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Rust’s apartment always feels cold, doesn’t matter what the thermostat is turned up to. The light filters through the blinds dove-grey and cool, and there’s not much in the way of furniture to fill the space. It echoes slightly, but that might just be Marty’s imagination.
Second time waking up here and he does so with a start, unsure where he is in the instant that half-sleep breaks into consciousness. His lower back is giving him hell. Shoulders, too. The air mattress he hauled over from his and Maggie’s place is half-deflated and sags under his weight when he sits up, swinging his legs around so he can plant his feet on the floor. He cracks his neck, reaches above his head and stretches. Vertebrae pop grudgingly into place. His hips sway uneasily on the wobbling mattress when he tries to push himself up to standing, and he nearly falls back.
He’s been in friendlier flea-bag motels. Why’d he sign up for this shit?
The faint, toasted-rich smell of drip-coffee. Marty absently scratches his belly through his t-shirt, debates throwing on jeans over his boxers, decides he doesn’t give a rat’s ass. The door creaks on its hinges as he lets himself into the hallway; more of an announcement than he wanted in the otherwise-quiet apartment, but nothing to do about it at this point.
The coffee maker gurgles and Marty’s stomach echoes it. He pads from carpet to lino, bare feet already catching a chill, and when he crosses the partition from hall to kitchen, he spots Rust.
The bottle of Jameson required less explanation when they were passing it between themselves the other night, but Christ, it’s barely past 8 in the morning. The tiny grimace after Rust swallows doesn’t go unnoticed. Marty crosses to the counter, grabs a mug that’s already been placed there, and pours himself a cup of strong black. Stops and looks back again.
He’d been wondering what that scrap of a mirror was doing on the wall. Later he checks it out himself if only to see what the fuss is about.
“You supposed to see both eyes in this thing?” he calls across the living room, squinting at what little of himself is reflected.
Rust lets go of the bar where he’s been relentlessly doing chin-ups for the past few minutes and hits the floor with a slight grunt, slips by Marty on his way back to the kitchen. Every muscle threaded from his neck down to his wrists stands out from exertion, and Marty can smell the sweat on him as he slouches past, sees the thin veneer on his brow.
“No,” Rust says, brushing past. Marty turns to watch him go before catching himself. Shakes his head a little, like shivering off water.
“Right,” he murmurs.
*****
It didn’t take long for Marty to realize: all there is to do in Rust’s house is drink.
First weekend away from the girls, away from Maggie. Away from his own house. And of course Marty already knew Rust didn’t have a television; of course he knew the guy had bare walls except for tacked-up crime scene photos and sketches and news clippings. But when he got up earlier in the day to a particular quality of silence that told him he was alone…
He’d gotten through the rest of the work week in more or less one piece, but it’s a Saturday morning and he’s got nowhere to be, which means there’s no good excuse for putting the situation out of his mind. He had wandered through the apartment looking for any sign of Rust, any hint to where he was, to no avail. He thought of the notes Maggie would leave on the fridge sometimes, or sitting on the counter next to the coffee pot, on the days when she had to head out for an errand or to drop the girls off at school. Marty’s not surprised he doesn’t find one here. ‘Course not. That would have been considerate.
Eventually he ran out of reasons to stay standing in the middle of Rust’s kitchen staring at the counters still littered with the detritus of Crash. There wasn’t even a table to sit at. Felt like he’d been grounded somehow, even though he was free to go where he liked, his own inertia the only thing keeping him in the apartment. Inertia, and maybe the thought that the phone on the kitchen counter might need answering some time later in the day. Who knew what Rust was getting into out there off the grid.
He got sick of looking at the pictures of dead girls and occult symbols tacked above the kitchenette (who the hell keeps those in a place they’re planning to eat -- though Marty knows Rust doesn’t do much of that anyway) and wound up nosing through the rest of the apartment, feeling like a criminal himself. It’s not like there’s anything to see. The rest of the house is as barren as the room his air mattress is occupying, and he wondered vaguely if Rust has ever gone upstairs, why he’d even bother with anything more than a studio apartment when it looks like the sum total of his worldly possessions would fit into the back of his pickup truck.
He’d thought about going out to get some things for Rust, but it ain’t his place because it ain’t his house. No chores to be done. Wouldn’t know where to start, would have felt like an invasion. Looking through the stacks of books lined up along the wall seemed less intrusive somehow, but half of them had murder or sex crime in the title and the other half, all dog-eared poetry and German philosophers, were the sort that’d take serious concentrated effort to understand. And Marty might’ve had the time but he sure as hell hadn’t had the patience to go wading into all that. He’d looked again to where Rust’s phone sat in its cradle, coiled cord lying on top of some loosely stacked case files. Debated trying to call Maggie. Discarded that idea too.
