t sit in his room all day, and he couldn’t chase after Pete; instead, he went to the market and got the ingredients for dinner, because when Pete came back he wanted to have something to offer him, if he was hungry. 

“What’s going on?” Macau said later, after he emerged to find Vegas staring at the countertops, waiting for it to be time to start cooking. 

“Pete left,” Vegas said. He wasn’t sure how to explain anything more than that. 

Macau sat on the stool and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he left.” 

“Oh.” Macau kicked his feet against the stool, and he was concerned, he was scared, he probably thought Vegas was very close to doing something dangerous. “Can we go swimming? I’m too hot in here.”

So Vegas brought him down to the water, and entertained his endless chatter about things that didn’t matter, until it was an acceptable time to go back inside. Macau stayed with him the whole time, hovering, trying to be helpful except he was terrible at cooking and was actually making things harder to do. 

The sun had set and the food was finished by the time Pete came back. Vegas froze at the sound of the door opening, and Pete’s voice. 

“Yeah, I’m back,” he said, but it didn’t sound like it was addressed to anyone in the home, and when he walked past the kitchen his phone was held to his ear. He spotted Vegas and Macau and slowed his gait, averting his eyes. “I should probably go.” A pause. “I will. Okay, bye.” 

He tucked the phone into his pocket and his face was impossible to read. He looked at the food on the counter and approached, hesitantly. “Did you just make this?”

Vegas nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. 

Pete dragged one of the plates towards himself. “Thanks.” 

Macau was looking like he wanted to shake Pete. Vegas didn’t want him to say anything stupid, because Macau really didn’t understand the situation. 

“Hey, let’s go for a drive,” he said, pulling Macau up by the arm. 

“What? No, you guys have to resolve this,” Macau protested, shaking Vegas’s hand away. “Pete, he’s an idiot, just forgive him.”

Pete didn’t say anything, but his unreadable expression shifted and suddenly his eyes were sad, and Vegas couldn’t stand there and watch it. 

“Macau, we’re leaving.” 

Macau pouted the whole drive, and Vegas almost tried to explain several times, but he didn’t know where to start. He wasn’t sure Macau would still be on his side if he said everything out loud. Not that Macau should be on his side; it was awkward enough having him blindly defending Vegas, it would be worse if he did so with all the facts. 

“I’m going to crash at Bank’s,” Macau said, and so Vegas drove him to his friend’s, half-terrified of being alone with Pete and half-relieved that he didn’t have to interact with him under Macau’s watchful eye. 

When he returned, Pete’s empty plate was in the sink and the door to one of the guest rooms was closed. It wasn’t the one they’d been staying in. 

And Vegas was tired. He was so tired. So he collapsed into bed and put a pillow over his head and tried to pretend like nothing really existed, and he fell asleep like that. 

He woke to the sound of his door creaking open. 

The room was dimly lit with the faint light of dawn, and it was so early that the room was still somewhat cool from the nighttime air. He blinked sleepily, and then someone was crawling into his bed, and into his arms, which had opened instinctually. 

“Pete?” he said, mostly a mumble. 

Pete didn’t say anything, just turned on his side and dragged Vegas’s arm across his body, and Vegas turned so that his chest was pressed up against Pete’s back. 

The next time he woke he was still holding Pete, and Pete was awake, absently playing with the rings on Vegas’s fingers. Vegas dipped his head so that it rested at the base of Pete’s neck, and Pete’s hand paused. 

“Are you awake?” he asked. 

Vegas nodded, and tried not to be disappointed when Pete rolled to face him. There were bags under his eyes, and Vegas wondered if he’d slept at all. 

“You threw everything out. In the room,” Pete said, and Vegas didn’t like the thought of him going back there, alone, when he knew it would hurt him.  

“Do you want to go home? I’ll book you a flight.” Vegas said. 

“Porsche said the same thing.” 

“And what did you say?”

Pete’s eyes scanned Vegas’s face. “I told him I was going to stay.” 

“Why?”

“It didn’t feel right to leave.” 

Vegas moved his face into the pillow. It was very hard to meet Pete’s eyes. “Just – tell me what to do.”

“I can’t tell you everything. That’s not how this works.” Pete paused, and then he touched Vegas’s chin and pulled his face from the pillow. “I appreciated the space.” 

“Pete, I’m sorry.” 

“I know.” Pete sighed and rolled to lay on his back. His eyes studied the ceiling and Vegas studied him, trying to work out what he was feeling, failing to understand why he’d come back at all. “I think I was so caught up in you getting better and not being dead that I forgot about how mad I was. I hate you for doing the things you did. I hate that I have to have those memories of you. You don’t understand how much I hate it.” 

“I do –”

“No, you don’t. You have no fucking idea.” His eyes were calm but his voice was angry , he was so angry and Vegas had never been so close to such anger without being harmed by it in some way. He could imagine Pete leaning over, taking Vegas by the neck, hitting him, kissing him, choking him. But it was also impossible to imagine that, because Pete hadn’t hit him since the day his father died. He’d just sat with his anger like this, unsure of where to put it. Vegas wanted Pete to take it out on him, because at least then he wouldn’t be useless. 

“I want to make it better,” he said.

Pete turned his head. “And what if you can’t?” 

Which really meant, What if I never forgive you? What if I decide I’m too angry to continue this way?

“Then I can’t.” 

Which really meant, you can leave. 

“Hm.” Then Pete threw a leg over Vegas and rolled them over until Pete was straddling him. He put a hand on Vegas’s neck and considered him: Vegas’s hands by his head, the way his head tilted to willingly bare his neck, his mouth. Pete looked at his own hand on Vegas’s neck, as if considering how easily it would be to kill him. How easily Vegas would let it happen. His eyes were clinical in this evaluation, and it reminded Vegas of how much violence Pete had committed without blinking, how many times he’d pointed a gun at Vegas like it was second nature, how every time he’d given control to Vegas it was with the knowledge that he could snatch it right back if he chose. 

Instead of killing him, Pete leaned down, pressing his weight into the hand on Vegas’s neck, and kissed him. It was a threat written as a love letter. He pulled back and tapped a finger on Vegas’s neck.

“Porsche told me I’m welcome to stay with him to get some space when we go back. Will you lose your mind if I agree?” 

