Work Text:
Carl has always been fascinated by Whistler’s hands. Long, elegant fingers reaching and seeking, learning through touch. Whistler sees the world through his fingertips, and although it’s probably naive, or at least unlikely, Carl wonders if that means Whistler sees things more truly. Does it help, to be immune to beauty? Carl has learned — hard — that the world wraps itself in falseness at every step. A shabby storefront can be the headquarters of a well-funded counterintelligence organization. A gilt palace can be the last refuge of the bankrupt and powerless. A pretty girl can kill and betray as well as anyone else.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Of course Carl is no exception, now. One of the first things they taught him was to look at himself and see what a stranger would see — and then adjust everything: his hair, his smile, his clothes, his walk, the way his eyes move — to create the right effect. To tell the right lie. He took to it fast. “You’ll go far,” they said. And then they gave him a gun and taught him how to betray and kill people just as well as any pretty girl.
“Talented boy,” Bishop used to call him, every bit the proud mentor, before Carl’s life took this sudden left turn, before he learned to make friends just to destroy them, “that’s our Carl.” Bishop’s opinion meant everything to him back then. But right now Whister’s the only person in the room whose opinion means anything to him.
Carl watches Whistler, watches his hands, his fingers dancing expressively when he talks, watches his animated face, his sharp features and thousand-yard stare. Five years have passed, and Carl supposes Whistler looks a little older — maybe the lines framing his eyes and mouth are more pronounced. It’s hard to tell in the dim light of Whistler’s apartment. The evening is winding down; they order in and eat from greasy containers on Whistler’s elegant dining room table. Around noodles and stir-fry, Bishop and Crease debrief him and Mother interjects the occasional question about men in black and CIA mind control. Carl speaks honestly, as honestly as he is capable, because he thinks Whistler might be able to hear it if he’s lying, and because he’s suddenly sure that he doesn’t want to lie to Whistler, ever.
Mother leaves first. He’s living out of that winnebago, it turns out, and he’s got a whole colony of geckos in a terrarium that will be waiting for their supper. Martin and Crease don’t stay much longer; after setting their next rendezvous (“Is it really a rendezvous if it’s just meeting back here tomorrow morning for pancakes?” Whistler asks) they head out as well. Crease resets the security system on his way out. Carl does his own pass through the system just in case, once he’s alone with Whistler. They got away clean, he’s pretty sure, but he’s been sure of a lot of things and has mostly learned not to trust his instincts when his instincts are suggesting he just chill out for a while.
Whistler’s security system isn’t water-tight but it’ll do. Carl flops down onto the surprisingly luxurious couch and one of Whistler’s cats immediately climbs into his lap and starts purring. Carl strokes its glossy fur and scratches gently around its ears. In the kitchen, Carl can hear Whistler cleaning up the remains of their dinner. He should offer to help. Can’t be easy, to wipe down a counter you can’t see. He should go help. He’ll go. Soon.
It’s dark in the apartment when Carl wakes up. He’s lying on the couch with a crick in his neck, a blanket thrown over him, and a cat sleeping on his face. He can hear the soft, rapid clicking of Whistler typing on the other side of the room. As gently as he can, Carl dislodges the cat from his head, and sits up. His tux is absolutely crumpled. The cat jumps off the couch, landing with a squeaky little grunt, and swaggers off, its backside waggling like a cocktail waitress’s.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Carl rasps. The typing stops.
“I was going to,” Whistler says, “in a few minutes. I have an actual guest bedroom; you should probably sleep there, on the actual bed.”
Carl stares through the darkness. He can just barely make out Whistler’s form on the other side of the room, sitting at the desk. It makes sense, he supposes; Whistler and his cats don’t need the light, and Carl’s been asleep. Still, there’s something disconcerting about having a conversation with someone you can’t see. It’s weirdly intimate.
“Thanks,” Carl says. “For speaking up for me. Earlier.”
“Huh,” Whistler says. He powers off the computer and makes his way unerringly to stand in front of the couch. Carl looks up at him in silence for a while, wondering where this is leading. Whistler’s face is hard to read in the dark.
Finally, Whister sighs a little and sits down next to Carl. “I’m not sure it was the right thing to do,” he says, and Carl feels like he’s been hit in the gut.
So much of him has been purposefully eroded in the last few years, vital parts scrubbed away or pared into another shape. But somehow having Whistler unsure of him makes it a thousand times worse. He’d had this idea that Whistler would be able to see through him, to cut to the heart of him, to — maybe even to absolve him, somehow.
Whistler, who’d been unfailingly kind to Carl when he was just a kid, who taught him anything he wanted to know, who ruffled his hair affectionately, who couldn’t be in the same room as Carl without drifting over to lay hands on him — a pat on the shoulder or a hand on his arm — as though keeping track of Carl was as important to him as anything.
Whistler, who could have had anything, and asked for world peace. Who meant it.
They warned him about it, about the psychological effects. They made him do the two months of mandatory counseling. And then they said he was adjusting remarkably well, and they shook his hand and gave him his first assignment, something little, something fun. After that, hooked on adrenalin and anonymity, Carl gave himself over to the job as completely as he could. This was his life, now, this was him. Good or bad, there was no going back, no matter how desperately he wanted to after a while.