Going down to the station wasn’t any kind of option -- he’d wrapped his to-do list up too neat on Friday, and with his luck fuckin’ Geraci would have decided to work some overtime too. A bar would probably just get him into further shit. Nothing to be done about missing the game. He’d fiddled with the radio over by the stovetop for a bit, but something was wrong with the dials and he couldn’t get a clear signal. It got worse when he swatted it with the flat of his hand, so he left it alone.
He’d eventually snagged the case files from under the phone in an act of desperation, set into them in earnest, but his concentration had been shot from the beginning and he’d wound up skimming the same coroner’s report at least three times before setting the mass of paperwork back atop the counter in disgust. Eventually, mid-afternoon, he’d strode down the sidewalk to the liquor store at the corner of Rust’s block. Felt everyone’s eyeballs on the back of his neck the whole time he went, shoulders hunched up, trying to tread down the pavement as quickly as he could. He’d found Rust’s booze earlier but he’d felt wrong enough just looking through the cabinets, let alone thinking to drink any of it. He ended up buying a six-pack of strong, cheap beer before going to the corner store and picking up a sandwich from the cooler and some beef jerky that ended up getting stuck in his molars. Ate them cold sitting on the concrete steps in front of Rust’s place, guzzling the beer too fast, watching the second hand go around on the face of his watch while the sun slunk lower in the sky. Should have felt like trash getting drunk alone on somebody else’s stoop in a strange neighborhood, but at this point trash would have been an improvement on his mood.
By the time dusk was settling on its haunches, Marty had to go back to the liquor store. Killed the six-pack too fast; goddamn embarrassment is what it was. The clerk looked at him over the counter with something like a sneer lingering around his mouth so that Marty let the door rattle in its frame when he left.
Still no word. The dogs had started barking further down the block and the streetlights were coming on when he started on the second pack, cans piling up between his knees on the concrete steps.
Which brings him to now. Gut feeling sour from too much beer and not enough food, the entire day wasted to nothing and nothing and worse than nothing. The sky’s gone dark without any break in the humidity, streetlamps reflecting sallow on the belly of the low clouds, and gnats are starting to pinch and bite at the creases of his elbows. The inside of the house is nothing but harsh light and echoing walls, and he’s nearly sick at the thought of having to go back in there and… what, sit on the sagging air mattress? Retrace the meandering path he’s taken already through all the empty rooms? He’d rather punch a hole in the wall. Feels like maybe that’d be a more constructive use of his energy at this point.
He stands, none too steady, accidentally kicks an empty can when he does. Fuck it.
The screen door is banging back into place behind him when he hears Rust’s truck pull up.
That asshole. He walks just as slow as ever on his way in, like he’s measuring his steps, doesn’t even seem to notice Marty at first. Glassy eyes flick from surface to surface without really settling anywhere.
“Where the fuck’ve you been?” Marty snaps at him almost as soon as he’s through the door.
Rust’s jaw twitches a little but his voice is level enough, tempered casual. “Getting to work.”
Marty feels his face heating up, slow built out of frustration and the endless waiting, from the empty-showroom apartment that might as well not be lived in at all, and most of all from the anticipation. Somewhere back in his head Marty thought that Rust wasn’t going to be coming back at all after hour seven, and now…
“S’bout goddamn time you got your ass back here. Do you have any idea how long you’ve been out?”
“Had to talk to the right people,” Rust offers by way of an explanation. He crosses the hall, ignoring Marty’s eyes on him; takes off Crash’s leather jacket and tosses it onto the kitchen counter. Marty can see the embroidered “-- of a bitch” facing right at him from the folds of the leather. “They ain’t easy to find under the best of circumstances and these --”
He shrugs, twisting the tap in the kitchen sink on. “These weren’t them.”
Marty listens to the hiss of water, the sounds as Rust gathers some in his cupped-together hands and splashes it on his face.
“So that’s it, then? No more explanation, no more rationale, no sharing of the plan? Assuming of course you even have one of those.”
Rust grabs up a handful of his t-shirt, uses it to wipe away the water and the sweat before throwing a look over his shoulder at Marty. The bulb above the sink doesn’t cast flattering shadows, but the hollows under Rust’s eyes aren’t a trick of the light. Looks like he hasn’t slept in days, which is nothing new, but the glittering eyes and tension in his jaw aren’t from any kind of exhaustion. Rust turns back to the sink. This time his hands carry water to his mouth, and Marty can see the tendons in his neck visible below the skin when he swallows. At last he licks the moisture away from his lips and says, “You had a nice night drinking, from the look of things.”
Marty’s hands ball into fists before he even registers they’ve done so.
“And just what’ve you been doing, exactly?”
Rust shrugs.
“Cocaine, mostly. Cut with something, none too bad.”