An ugly bloom of jealousy unraveled in Vegas’s chest. “No.” 

“Vegas.” 

“No. I already told you that you’re free to leave.” 

“I didn’t say anything about leaving.” 

He would last a day with the main family before realizing Vegas had nothing to offer him. “Okay. Do whatever you need.” 

Pete scanned his face, and Vegas couldn’t meet his eyes for long; Pete grabbed his chin, gently this time, and kissed his cheek. “Good.” 

And then he got up and left the room. Vegas stayed there, frozen, and listened as Pete began to make his own breakfast in the kitchen.

Notes:

thank you for reading! if all goes to plan then only one chapter left! maybe an epilogue too we shall see!

Chapter 4: iv. home

Summary:

a beginning, of sorts.

Notes:

sorry this took a little longer, but the chapter is also a little longer than usual to make up for it! epilogue coming your way soooon <333

also sorry if i really glamorized the house-hunting experience, let's call it escapism

The week passed and Vegas was only half-there for it. 

He was there when he was touching Pete; when Pete crawled into their bed at night, and let Vegas kiss his neck, and curled into Vegas in his sleep. He was there when Macau was with them, and Pete was smiling, and it felt like everything could be light and silly and Vegas could see himself through Macau’s eyes, where there was kindness.

The rest was mostly spent drifting. 

On the last night, Macau forced them all onto the couch to watch a movie, and he snuggled in between them with a bowl of popcorn. Vegas wrapped an arm around Macau’s shoulders and spent the movie thinking about how close his fingers were to Pete’s neck, his hair. He wanted to lay his hands on Pete. He wanted to reclaim him somehow, hold his wrists and own his pulse for a moment.

Macau fell asleep with his head on Pete’s shoulder, and the credits rolled. It was the last night that Pete belonged to Vegas. He’d be dropped off at the main family’s estate the next day. He was staring at the television, his hand carding through Macau’s hair. He was the best thing that had ever happened to them. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Pete said, breaking the silence of the room. 

Vegas turned his head away. “Like what?” 

“Like I’m killing you.” 

They looked at each other. Pete’s face was very delicate against the dim light of the screen; the cupid’s bow of his lip, the soft sweep of his eyelashes, the messy parting of his hair, the sad way he was looking at Vegas, like he knew they were a tragedy but was tasked with holding the knife anyways. 

“It’s okay, Pete. I’m okay.” 

They walked Macau to his room, half-asleep and grumbling, and Vegas tucked him into bed. Pete was in their bed when Vegas got to their room, and he turned on his side towards Vegas when Vegas crawled in. He put a hand on Vegas’s cheek and clenched a hand in the soft material of Vegas’s t-shirt, sweeping his thumb across the soft skin under Vegas’s eye.

And Vegas – he couldn’t say sorry again. He couldn’t beg Pete to stay, because Pete would only stay if he knew he could leave. He couldn’t admit that he was sick with jealousy, anger, and desperation, because that would scare Pete. Vegas was scary. The things he felt were scary. He wasn’t used to letting the things he wanted slip away from him without a fight. Without blood. 

Everything he loved left him, but none of them had ever promised to return. 

He leaned into Pete’s hand and nudged just close enough to touch his lips to Pete’s. 

“It will just be a week,” Pete said. Vegas nodded. 

His room had remained untouched during his absence, but his father’s room had not. 

When he arrived back at the minor family house, there were countless boxes piled in the hallway outside of his room, and Porsche was standing amongst several bodyguards, directing them around like he owned the place. Which he did, obviously. But he didn’t have to rub it in. 

“Oh, hi Vegas,” he said when he noticed Vegas standing there, clutching the strap of his duffel bag. If he was delighted or angry with the way Vegas’s trip had turned out, he didn’t show it. 

“What are you doing?” Vegas said. Another bodyguard came out of his father’s room carrying a stack of dusty books, and when he noticed Vegas, he dropped his eyes. 

“Moving in,” Porsche said. “I thought it would be helpful to establish myself a bit more here. I might stay here a couple nights a week, especially when things are busy.” 

Vegas struggled to imagine Porsche doing any actual work. How did he know anything about this business, besides what Kinn could whisper in his ear while they were fucking? 

“There were guest rooms you could have taken,” Vegas suggested.

“Doesn’t really send the right message, does it?” 

Vegas stood frozen for another moment, contemplating violence. But he kept thinking about Pete, in the back of a main family car, being carted away. He felt very little at the moment. “Alright.” 

And then he went into his room, threw his bag into the corner, and went to sleep. 

Unfortunately, when he re-emerged, Porsche was still fucking there. 

“Don’t you have things to do? People to see?” Vegas asked, leaning against the doorframe of his father’s room and watching as Porsche unpacked a box of clothes. 

“People to see? You mean Pete?” 

“No.” Yes.

“He’s got lots of people who want to see him. I don’t want to steal all his time,” Porsche said, unfolding one of the nicest suits Vegas had ever seen and hanging it up in the empty closet. 

Vegas wasn’t sure how he felt about his father’s room being dismantled. His initial feeling was rage – but that feeling often accompanied thoughts of his father, and it felt more like a reflex than anything. He was mostly glad that he didn’t have to do it himself. He’d planned on letting the room mold over. 

“You must be glad he came to his senses,” Vegas said. 

Porsche looked up at him. “Is that what you think happened?” 

“What do you think happened?” Because Vegas needed to know what Pete had said on that phone call. 

“Are you so desperate that you’ll ask me for relationship advice?” 

Vegas rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.” 

“No, fuck you . I hate having to hear about you all the time.”

“Really? Because moving in right next to me isn’t sending that message.” 

“Maybe I’m here to keep an eye on you.” 

Macau appeared next to Vegas, rumpled-looking and still in his clothes from the plane, clearly having also just napped. “So you saw that the vermin moved in,” he said, mirroring Vegas’s position in the doorway. 

Porsche looked between the two of them. He dropped the shirt he was holding and crossed his arms. “Look. I’m sorry your horrible dad died. But no one is forcing you to stay here, and I kind of have to live here. So maybe this is on you guys to solve, if you really hate it that much.” 

“You moved into his room. You’re not exactly playing peacemaker,” Macau said, his lip curling in annoyance. 

“Would you like to have his room instead?” Porsche asked, looking sincere enough for Vegas to consider it. 

He looked over at Macau, whose own eyes were raking across their father’s room. Vegas had rarely spent any time there; mainly as a child when his mother was still alive, but even then the room had felt eerie and dark, a place where the lion went to sleep. It didn’t feel like a place where he was welcome. 

Macau turned and left. 

“You know, I really like having a house outside of the two family homes,” Porsche said, conversationally. He’d gone back to unpacking. “It’s like having neutral ground.” 

Vegas ignored him and left, and then spent the next few days looking at properties in the area. He’d want somewhere close to Macau’s school, and somewhere close enough to the minor family home that he could still visit whenever he wanted. He needed somewhere to re-group, where he wasn’t in a constant power struggle. A place where he could figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. 

His father had left a hefty chunk to him and Macau in his will; clearly his resentment of them didn’t run deep enough to allow anyone outside of the family to benefit from his death. It didn’t mean that Vegas could do nothing for the rest of his life, but he still had connections. He’d been sharpened into a weapon and didn’t necessarily want to let himself go dull. He just needed some time to plan how exactly he could leverage that without a title. 

And part of that was establishing his own territory, because he sure as hell couldn’t live under Porsche’s – and by extension, Kinn’s – rule forever. 

And it was a nice distraction. Each day that Pete was gone, he filled the radio silence by dragging Macau to a house tour. He even hired Rose, a realtor who worked for the minor family occasionally. She didn’t seem bothered by their pickiness and seemed to take it as a challenge, probably because Vegas was paying her too much. 

“I want a backyard. Something with nice trees,” Macau said, standing in the desolate pavement driveway of the current house they were touring. 

“Why? Are you going to start reading under them?” Vegas said, eyeing the large number of windows. 

“No. I want to start throwing parties. Can we get a pool?” 

Vegas looked at Rose. She took out her notebook and jotted something down. “I’ll start considering pools,” she said, smiling. 

On the fifth day, while he was getting lost in the halls of a house that was way too expensive but was equipped with a pool, he got a call from Pete. 

The house was deathly quiet but Rose and Macau were in the backyard, so Vegas stopped inside an empty room and answered. 

“Pete?”

“Hey.” 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” His voice sounded cheery but cautious, like he was willing to be pleasant but wasn’t sure how Vegas would react. “How are you?” 

Vegas trailed his fingers along the clean white walls of the room. “I’m touring a house.” 

A pause. “Like, to buy?” 

“Porsche moved into my father’s room.”

“I heard. So you’re buying a house?”

Vegas slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “I think so. I want somewhere to go, that's just mine.” 

“I get that,” Pete said softly, and he would. Pete had nowhere to go that was just his, or that was neutral territory; he had the main family and the minor family, and neither were really safe spaces.  

Vegas was planning on making a key for Pete. He wasn’t sure if Pete would accept it. 

“Any requests?” Vegas said. “Macau wants a pool. And a gaming room.” 

Pete laughed. “I don’t know. I’m not picky.” And that wasn’t a no . Vegas put his head in his knees. “I guess I’ve always wanted my own room. I’ve never really had my own space.” 

“You didn’t have one growing up?”

“I have a younger brother. We always shared.” 

And Vegas didn’t know that. “Where is he now?”

“He went away to university as soon as he could. It’s far. We don’t really speak much.”

Vegas couldn’t imagine ever growing distant from Macau. But if Macau had chosen to run, especially while their father was alive, Vegas would have let him leave. He would have cut him off if it meant Macau could feel happier. 

“You can have two rooms if you want. Three.” 

“How big is this house exactly?” 

“However big we need it to be.” 

Pete laughed again, and Vegas closed his eyes. He wanted to ask: Are they treating you right? When are you coming back? Is it better there? 

“I actually wanted to ask you a favor,” Pete said instead. “They want you to come for dinner.” 

Vegas bit back his reflexive refusal. “Why?” 

“Just – I don’t know. A courtesy? A gesture of good faith? I don’t think they like how things stand. And I think they want to use me as a mediator, which is. Well. It’s a little awkward. I’m used to saying yes to everything they say.” 

 “You don’t answer to them anymore.” 

“No, you’re right. But they’re letting me stay in their house and I used to be willing to die for them. Before – well, you know. And anyways, this could be a good thing.” 

This had been the whole reason he’d called. Vegas could hear Rose and Macau re-entering the house, and Macau called his name. “When?” he asked. 

“This Friday. At seven.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

“Okay. Thank you. I – it would be nice to see you.” 

Vegas stood and tried not to think about how many days stood between then and Friday. “You can see me whenever.” 

“I know,” Pete said, softly, painfully, and Vegas went to find Macau to distract himself. 

On Thursday, they found the house. 

It was farther from the city’s center than he would have liked, but it had everything else. Big windows that overlooked a backyard filled with trees and flowers, a kitchen that wasn’t hidden away from everything else, enough rooms that they could each have their own and then a few extras for guests. A pool. A library. A driveway large enough to fit both a bike and a car. 

Vegas had never lived somewhere quiet; there’d always been the intense bustling of bodyguards, the curious stares of strangers there to do business, the raucous laughter of the minor family residents who lived from one adrenaline rush to the next. He’d always been protected but he’d always been at their mercy, a constant back and forth between comfortable safety in numbers and the terrifying claustrophobia of being unable to escape them. Even his own room had become a makeshift cage that he used to keep himself hidden, showcasing the sharpest parts of himself in case someone stumbled in. 

After they put an offer in with Rose, Vegas and Macau laid down in the grass of the backyard, giddy like they’d gotten away with something. 

“Is Pete going to move in too?” Macau asked, squinting against the sun and smiling. 

Vegas moved his hands over the softness of the grass. “If he wants to.” 

“Did he go back to the main family?” 

“No.” He had, once. Vegas was trying very hard to ignore how much it felt exactly like that first time, sharp and painful in his chest with the waiting. But it was different. 

“Have you asked him if he wants to move in?”

“Not yet.” 

“Idiot. Are you going to give him a key anyways?” 