And it’s not like Marty hadn’t known, but hearing it said that cavalier --
“You -- ‘course you were. Of course. Because that’s a reasonable fuckin’ thing to do. Jesus Christ, Rust, you’re still a cop --”
“Who exactly did you think we were dealing with here, Marty? Thought you understood when I told you what the stakes were, when I told you no one else could get involved. There’s a reason I’m in Alaska right now, for all anyone knows or is gonna find out.” Rust wipes his hands off on his shirt now, brisk swipes. “Any more questions? No? Then I need a goddamn shower.”
“Hey. We’re not done here, you can’t just --” Marty starts, but Rust is already pushing past without much more than a single sideways glance. Sets the anger kindling in his stomach. He grabs at Rust’s wrist and jerks him to a halt, ignoring the slightly smeared feeling in his head that the motion gives him.
“Don’t you shut me out, you can’t just ask me to cover your ass and then get back here like this acting like nothing’s the matter.”
Rust pulls free and turns all at once, a single snap-quick motion, and his voice is low and razor-edged.
“It’s real sweet you’ve been here hand-wringing all day, but throwing a fit’s a waste of your time and mine. You don’t like it, quit asking questions.”
“Where do you get off doin’ this lone ranger shit, huh?” Marty spits. “You don’t work undercover anymore, you ain’t got a handler who’s gonna come scrape your ass off the pavement when you get in hot water out there again. You’ve got me. And you don’t bother telling me what you’re up to, just stumble back in all lit up and pretend it’s me who’s gonna get myself in trouble? What kind of delusions you operating under here? Fuck that, and fuck you.”
And here’s Rust, leaning on his elbow on the wall, thumb running casual along his forehead, and he’s laughing. “I got you, do I? Well shit, Marty, then I guess we better go ahead and give this up as a loss.”
Marty’s lip curls into a snarl, and he’s in motion before he realizes it.
Rust’s hands come up, of course they do, only this time he’s almost smirking so that peacekeeping gesture ain’t worth shit as far as Marty’s concerned, and Marty’s hands are fisting in Rust’s shirt like it’s the locker room all over again. There’s even the same impact when Rust’s back hits the wall.
He barely notices Rust’s fingers curling around his wrists.
“You smug son of a bitch,” Marty grits out around the metal taste of anger in his mouth. “You do, don’t you? Get off on this. No wonder with your life being this fuckin’ sad. I spent all goddamn day in this house and you know what? I get it. I do. Cause I’d be lookin’ for a way to get myself killed too, if I had to live the way you do.”
Rust’s face is unreadable. For a second Marty wonders if he’s crossed some sort of line and then there’s real pressure on his wrists and he’s being shoved backwards instead until he collides with the opposite wall himself. Rust is up in his face, a forearm across his chest pinning him in place, and how does he keep forgetting that Rust is taller than him after all?
“You’ve made it real clear you’re spoiling for something,” Rust says, “and in the absence of your usual outlets have decided to take your bullshit out on whatever’s nearby. Now are you meanin' to turn this into a real fight, or you just needin' to let off some steam?”
Marty’s heart is still hammering, but the anger’s getting tangled up in something else that has to with proximity; has been since the start. It’d be so easy to let his palms go flat and shove Rust away, but instead he’s somehow stuck on the shallow dip and rise of Rust’s chest against his hands, the heat rolling off him like an oil-drum fire. His head’s spinning from something more than the beer, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.
“Cause if it’s the second...” Rust starts, and when his free hand comes up quick Marty knows he won’t have time to block the blow, wonders wildly about how to leverage himself enough space to hit back, but it never lands.
Whatever the hell he was expecting, it sure wasn’t Rust’s fingers threading through his hair. Marty inhales sharp through his nose, can’t help it, gets a lungful of cigarette smoke and leather and sweat. Blown pupils flicker from Marty’s eyes to his mouth and back again, pin him where he stands.
“...think I know what could do the trick.”
It clicks.
A blur of motion -- the hand in Marty’s hair grips, tips his head tips back, and then Rust is pressing his mouth rough and open against Marty's neck, to the soft spot behind the point of his jaw. It sparks like flint, crackles right down to the tips of his fingers, sears into his lower belly. Marty’s head jerks against the wall. “Fuck --”
He can feel Rust grinning against his throat, stubble rasping against his skin, and this is Rust, this is Rust, and then teeth are grazing the side of his neck and --
Rust’s hands tilt his head to one side, not too hard, so Marty’s looking right at him. Pinioned by his eyes. “Something like that, maybe?”
It’s like Marty’s been cold-clocked; there’s that same dazed, drifting sensation. He’s anchored and floating all at once, feels like he’s coming apart at his joints. “I -- shit. Yeah --"
And Marty can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Rust smile, but here’s another, slight but reckless. “Yeah?”