“Yes – stop being nosy,” Vegas said, grabbing a fistful of grass and throwing it into Macau’s hair, twisting away when Macau gasped and put a hand over Vegas’s face, laughing and scrambling to get out of his reach and failing. 

On Friday he spent thirty minutes trying to choose the right shirt to wear for dinner, and thought about Pete wearing his clothes, trailing his hands over the silky softness of Vegas’s wardrobe and wanting it on his body, all over him. Thought about how long it’d been since he’d put his hands on Pete, for real , not like he was going to lose him but like he had him. Thought about Kinn laying his eyes on Pete, about Pete sleeping under his roof, answering to him, willing to die for him. 

Before, Vegas had always entered the main family home hiding his hatred and his betrayal like a dagger tucked inside his sleeve. He didn’t have to hide it anymore. They all knew why he was there. He went weaponless. 

There was a line of bodyguards at the front entrance, as was custom when they were expecting the minor family, except Vegas had arrived alone and without a title. He was led upstairs to the dining hall, where a table was set for six; already seated was Kinn, Porsche, Korn, Tankhun, and Pete. Pete, who noticed Vegas’s arrival first. He straightened in his chair when Vegas appeared in the doorway, and his gaze was a confusing mixture of shy and alert. The chair in front of him was empty. 

“Vegas,” Korn said, his hands folded neatly on the table and his smile polite. “Thank you for joining us.” 

Vegas sat down in front of Pete, who averted his eyes when Vegas looked at him. Not like he was ashamed, but like he was embarrassed. “Where’s Namphueng?” Vegas asked, just to distract everyone. 

Tankhun scoffed and started serving himself food. “None of your business.”

“Just surprised she wasn’t invited to family dinner.” 

“We didn’t want to overwhelm her,” Korn said placidly. “She’s still quite sick.”

Pete watched as everyone served themselves food, and Vegas watched Pete. Kinn and Porsche kept whispering to each other, and Tankhum was scowling at Vegas, and Korn was trying to talk diplomacy. Vegas took a serving spoon and held it out to Pete, who blushed but took it from him with his eyes down. 

Everyone around them watched this. Vegas ignored them. He wasn’t fucking here for them. He served himself last, a bit annoyed because the food looked good, and Kinn smirked up at him, in that horrible way of his. 

“Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“Immensely.” 

“Pete told us all about it.”

Pete opened his mouth as if to argue, but Vegas just smiled. “I’m sure he did.” 

Korn sighed. “I’m glad you could take some time to rest.”

The most unbearable part about Korn was that he was bearable. And somehow he couldn’t even raise well-adjusted sons, so maybe Vegas wouldn’t have gained anything by being born in the main family anyways. 

Vegas wanted to say a lot of things: a lot of hateful things, things he would never have been allowed to say when he was under his father’s watch. Korn had shot his father clean in the head and Vegas was sitting with him, politely eating his food. But Pete was sitting there, silent and obedient. He looked like he had always looked, when Vegas didn’t know him. Vegas wanted to get him alone. 

So he kept quiet, and ate their food, even though it tasted like ash in his mouth and he wanted to be literally anywhere else. 

“I hear you’ve been looking for a house,” Kinn said once their plates were mostly clear, and Vegas looked at Pete, because no one else was supposed to know that. But Pete was looking at Kinn in confusion, and suspicion, and oh, Pete. Of course they would have listened. 

Vegas leaned back in his chair and smiled, not wanting Pete to think he’d let anything too precious slip. “Why do you care?” 

“We need to make sure you’re properly protected, that’s all.” 

“Is someone after me that I should know about?” 

“Of course not,” Korn said, shooting a glance at Kinn. “Let us know if you need any help moving, Vegas.” 

Pete was looking at his plate. And Vegas – he was so sick of their shit. He was tired. He’d done his fair share of infiltration, and spying, and double crossing, and he’d put several people in the position of spying on his behalf, whether they even knew it or not. But these people weren’t allowed to do that to Pete. Not anymore, and not to get to Vegas. 

Porsche was looking at Pete like he knew exactly what he’d done, but he was resigned to having done it anyways. Vegas did believe that Porsche would feel guilty for using Pete; he also believed that Kinn could convince Porsche to do a lot of things if he bartered his trust against Pete’s. 

There were never any good guys, or bad guys. There was just this table, the messy allegiances it promised, and the hurt look on Pete’s face that made Vegas feel dangerous. 

He put up with them for the rest of the meal, because he couldn’t guarantee getting away with Pete safely if he caused problems. When he stood to leave, Tankhun crossed his arms and looked up at him in disgust. “Goodbye, Vegas.” 

Vegas ignored him and looked over to Pete, who was folding his napkin and putting it on his plate. “Pete?” 

“He doesn’t want you, remember?” Tankhun said, but Pete was looking at Tankhun like he was a loose bomb, his face pulled into a grimace. 

“Thank you for dinner,” he said, standing. “I’ll see Vegas out.” 

“What? No, Pete, don’t go with him –” Tankhun said, panicked. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Pete said. “Khun Korn, Kinn, if I don’t see you before I leave, thank you for letting me stay. I really do appreciate it.” 

Vegas said nothing and left, sure that Pete was following him. 

Footsteps, and then a hand grasping his, and Pete tugged them through halls that Vegas only half-knew, and then halls that he’d never been in. They arrived at what looked like a guest wing, and Pete was quiet, fast with his steps, and he shut the door behind them as soon as they entered his room. 

He let go of Vegas’s hand and advanced into the room, and he was mad, his shoulders were tense, and Vegas wasn’t sure where he stood until Pete turned around and his face was guilty . 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think they would listen. I trusted them too much.” 

“Fuck them. They would have found out eventually, I wasn’t going to keep it a secret.” 

“You could have said something worse. It’s not even really about that, it’s the principle of it. They monitor bodyguards but I was acting like a guest, and even then I don’t know why I thought I’d be safe from it.”

Vegas took a step closer, because he still wasn’t sure where they stood or what he was allowed to do, but he wanted to touch him. Pete watched him advance and his eyes were desperate, pleading, and Vegas wasn’t sure what for until he put a hand on Pete’s cheek and he melted into it. 

“You’re okay,” Vegas said. He was perfect. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“I thought you were going to kill them. Not even just tonight. I can’t believe you didn't come here sooner.” 

“You didn’t ask me to.” 

“Kill them or come here?” 

“Either,” and Vegas meant it. 

Pete shivered under his hand. “I kept wanting to ask you to come.” 

“Why didn’t you?” 

“I wasn’t sure if you would. This is – it’s enemy ground for you.” 

“But you wanted me here.” Vegas traced his thumb along Pete’s cheek, obsessed with wanting him, having him, the relief of being in his presence and getting to touch him. Pete’s eyes flicked up to Vegas, his lashes long and dark, and he wasn’t resigned to wanting Vegas. He was just serious about it, confident in his surety, eyes searching and intense. 

“I wanted you.” 

“Why?”

Pete frowned a little. “Vegas, I still want you. I just needed time to process some shit. And I needed to know I could do that without you losing it. That’s – it’s important, to me. That you would give me that.” 

Vegas would go anywhere Pete asked him. Every person outside their door would kill Vegas on sight if given the order. He couldn’t defend himself. He didn’t have a weapon. But he could render himself powerless if it gave him this: Pete under his hand, asking for him, wanting him, giving himself up for Vegas, all the while holding Vegas’s life in his hands. Doing it because he had Vegas’s life in his hands, and Vegas wasn’t forgiven but he was redeemed, wholly and completely changed. Vegas had always readily practiced devotion, but he had never experienced the sanctity of doing so until Pete. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, sliding his hand down to cup Pete’s jaw. Could feel the rabbit-quickness of Pete’s pulse. 

Pete’s eyes fell to Vegas’s mouth. “Yes.” 

Vegas put his other hand on Pete’s cheek and tilted him exactly where he needed him, then kissed him softly. Pete’s mouth opened with just the slightest encouragement, pliant and relieved, so Vegas gave him more. Traced his lips with his tongue, tugged at his hair, chased after his shaky exhale. It’d been so long. He’d been ready to never have this again. Pete was tilting his head back and letting Vegas take, so he did, over and over again until their kisses were sharper and Pete was gasping. 

“Vegas,” he said, his mouth wet and red and swollen. Vegas pulled back and Pete’s eyes fluttered open, confused because Vegas wasn’t touching him anymore. Vegas traced a finger over his bottom lip and then tucked his face into Pete’s neck, nipping at the soft skin he found there, licking over the reddened bite mark.

“Why don’t you get on the bed for me?”

Pete’s hands found Vegas’s waist and clenched. “Can you – yes. But can we –”

“What is it?” 

Pete disentangled himself from Vegas and crossed to the other side of the room, digging through the nightstand until he came up with a neat bundle of rope. 

“I want – like that first time. But different.” 

Vegas approached him and gently took the rope from his hands. Pete’s eyes followed it. “Different how?” 

“It’s just different. I liked it then, but I’m sure of it now.” 

And the thought of Pete searching for it, choosing it, getting it ready and presenting it made Vegas’s heart stutter. “You can have anything you want.” 

“I want this.” 

Vegas looked at the bed and Pete sat, obedient and quick. Vegas didn’t even have to speak. Pete was ready for it so he would do whatever he thought would let him have it. Vegas reached out and pushed Pete’s chest, just a suggestion, and he fell back easily; Vegas crawled on top of him, knees on either side of Pete’s hips and hands on either side of his head. When he leaned down his chain hit Pete’s chin, and Pete reached out and grabbed it, wrapped his fingers around it, and when he pulled Vegas into a kiss it was biting, all teeth and ownership. Vegas let Pete hold him there, kissed him back like he was drowning for it, but he kept enough distance between them that Pete kept pulling his chain to get him closer. 

Vegas drew away and kissed him on the cheek. “Relax.” He kissed his other cheek and then leaned down and licked his neck, bit down a little. “I’m going to give you what you want.” 

“You’re hardly even touching me.” 

“Oh?” Vegas leaned down farther until he was straddling Pete’s waist, could feel him hard against his thigh already. He took hold of Pete’s wrists and drew them above his head, held onto them, lowered his chest until it was touching Pete’s. “This better, baby?” 

And Pete wasn’t expecting that. His eyes widened a little, his mouth opening just the slightest, and then apparently he decided he liked it because he nodded, his body going pliant underneath Vegas. 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah? You just keep telling me when you like things and I’ll do the rest,” he said, because he liked when Pete said it. When he admitted it, and everything that Vegas did became the right thing to do. 

“Okay,” Pete said, almost a whisper. 

Vegas had to kiss him. So he did, leaning in where Pete opened for him, wet and desperate. They kissed until Pete was shivering, his hips grinding upwards into Vegas, his hands clenching into empty air. Vegas slid his hands from Pete’s wrists and into Pete’s hands instead, let Pete hold onto him. 

He pulled away, because he had other things he wanted to do and Pete’s eyes were already hazy. 

“Clothes off,” Vegas said, tugging at Pete’s shirt. Pete sat up and helped Vegas remove it, then Vegas popped the button of his pants and got off his lap so that he could take them off. He got Pete naked and arranged on the pillows at the head of the bed, and was leaning back down when Pete put a hand to his chest. 

“Yours too,” he said, and Vegas hadn’t even thought about himself. He sat back and pulled off his shirt, his pants, his underwear. Pete watched him do this, his eyes dark, dark , and his hands clenched beside him like he was imagining reaching out to touch. 

“Good,” he said once Vegas was done. Vegas had told him to say what he liked, but he hadn’t imagined him doing it like that . Vegas moved in and Pete opened his legs, letting Vegas settle in between them.

“Hands,” Vegas said, and Pete put them out in front of him like an offering. Vegas grabbed the rope from where he’d thrown it on the bed and unraveled it quickly, tied Pete’s hands to the headboard carefully, knotting it the way he’d taught himself to do when the other person wasn’t a hostage. He put a finger between the rope and Pete’s skin to make sure it wasn’t too tight. 

He brushed a kiss on Pete’s forehead, his lips, down to his chest. Pete’s eyes followed him, his body completely relaxed, unworried now that he was where he wanted to be. 