Marty almost can’t believe the words that are coming out of his mouth, but --
“Yeah.” Firmer this time, more certain.
“Alright. How about --”
Next thing Marty knows he’s being spun around and pressed up against the wall, plaster cool against his forehead and hands and Rust reaching a hand down to grab the front of his jeans. Marty’s half-hard already and Rust laughs quietly, breath hot in his ear.
“Thought so.”
Marty moans when Rust palms him, skims his other hand down his arm, sets his teeth at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He’s all presence and weight like this. Marty can’t really move. Doesn’t really want to. “Fuck’s sake, Rust…”
“So you don't wanna think about much tonight,” Rust says in his ear, voice gone dark as oil. “I can humor you there. Feelin’ ain’t off the agenda, though, is it --”
It’s not. It’s not. It’s simple enough to follow Rust’s lead until Marty’s braced himself properly against the wall, and then Rust slides his hand up. Lingers over the zipper just long enough that Marty shudders like a high-voltage current’s passed through him. Rust raises his head again slowly and Marty’s eyes are closed but he feels it, the movement, knows exactly when Rust brings his mouth close to Marty’s ear again. His voice, when it comes, is a low drawl, the pitch of it rumbling through Marty from where Rust’s chest is pressed up against his back.
“Been gettin' a read on you for a while there, Marty.” He starts moving his hand against the denim almost lazily, and it’s all Marty can do to keep his legs from buckling, to keep his hips from jolting up in response. “ And that's something maybe you didn't know. Ain't as clean-cut as you like to come across, are you?”
And then the touch is gone, abrupt, and Marty almost chases it but Rust is already dragging his fingers up and along the slant of Marty’s hips, hard pressure, casually narrating. “There's some interesting places I reckon you don't got the first clue about. Right here, for instance. Never think to pay that much mind, but it makes sense, don’t it? Or further up --”
Everywhere Rust touches is spreading warmth, sending thrills arcing through his nerves. One hand stays where it is, swiping broad strokes against Marty’s hipbone while the other travels up and along his ribs. “Right here. S’that good?”
It takes a second for Rust’s words to register and even then a second longer to respond. Rust doesn’t stop doing what he is, mild variations in the pressure, like he could go forever. “It… fuck, man --”
“Mm.” Rust hums back in his throat. “Gonna need more’n that.”
Chest, collarbone, navel, hip, like Rust is tracing new constellations onto his skin. Marty can feel himself lighting up under his touch. “It’s good, okay, it’s -- shit. This is… it’s fuckin’ weird.”
Instantly Rust stills. “I’ll back off anytime.” Already withdrawing.
“Shit, no, I don’t mean it like that. I just. Don’t… stop.”
He feels rather than hears Rust let out a breath, long and slow, settling back easy. Then Rust’s fingers are slipping sudden below the waistband of Marty’s jeans, over the cotton of his boxers, pressing in, squeezing lightly. It hits Marty hard and he grabs at the wall and this time his legs do almost give out on him, but Rust is there, Rust’s got him somehow; Rust is back to pressing words like stamps up his neck and just behind his jaw: “Easy, we ain’t done anything yet.”
There’s barely enough time for Marty to think of something he could say before Rust’s moving on again, fingertips pressing, stroking, kneading -- he’s reduced to sucking his breath raw between his teeth and biting his lip so he doesn’t do something to embarrass himself, but Rust seems to eat that up.
“Ain’t all about instant gratification,” Rust murmurs in his ear, almost nonsense but not quite. “It ain’t just about getting out of your head. This ain’t a place for that anyhow. You said so as much already. But you sure as hell ain’t bored anymore, are you.”
Marty’s trying to keep quiet, but every time there’s an involuntary twitch or moan, when he tries to push into Rust’s hand where it’s near unbearable in his jeans, Rust makes this satisfied noise low in his chest. It’s turning into some kind of challenge. They’ve had them before. Who gives in first. Problem is, Marty thinks it’s gonna be him. He’s aching in his jeans and there’s sweat starting to bead on his skin and he wants Rust to do something more. He wants to let his legs give out and Rust to have to follow him down instead of keeping him on his feet. More than anything, he wants to get the hell out of his clothes, and… and what?
Rust mouths at his earlobe at the same time that he grabs at Marty’s hip again in that way and that’s it, he’s done, his knuckles are pale and his hands clench into a fist and thud against the wall and he’s hissing, “Just get your hands on me proper, man, can’t fuckin’ take this --”
His clothes feel like they’re sticking to him and he’d give anything for pressure, for friction, knows that’s what Rust has been angling for this whole damn time, deconstructing him like it’s nothing, piece by piece. Rust leans back a little, withdraws his hand in a smooth unhurried slide that makes Marty drum on the wall again, catches the hem of Marty’s shirt.
“Why don’t you lose this. We’ll work from there.”
There’s enough room Marty can maneuver himself back around to face Rust, and he finds that he needs to brace himself against the wall while he does so. Pulls himself together enough to rush his shirt up over his head and fling it away, air cool against bare skin.
Rust tugs the hem of his own shirt free and up and over his head, same motion as the other night -- the scars show themselves first, and Marty can’t help but linger over them before his eyes sweep down. Rust is hard too. Marty knew that already, but seeing it brings the reality of this home a little. He swallows down the dry in his throat and realizes that what he wants isn’t making a lick of goddamn sense to him but it’s there all the same.
“The fuck are we doin’?” he whispers hoarse.
Rust shrugs, and Marty can’t decide if that look is calculating or nonchalant. “Whatever we feel like.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It’s that exactly, Marty. Whatever the hell we want,” Rust says soft. “Doesn’t signify anything beyond itself. No outlying meaning to search for this time at all. So what do you feel like?”
“Why the hell are you makin’ me say this?”
“Because it doesn’t have to mean more than what it is. What we just did and whatever we do from here on out, whether we follow this to a conclusion or cut it off early, it ain’t gonna change who you are. Could show you part of who you’ve always been, or at least who you are right now, but you don’t gotta look at it in any particular way. Can just burn off something you need to burn off, get your head right again. And it ain’t gonna change the fact that tomorrow we’ll wake up and walk into the snake pit.”
Now he does step closer. There’s something hot twisting and knotting in Marty’s chest, behind his sternum, coiled up and burning. His heart’s drumming in his ears when he looks up.
“Sometimes what one desires,” Rust says, low and soft, “is just what one desires. That’s all it is. You admit that, it sets you free.”
Marty forces himself to laugh. “You come up with that yourself?”
“Paraphrasing.” Another almost-smile, like it’s funny. “Nietzsche.”
Marty pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why am I not the least fuckin’ bit surprised. You even believe that yourself?”
Then there’s a hand gentle around his wrist, pulling his own hand away from his face. Rust’s looking at him, serious. Scrutinizing. “Sometimes.”
He could just walk away. Say he ain’t willing to deal with this shit and Rust would just lift both hands away like surrender, accede, slouch back off back into the night. Unaffected, unfazed. That’s some kind of comfort. Rust’s pretty much laid it out for him, a get-out-of-jail-free card he can toss on the table whenever he wants, if it gets too much. Given what else he’s said, though, Marty’s pretty certain he’s in for whatever happens next too.
“So. What do you feel like?”
What was it again? Nothing personal, nothing lasting. Sounds just like Rust, to be honest, all those high-horse ramblings about impermanence and illusory ideas of self. So maybe that’s okay too, taking it and running with it and then carrying on like usual. What one desires. Marty’s pretty sure he knows what that is. At this point, anyways.
He takes a breath. “I’m kinda feeling like we… should get on over to that -- to the bed.”
“There you go. That’s all I needed to hear.”
Given how things had gone to this point, Marty expected Rust to drag him fast, but instead he guides Marty back steadily towards the main body of the apartment, shadows smudging across the walls and floors. Marty’s looking everywhere except where they’re going, at stacks of books and battered cardboard boxes stacked and held together by packing tape, at the red locker still sitting open on the floor near the absurd lawn chairs they’d used a few nights prior.
He ends up sitting on the mattress, leaning back, off-balance to the point that he has to throw an arm behind himself to keep himself upright -- and then Rust is there, bearing him over with a thigh slotting between Marty’s legs. Marty reaches up to reclaim some semblance of stability and winds up pulling Rust down with him as they go. Rust is heavy but it’s a good weight, and he’s pressed hard against Marty’s hip. That’s still new. Marty’s still surprised by how much he likes it, and he rolls his hips experimentally, looking for more contact himself.
Rust’s mouth drops open and Marty curses soft because this is a different kind of heat, slow and close and insistent. He does it again and Rust moans far back and throaty, the sound going straight to Marty’s head. There’s a thrill to it, to seeing Rust react each time Marty shifts so much as an inch, and it’s got Marty wanting to reach up and pull Rust in, get the span of Rust’s shoulders under his hands, feel a shuddery breath against his collarbone when he drags his fingertips down Rust’s back.
It’s a feedback loop of friction and heat, the easy grinding rhythm of their motions. Gets Marty feeling bold, drunk all over again, and so he lets a hand fall to the front of Rust’s chest and start moving lower.
Rust moves rattlesnake-quick, grabs Marty’s wrist and has it pressed up and over Marty’s head in an instant, holds it there so Marty’s stretched out full-length beneath him.
“I don’t think so,” he breathes.