And it was like the first time but it wasn’t. Vegas kissed past a scar on Pete’s chest as he put his hand between Pete’s legs, and Pete shivered, letting out a breath. 

“Vegas,” he said, not asking,  just saying it like he wanted something that belonged to Vegas in his mouth and had to settle for his name. 

Vegas paused and reached over to open the nightstand, and was unsurprised by the bottle of lube nestled in the relatively empty drawer. 

“Were you hoping I’d fuck you, Pete?” he asked, settling back between Pete’s legs and getting his fingers nice and wet for him, so that it’d be real easy. Pete nodded, his eyes watching Vegas’s hands. “So sure I would?” 

“Yes.”

“And why is that?” 

“Because I asked.” 

Vegas held one of Pete’s legs to the side, leaned down and kissed his stomach before sliding a finger into him. Pete breathed out, like he was relieved, and Vegas leaned down further and licked a line up his cock, reaching a hand up to his stomach to hold him down before he could move. He was tight, and it’d been over a week since Vegas had been inside him, since he could touch him. So he took his time with it, making it wet and slow and exactly how Pete needed it, until he was rocking down onto Vegas’s fingers and up closer to his mouth, letting out little sighs whenever Vegas added a finger and the stretch became more intense. Vegas didn’t want it to hurt but he still wanted Pete to feel it, to be consumed by it, so he pulled his fingers out and started to slide inside him, swallowing Pete’s moan with his mouth. 

“Shh,” he said, reaching up to wrap a hand around Pete’s throat and tilting his head to the side, kissing his throat, pushing in slowly. “Do you want them to hear you?” 

Pete’s eyes widened and he swallowed, shook his head, but he still let out a noise when Vegas pushed into him all the way and stayed there for a moment, letting Pete adjust. Vegas had no idea how far they were from the main rooms, or if there were other guests beside them; but these were their sheets, and their mattress, and every hallway had a camera. Pete would know this. Pete was undone by this; he locked eyes with Vegas and gave it up for him all the same, his eyes greedy and his body greedier, pulling Vegas in as Vegas began to pull out.

Vegas kissed him again, fucked into him, slow and steady and then harder because he wanted to break the fragile silence he’d inspired. He tilted Pete’s hips up into his lap and fucked down into him, and Pete hid his face against his arm, his mouth open. His eyes fluttered shut and Vegas reached out to tilt his face back towards Vegas, put his fingers against Pete’s mouth, smiled when Pete opened his eyes and licked at them. And this distracted him, made his eyes unfocused and glossy, so when Vegas thrust into him, he let out the prettiest little sound Vegas had ever heard. He looked at Vegas with something that bordered irritation, so Vegas smiled and slowed. 

“I know, baby, it’s hard. Here,” he said, and then moved back, grabbed Pete’s hips and flipped him over onto knees, his tied hands crossing at the arms. He nudged Pete’s legs apart, put a hand against his back and pressed down until Pete was arching, positioned exactly where Vegas needed him to be. Vegas entered him again, slowly, because it was intense, the way Pete hid his face in the pillow, his mouth open on a sigh, his eyes closed, blissed out. He melted his chest down as far as his arms would let him, and when Vegas started fucking him, he bit down on the pillow. 

Vegas never felt less in control than when he was having sex with Pete; and that flipped around the whole point of sex, the reason he’d ever done it with anyone else, but Pete made it feel so good. It was so, so good. 

He put a hand against Pete’s hip to keep himself steady and reached his other hand under to touch Pete where he was hard and wet. 

Pete rolled his face completely into the pillow. “ Vegas ,” he said, muffled and pleading. 

“It’s alright. You can let it out.” 

It was like the first time, but it wasn’t. Pete didn’t keep careful watch of Vegas, to make sure Vegas would stay where he wanted him; he closed his eyes and let himself go, pushed his hips back into Vegas, unafraid to take what he needed, whimpering when Vegas came first because it was supposed to be about him . Vegas lost himself in it, just for a second because Pete was tight and perfect and it felt good to have him, just like this, around him and belonging to him. 

When he opened his eyes, Pete had untied himself. 

Vegas hardly had time to blink before Pete was on him, in his lap, kissing him and grabbing at him. 

“Touch me,” he said, pulling Vegas’s hand around his body. “Vegas.” 

“Okay,” Vegas said, putting his fingers back inside Pete and using his other hand to steady Pete against him, pressing against the small of his back. “Okay, Pete. I’ve got you.” 

Pete tucked his face into Vegas’s neck and wrapped a hand around himself, biting into Vegas neck and sucking at his skin to keep the noises from falling out of his mouth. Vegas put two fingers in him, then three, because he was stretched and wet from Vegas’s cock, and he was rocking back onto Vegas like it wasn’t enough. Eventually Vegas slid his hand from Pete’s back to his neck, fucked his fingers in where he knew it felt good, pressed his mouth to Pete’s ear, and told Pete exactly how good he was being. How perfectly he took Vegas’s cock, what it looked like to see him want it, how much Vegas loved him and how Vegas would give him anything he wanted. 

“ Oh ,” Pete said, coming in his hand and clenching around Vegas. He hid his face deeper in Vegas’s neck, shaky and limp as he rode it out, and Vegas moved his hand from the back of Pete’s neck to his hair and held him. He waited until Pete’s breath stopped hitching before easing his fingers out. His neck was wet, and he couldn’t tell if it was from Pete’s mouth or if Pete was crying. 

“Hey,” he said, pulling Pete’s face towards him, his own throat thick and heart clenching. “Was that okay?” 

Pete’s eyes were red and glassy, but he nodded. He was looking at Vegas as if he’d lost him, and maybe he had, in that room, in that anger, in everything that Vegas had been when he’d let himself be haunted and terrible. “Just intense.” 

Vegas pulled Pete into a hug, held him because he had lost him, could always lose him, could only do everything in his power now to make sure he wasn’t something worth leaving. He laid Pete back down into the pillows, drew a blanket over him because his skin had broken out in goosebumps and he was shivering. Pete’s eyes followed his every move, wide open and searching, so Vegas wrapped him into his arms and let his weight fall onto Pete; he always breathed easier after, when they did this, if Vegas smothered him a little so he didn’t feel untethered and exposed. 

Vegas eventually walked them both into the bathroom, Pete sleepily allowing Vegas to lead him by the shoulders into the shower and under the water. Vegas lathered his hair with soap and tilted his head back into the water to rinse, and Pete watched him calmly as he did it, still somewhat in a daze. Vegas gently pulled him in by the back of the neck and Pete rested his forehead against Vegas’s chest, keeping quiet and still as Vegas washed the rest of the soap from his hair. 

“Can you stay here?” Pete said into his neck, pressing a kiss against his skin once the words had left his mouth. 

Vegas took the expensive-looking body wash from the shelf and poured a generous amount in his hands. “I’m not eating breakfast with them.” 

He ran a hand down Pete’s back, over his ass, slipping his fingers over Pete’s rim and pulling away when Pete’s mouth opened against his neck. 

“Okay,” Pete said, shivery. “We can leave before they wake up.” 

Vegas hummed and finished cleaning them both off; Pete would probably say anything right now to keep Vegas’s hands on him. He would ask again in the morning to see what Pete really wanted. If Pete actually wanted to leave with him. 

He towelled them off and walked Pete back into the bed, and Pete rolled into him immediately, grabbing Vegas’s hand and pulling it over him. 

“Thanks for coming,” he said into Vegas’s chest. “I know it was kind of horrible.” 

“You don’t owe them anything anymore,” he said, hating that quiet version of Pete he’d seen at the table.

“No,” Pete agreed. “But they’re dangerous enemies. I think it would be a good idea to let them think that they still have me, and that I have you.”

“You do have me.” 

Pete looked at him, his eyes warm and sleepy. “I know. But they don’t have me. I just want to keep that part secret, so that I can keep you safe. Do you understand?” 

Vegas understood but he didn’t quite believe it. He brushed Pete’s hair from where it fell into his eyes. “I think so.” 

“Good,” Pete said. 

Good. Like anything that Vegas did could ever be good, or untainted. But maybe that wasn’t the case anymore. 

“I – there’s a house. It’s nice. Macau really likes it.” 

“Did you buy it?” Pete’s voice was hazy, and he was falling asleep, but Vegas had to ask him. 

“Yeah, we can move in next week. It’s – there’s lots of rooms. You can have one. If you want. I have a spare key.” 

“Is there a pool?”

Vegas laughed. “Is that a dealbreaker for you?” 

“Yes, obviously.” 

“Well, yes, there is.” 

“Perfect.” 

Vegas looked down at him, his closed eyes, the smile on his face. “Pete? Is that a yes?” 

“Mhm. Sleep now.” 

And Vegas would ask him again in the morning. Just to be sure. 

Notes:

thanks again for reading! can't explain how much your kudos/comments make my day <3

Chapter 5: v. epilogue

Notes:

apologies for such a delay, life happened unexpectedly. this short taste of life was all i had in me to write, but i hope it leaves your hearts warm <3

There were too many teenagers in his house. 

An uneasy symphony of sounds filled the rooms of the first floor: the sound of something falling from the counter; the loud laughter of someone too drunk, the splash of the pool and the thumping bass of the speakers. Before they’d moved in, every room had been equipped with a boring blue-tinted ceiling light, and it’d made his skin crawl until he’d exchanged them for dozens of lamps and the right kind of neon mood lighting. The lights and the sounds and the sickly smell of alcohol mixed together like a particularly strong cocktail that settled heavily at the bottom of his stomach. 

He made his way into the kitchen, physically moving some people out of his way because they had no idea who he was and so they didn't fear standing in his way. The couple leaning against the fridge, not kissing but certainly close to doing so, stood oblivious to him until they noticed him glaring, and then awkwardly shuffled away. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of rosé from the fridge and two wine glasses from the cupboard, and then shouldered his way back through the crowd. 

“Vegas!” Macau called from the living room, where he was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table dealing cards to the group of blurry-eyed people around him. “Come play!” 

“Not likely,” Vegas said. A boy clumsily picked up the cards he’d been dealt and dropped a few of them onto his lap. “Don’t lose all our money.” 

Macau raised an eyebrow, grinning. “We’re betting in dares.” 

The group around him giggled and Vegas didn’t really want to know what that meant, so he didn’t ask.

Upstairs the music was quieter, if only barely, although the floorboards were still rattling. A few people were lingering in the hallway, standing close and talking quietly, but Vegas didn’t pay them any attention. He’d locked all the doors that’d needed to be locked and the rest wasn’t his business. At the end of the hall was a room with its door closed, and he tucked the bottle of wine under his arm so that he could open it. He closed it behind himself and locked it, and then the music and chatter from downstairs was truly muddled, almost comforting in its distant familiarity. 

“Is he puking yet?” 

“No, gambling. Do you think that’s better?” 

Pete rolled onto his stomach and considered the question. He was wrapped up messily in the sheets, still flushed from when they’d fucked, his hair almost endearingly messy. “No. Probably not. Should we teach him better habits?” 

“Like what?” Vegas walked over to the bed and poured himself a glass of wine, but Pete grabbed the bottle from his hands before he could pour another. He took a swig right from the bottle and Vegas sat beside him, putting a hand in his hair. 

Pete hummed, his tongue peeking out to lick the wine from his lips. “I guess killing for a living is out of the question. Or selling drugs.” 

“We could teach him what not to do.” 

“Have you ever gambled?” Pete asked, putting his chin in his hands and looking up at Vegas like he really wanted to know. 

“Never when there was a possibility of losing.” 

“Cheater.” 

Vegas ducked down and kissed him, ignoring the accusation, then reached to put his glass down on the nightstand. Technically this was his room, and both nightstands belonged to him, but the right side of the bed belonged to Pete. When he went to Pete’s room, the left side of the bed was left empty for him. Having his own room meant that he had his own closet for all his clothes, and a wall for his bookshelf, and quietness when he needed it. It meant that when Pete came into his doorway at night, it was simply because he wanted Vegas. 

Vegas leaned back against the pillows and Pete crawled into his lap, taking the bottle of wine with him. He was naked except for the collar around his neck, which he didn’t wear all the time but he did wear on nights like this, when he hid himself away in Vegas’s bed and gave himself up to Vegas’s hands. It was a delicate little thing, slim and pretty enough that it could be mistaken for a necklace.