And keyed-up as he is, Marty feels himself slipping out of focus into some kind of space that’s all white noise and drifting warmth, and it’s a good thing he’s already flat on his back or he’d be getting there in a hurry. Rust is watching his face, keeps his hand tight around Marty’s wrist, and resumes the steady rolling of his hips.
“Oh, fuck me --” Marty gasps, and Rust goes still for a second.
“That a statement or a request?”
Silence.
Marty’s mind is full of crackling radio static, a thin whine like a far-off alarm. He somehow still manages to say, nearly casual --
“Could be both.”
“Well, how about that, then.” Rust leans back, looks him over. Lets out a huff of what could be laughter; nothing mean, maybe close to amused. “Always did figure you were an ass man.”
“...Shut the fuck up an’ do it if you’re gonna do it.”
Rust peels away, heads over towards his storage locker, and Marty misses the loss of contact at once, nerves humming. There are noises from the far side of the room, the clatter of glass and metal and plastic being rummaged through. Marty thumbs at the waistband of his jeans. At some point they’re gonna need to come off. He lifts his hips, slips them down. He has to sit up partly to get them the rest of the way, just in time to see Rust making his way back with something in his hand. Turns out it’s two things -- a wrapped condom Rust tosses to the bedspread and a bottle Marty would recognize anywhere.
“Alright now, c’mere. If you wanna do this we’re gonna do it right.” Rust jerks his chin. “Lose the boxers too.”
He’s quick at it; feels Rust’s eyes skimming over him. “Be easier if you turn over,” Rust says.
Marty ends up resting on his elbows, face down and sprawled out across the mattress. He lowers his head, breathes deep through his nose. The sheets smell like Rust, too.
There’s the soft plastic crack of a bottle being opened, Rust saying, “you’re gonna have to tell me what works and what doesn’t.”
“I --” Marty stops, clears his throat. The urgency is back, what he felt earlier. Wanting to get a move on. “Got some idea.”
A sound, wet on skin. “That’s good,” Rust drawls low and even. Closer. Marty senses Rust sitting and can’t help a quiet noise of frustration. He feels denim on his thigh, Rust’s flanking his own.
“Come on,” he starts, but as soon as Rust touches him there’s a jolt. His hips jerk like he’s been touched by a livewire instead. He gets cut off mid-word with a strangled sound. Rust’s shockingly gentle.
“Easy, easy,” Rust murmurs. He works the first finger in slow, Marty already twisting the sheets in his hands and panting. “You ever do this?”
“I, yeah, sometimes -- oh, fuck.”
It hurts and it’s good and Rust is being so damn careful. Moves slow and deliberate and listens to Marty’s breathing, to where it snags. Marty’s hard against the mattress again in no time flat, head spinning with want.
“Well, now,” Rust drawls, and moves his hand lazy. “You’re takin’ to this just fine.”
“Would you hurry the fuck up?”
“Suit yourself,” says Rust lightly, and Marty feels him start with a second finger and --
“Oh, shit.”
“You see? Slow.”
Marty feels like he’s unraveling. He’s stifling himself as much as he can but Rust is murmuring to him, working his fingers the whole time, "C'mon now, Marty, walls are soundproof, ain't nothing to worry about, no one's gonna hear but me, wanna hear it as much as you wanna let it out --"
Marty moans, as much from Rust is saying as from what he’s doing. Rust’s still paying attention, still working him open, crooks his fingers in a way that makes Marty gasp like he’s running out of air.
Rust is saying, “that’s it, yeah,” in a voice that’s pinched around the edges, and he’s starting to go faster. Just a little. Adds a third finger and Marty cries out, inarticulate.
“C’mon, Rust --” he gets out, and knows he won’t have to ask again, not now.
Rust pulls back, says “Yeah,” and there’s a rough edge to his voice, something Marty will recognize later when Rust’s dropped down fully into Crash, and Rust’s hand withdraws. There’s the rasp of a zipper, the sound of denim being shucked, a foil wrapper being torn and Marty looks over his shoulder --
Dark eyes meet his for a moment, pupils still wide but for a different reason this time, he thinks, and hunger in them, and then Rust throwing his jeans off to one side, rolling the condom on expertly. Marty register dimly that Rust wasn’t wearing anything under those jeans at all. He’s taken up the lube, gets some on his hand, slicks himself up, and then he’s back and they’re colliding.
Rust presses forward, sinking in slow. At first there’s nothing but the hurt of it, but it flares and then tapers into something deeper that settles in Marty’s pelvis like liquid fire. His hand soothes up Marty’s back, fingers slipping over the vertebrae of his spine. Marty breathes harsh through clenched teeth, feels Rust settle and wait for a moment, feels him start to move.