Pete took another drink from the bottle and then dropped a kiss onto Vegas’s throat. “When are you going to tell him?” 

Vegas ran his hands up Pete’s thighs and settled them on his waist. Squeezed into the soft skin of his stomach. “Maybe once school starts.” 

“That’s in four days.” 

“I know.” 

It’d been two months since Vegas had almost died, and in that time he’d lost his home and then built a new one. He’d painted rooms and bought furniture and planted a garden; he’d learned new recipes and the name of the butcher down the street and exactly where to kiss Pete to make him shiver. He’d also calculated how he could build a name for himself that didn’t mean second , or death , or shame . He was born from blood and violence and it would never leave him – he didn’t really know if he wanted it to leave him, but he could at least make sure it wouldn’t ruin him. Pete had helped him, of course. Pete was soft under his hands, but his eyes were dark and heavy; the room was warmly lit and quiet, but Vegas could bite Pete until he bruised and Pete would like it. They could both look into the deep waters of the world they’d been born from and see the same reflection looking back. 

“He’ll be fine with it,” Vegas said. “He never had any problems before.” 

Pete tilted his head, considering. “It was different before. He didn’t have a choice. He seems to be adjusting well to this life.”

“He’s not going to be involved if he doesn’t want to be.” 

No one knew the address of their home, or what Vegas had been doing these months. And that would remain true; they hadn’t made a safehouse but rather a life outside of what they’d grown up around, and it wasn’t until Vegas had left that he’d realized how important that separation was. Call it work-life balance. If Macau didn’t want any part of the mafia, then Vegas would make sure he could have that life. 

But Vegas was going to do everything his father had failed to do and do it better than he ever could have, because he was going to do it differently. 

Pete looked down at him, his gaze softening. He rested the bottle of wine against Vegas’s stomach and brought his hands up to Vegas’s cheeks. “You’ll do right by him.” 

Vegas held onto Pete’s wrists. “And you.” 

Pete kissed him. He tasted like wine and Vegas, because when he was in Vegas’s room he became part of Vegas, wrapped himself up in Vegas, settled down into the bed and let himself be consumed. Sometimes Pete would go several days without coming into the room, and Vegas had gotten better at redefining what waiting meant. Because Pete left sometimes but he always came back. 

His chest ached, as it did sometimes, when it rained or when he stood for too long. His skin was all but healed, leaving a small little mark where the deepest bullet wound had been. It was three inches from his heart. When it hurt it felt a lot like heartache, and maybe it was the same thing, that little reminder that he’d almost never had this. Pete, in his lap, wanting him. Vegas wanting him back, properly, without the bloody glow of mistrust and coercion. 

His chest ached, and he kissed Pete; he brought his hands into Pete’s soft hair and held him gently. When Pete let out a contented little sigh, Vegas tightened the hand in his hair and pulled him back just to look at him, his flushed cheeks and glossy eyes and haziness in the warm lights. Pete was hard against his stomach and was looking increasingly needy about it, but before Vegas could decide what to do about that, there was a distant scream from downstairs. 

His heart stopped momentarily before he heard the laughter that followed. 

Pete looked towards the door. “Should we investigate that?” 

Another laugh-scream. Pete was so warm and inviting in his lap but – everything downstairs was new and clean and he didn’t trust Macau to be sober enough to give a fuck.

Pete quickly got dressed and then they went downstairs. The hallway was notably empty, as was the living room. Sounds of laughter and shouting came from the direction of the backyard, and sure enough when they turned into the kitchen and faced the glass doors leading out onto the grass, almost every person who had been in the house had spilled outside. The reason for the screaming became obvious: everyone was holding a sparkler, casting the backyard in an unreal dizziness as they ran around each other and traced shapes into the air. 

“Oh,” Pete said. His eyes looked greedy; different from when he wanted Vegas’s hands on him and more like when Vegas presented him with a really good bowl of soup. 

Vegas opened the screen door and stepped onto the cool grass. Macau was on him immediately, his face bright and flushed with either the outside air, alcohol, or both.

“I got a really good deal on them from the guy down the street, I promise we’ll be careful, do you want some?” he said, as if he wasn’t already handing off four unlit sparklers into Vegas’s hands. 

“Don’t set the trees on fire,” Vegas said.

Macau looked up at the trees as if he’d forgotten they were there, and then shrugged. “Pete, here, take some, you look like you’ve never seen a sparkler before,” Macau handed more off to Pete, whose eyes hadn’t gotten any less wide. 

“I haven’t,” Pete said. He held the stick in his hand carefully, like it would ignite unexpectedly. Vegas stepped closer to him and moved Pete’s hand downwards so that it would grip the slim metal bottom, and then took his lighter from his pocket. 

“Don’t hold it too close to your face,” he said, and then lit the end. 

Pete’s mouth opened on a pleased gasp. Two girls ran past them, waving their sparklers in the air and distorting the light around them until it ran in golden lines. Vegas leaned back against the wall of the house and let his eyes blur.

“Pete, wave it around more, yes, exactly,” Macau said. He was very serious in his instruction, and then a boy came up and stole the sparkler out of his hand and he was off running to steal it back.

Pete laughed and then glanced back at Vegas. 

“You have to light one too,” he said. 

Vegas held out one of his sparklers and it took a second for Pete to get it. “Oh, right.” He took a step forward and touched the tip of his sparkler to Vegas’s, and both of them became slightly brighter for the second that Vegas’s began to burn. 

Once Pete’s first one burned down, he lit another one, and then he stopped holding himself back and joined in with everyone else, running through the yard and making starry shapes in the air. Vegas walked towards the back of the yard where the biggest tree stood; when it was sunny, the tree shaded an entire half of the yard, leaving them a cool place to settle into. It was dewey when he laid into it now, and it held him like he imagined a mother would. He couldn’t see the stars in the city, but occasionally a spark flew across his vision and that felt like a good enough replacement. 

A warm shape collapsed next to him, and moments later another. 

Pete's hand found his in the dark.

Notes:

thank you to everyone who stuck with this, and for all the love you've given. this show was truly such a wild time and im so happy to have been able to get my feelings out there, and be met with such support <33333

Notes:

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