Just a little at first, slow, easy, like it’s nothing, but Rust’s fingers are starting to dig in where they rest at his hip now, and Marty realizes just how much restraint is being exercised, how Rust is already shaky himself. It’s got Marty moaning again, he can’t help it, and he thinks he hears an answering sound from Rust. Marty lets his arms collapse fully and suddenly there’s something Rust is close to that has him choking out curses.
“There, c’mon,” Marty grits out, and Rust makes some rough noise of acknowledgement and shifts into a steadier pace, sliding deep. That’s all it takes to get Marty spooling out long noises, a near-desperate undercurrent to the sounds their bodies are making. Rust has gone quiet himself, like concentration, and his hold on Marty’s hips tightens like it might bruise tomorrow. He leans in, reaches around to take Marty in hand and it’s like a brand on him, long fingers wrapped tight and gliding easy. Marty tries inexpertly to move along in time with the thrusts, work out some kind of rhythm as the world’s reduced to points of contact. All thought has burned off like it’s been sent through a refinery flare. He’s narrowed down to pure sensation: Rust moving inside him, the full pleasure-pain of it, a wave of dark heat --
It tips, spills over, and Marty’s coming hard enough he can’t see, his whole body shaking, trying to collapse. Rust carries him through it, the hand at his hip digging marks into pale skin even as it steadies him, and his movements are spinning out ragged as his breath. Again, and again, and then he’s wrapped both arms around Marty and pressed full up against his back, like he’s trying to pull Marty away from something, from some terrible edge. He comes apart with his teeth set against Marty’s shoulder, gone silent and still for a heartbeat or two. Marty feels it happen.
Rust stays that way for a few moments once the tremors stop rolling through him, heavy against Marty’s back. When Rust loosens his grip and rolls to one side it’s easy enough for Marty to follow. Rust withdraws but doesn’t quite disengage, and they lie sprawled on the sheets with their limbs still half-tangled as they catch their breath, feeling themselves slow and return. Marty wonders what the protocol is for something like this in the last scrap of his mind that hasn’t been cooked clean away, and then stops worrying about it. Whatever it’s supposed to be, he doesn’t mind or care.
He’s already half-gone when Rust stirs, gets up to throw the condom away. He blearily wonders if Rust is gonna bother coming back, feels a vague momentary pang, but already there’s the sound of footsteps, the creak of mattress springs, the returning warmth of Rust’s body settling beside his. Marty blinks his heavy eyes once, twice, and then lets himself dissolve into sleep.
*****
He wakes up and there’s light slanting between the blinds, bright and warm-grey.
Marty blinks himself into awareness of the stiffness in his shoulders, his hips, how there are bed sheets tangled around his legs, dry mouth as evidence of a few too many drinks bu hardly a headache to speak of. Other than that, he’s feeling fine. Hasn’t slept that hard since getting here. He scratches his belly, yawns contented, rolls his neck idle and lets the motion carry down his spine. The roasted smell of drip-coffee’s thick in the air, so much so he can almost taste it on his tongue already.
He shifts, and dull pain flashes briefly through his hips.
That jolts him back and he’s awake, remembers everything. He scrambles his way out of the bedsheets to sit upright, winces. He’s stiff and sore but not entirely in a bad way, though he thinks the old quip about walking funny the next day may turn out to have some truth to it. He can’t see any marks at his hipbones -- Rust must have stayed just this side of it, still running damage control even when out of his head last night -- though he suspects his shoulders and neck might be a different story. It takes more effort than he wants to admit to get up and throw on his jeans.
He hears a door creak in the hallway and the soft shuffle of feet approaching, and Rust appears in the doorway leading to the kitchen. He’s thrown on a pair of jeans but hasn’t bothered with anything else.
“Mornin’,” Rust says, opening a cupboard and pulling out two mugs.
Ceramic clinks against the countertop as they’re set down beside the heap of his leather jacket. Marty blinks. “... Mornin’.”
Rust doesn’t look over as he pulls the coffee pot free and pours. “Sugar?”
“No, I… I’m good.”
Rust just nods, turns, offers Marty the mug with his fingers lightly holding the top. Marty has to come forward to take it; the knowledge that Rust sees how gingerly he moves crawls up and down his spine and tangles back in his throat. As soon as he’s got the coffee in his hand Rust turns to a cupboard and pulls out a loaf of wonder bread.
“If you’re gonna ask, go ahead and ask,” he says casual, opening the bag and peering over the contents before plucking a few slices out and dropping them into a battered toaster. Marty’s not sure what he’s more surprised by -- the fact that Rust has anything resembling food in the house after all, or that he’s called Marty out on stalling that fast.
“So --” and Marty can’t believe he’s using this line, feels like he’s back in college. “About last night.”
“What about it?”
“Are, uh… are we cool?”
Rust inclines his head the slightest bit towards him, and Marty can feel the color rising in his cheeks and creeping into his ears.
“What we talked about still stands, man,” Rust finally replies. “We got ourselves right in some kinda way, blew off some steam. Seems like we both got a fair night’s sleep out of the deal. Unless you’re needing to clarify things from your end, I reckon we’re just fine.”
Rust does Marty the courtesy of looking away again, gives him a beat of privacy while he noses through the scant contents of the fridge. Marty knows he’s not always the best at getting a read on himself, but right now, scanning Rust over even with his shirt gone and the morning sun painting him up in gold, he’s not feeling much in the way of residual sparks. Rust is just Rust. Lean, raw-edged, still in need of some better meals and a lot more sleep, but that’s all. That comes as some kind of relief. Marty’s stomach rumbles and he decides any further introspection can wait 'til later.
“We’re good, then. Could go for a piece of that toast, though.”
Rust sets a piece onto a plate and slides it down the counter to Marty quick enough that it nearly slips off the edge. Marty barely catches the plate before it falls; somehow manages not to lose the toast.
“Hey! Watch it!”
Rust shrugs. “Gotta think fast. Know that might be tough for you.”
Marty flips him the bird and Rust duly returns the gesture, and just like that Marty can relax. “You got anything to put on this?”
Rust gestures to the fridge. “Help yourself.”
Marty goes and peers in. There’s an apple that looks mealy but edible, a lone slice of American cheese pushed towards a rear corner, scattered jars of pickled condiments, the lingering smell of hard-boiled egg with no eggs to be found.
“Jesus. Get some goddamn groceries, why don’t you? Push back whatever shit you have planned for yourself today, we’re getting a real meal before you fuck off again.”
“Suit yourself.”
The crunch of toast. Marty idles himself, alternates bites of his breakfast with sips of his coffee. Eventually his eyes fall on the far wall, on a small circle reflecting glinting light there.
“I gotta ask -- what the hell is up with the mirror.”
Rust looks over Marty’s shoulder at it.
“An exercise like the others. If you can’t look yourself in the eye every morning, what does that say? If you can’t face who you are?”
“... Do you ever give yourself a break, man?”
Rust drains the last of his coffee and doesn’t reply, just pushes himself away from the counter. “Gotta get ready. If you’re serious about breakfast we need to get a move on. I’ve got some people to meet this afternoon.”
He slips down the hallway. Marty watches him go and then starts casting his eyes about for the discarded bits of clothing he shed last night. It takes longer than he thought he would, and he’s shrugging a button-down shirt on from a rummaged-through duffel bag when Rust re-enters the room. Something’s already different -- his hair is wet, combed through rough with water, and the set of his shoulders is higher. There’s less languidness to his movements, overtaken instead by an understated agitation bordering on aggression. Purposeful and contained, but present. He realizes he’s watching Rust fall into character.
Rust crosses the room to his storage locker where it’s set on the floor like a coffin yawning wide and crouches next to it. Marty can’t see what he’s getting -- the lid’s in the way -- but he does notice when Rust pauses to tug a book free from one of the stacks against the wall.
He straightens up, holding a few small items. Marty can make out a brick-like cordless phone, a silver flask, a driver’s license that isn’t his, and a thumb-worn paperback. Rust tosses the book to Marty, who catches it with both hands raised.
“Something for if you get bored later,” Rust says, and Marty lowers the slim volume to read the title.
“Twilight of the Idols?”
“Try the Maxims and Arrows. My suggestion, at any rate.”
He thumbs through the pages, flips to a random section.
3. To live alone one must be a beast or a God, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both -- a philosopher.
Marty lifts his head. Rust is out of sight; it still feels cool in the room, even with the mid-morning sun coming through the windows. “Can see why you like this shit,” he murmurs. The first bit looks promising but further on it devolves into long winding paragraphs that he can’t be bothered with before the coffee kicks in. He returns to the first section, reads another.
44. The formula of my happiness: a yes, a no, a straight line, a goal. He dimly hears Rust moving something in one of the back rooms, glances over at the leather jacket on the counter. High speed low drag, huh.
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and winces; he’d almost forgotten he was sore. Another line catches his eye, grabs it, holds it.
41. Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead? Or walk by yourself? One must know what one wants and that one wants. Fourth question of conscience.
Rust re-enters the room in a smooth rush, startles Marty with a clap on the shoulder. “You ready? I’m supposed to be gone and the two of us getting seen together won’t do, but I know a couple places where that won’t happen. Let’s go."
Marty sets the book on the counter next to Crash’s jacket and Rust’s blocky phone. Rust waits for him to get his shoes on and lets him go past, but falls into step just behind him as they open the door onto sunlight. And when they step out onto the sidewalk, Marty feels Rust’s hand at his back for just a moment, come to rest warm between his shoulderblades.