It isn’t fair — or realistic — to expect Whistler to trust him, no matter how desperately Carl wants him to. Whistler has a brain in his head, after all. He knows, or can guess, what Carl is, now. What he’s become. Carl probably doesn’t deserve anything like trust, not from someone like Whistler.
“Sure,” Carl says, his voice relaxed and friendly. He can barely hear what he’s saying, the words coming out pleasant and rote, anything to mask the crushing tightness in his chest. “Of course.”
“Don’t do that,” Whistler says sharply.
“What?”
“Don’t lie to me,” Whistler says. “Don’t—” He cuts himself off and scrubs his hands over his face, a strangely vulnerable gesture.
“I didn’t—” Carl starts, but Whistler cuts him off.
“I know I can trust you,” Whistler says. He speaks slowly and precisely, like he’s talking to a child. “We’re going to do good in the world, all of us together, and you’re going to make it possible.”
Carl waits for the “but.” He feels raw, pried open. He shouldn’t have come back.
“But you have to trust me, too,” Whistler says, his sightless eyes staring fiercely into Carl’s. It’s uncanny. “I know you’re different now,” Whistler says. “Just…don’t go inventing some inoffensive version of yourself because you think I don’t want to know what’s really going on with you. This doesn’t work that way. It can’t work. It will fail, Carl.”
Carl doesn’t say anything. He’s afraid of what might come out if he opens his mouth.
“You think you’re going to shock me,” Whistler says. “I’m blind, Carl. I’m not stupid. I know what that kind of work is like.”
“I’ve killed seven people,” Carl says.
Whistler meets this with silence, his face unreadable. Carl looks away — he doesn’t want to see Whistler’s expression change as he goes on.
“Five of them died because of a bomb I planted. Four of those five died in the explosion. One of them was running away. I shot him, and he fell down, and then the bomb went off. Both of his legs were blown off. He died an hour later. He was awake the whole time, and he was screaming the whole time. I was supposed to finish him off but I couldn’t.”
Carl stares out into the dark.
“I killed an old man,” he says. “His wife had just died. He was crying when I came into his bedroom. It was about eleven o’clock at night. I choked him to death.
“I killed—”
“Shut up,” Whistler says harshly. “Stop. Carl, stop.” He stands up, paces across the room, banging his hip on the edge of a table, ungraceful.
“This is who I am,” Carl says woodenly. “This is me, Whistler. You said you didn’t want some, some polite fiction. This is the truth. I’m not — I’m not who you think.”
“No,” Whistler says, furious. “Fuck you. This is bullshit, Carl, and you know it. This is you using me as a — for a confession. Trying to scare me off, prove that you’re no good.”
“Whistler, I killed those people.”
“Why? I’m going to go ahead and guess you didn’t do it out of spite.”
“No,” Carl says. It’s worse than that. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Were you?”
That’s the question, isn’t it. Carl’s head is spinning. The world hasn’t felt stable to him since the shock of that first bomb. His ears ring all the time.
“I don’t know.”
Whistler doesn’t say anything. He’s dim and indistinct against the dark, on the other side of the room.
“I don’t know,” Carl says again, letting his breath out shakily. “But it doesn’t matter, because either way I can’t do it again. That’s why I left. They were wrong about me.”
“I’m not,” Whistler says. And he’s right there in the dark, kneeling down in front of the couch.
“How do you know?” Carl asks.
“You came back to us, didn’t you?” Whistler says.
It isn’t enough. “But how do you know?” Carl says, his voice cracking. He finds himself leaning forward on the couch. Whistler’s hands come up unerringly to frame his face, those long, elegant fingers tracing over his jaw, thumbs smoothing over his eyebrows.
“I know you,” Whistler says. And then Whistler’s mouth is on his.
Carl’s been in freefall for eighteen months. It’s jarring to feel solid ground beneath his feet again.
The kiss starts out gentle, Whistler moving his mouth sweetly over Carl’s, his warm hands cradling Carl’s face like he’s something precious. Carl presses into it helplessly, torn between the dizzy shock that this is happening, and the fear that Whistler will stop. But he doesn’t. Whistler kisses him so tenderly that it makes Carl’s heart ache in his chest. His mouth is soft and sure, and he sounds an approving little hum as Carl finally lets go and opens up into to the kiss. Whistler’s mouth is slick and hot and Carl wants to crawl inside of this moment and never come out. He hears himself, distantly, making a small, hurt sound.
Whistler must hear it, too, because he pulls back a little, unknotting his fingers from Carl’s hair. He traces little kisses over the corner of Carl’s mouth, on his chin, on his cheek, soothing, reassuring.
“Whistler—” Carl begins. His voice is shot, and he isn’t sure what he’s going to say.
“Don’t,” Whistler murmurs, his mouth ghosting over Carl’s cheek, his ear, down the side of his neck. “Whatever it is.”
Whistler looks up, alarmed. “Unless you want me to stop—”
“No,” Carl says. Pretty much the only thing he knows for sure right now is he does not want Whistler to stop. Carl slides down to kneel on the floor in front of the couch, his knees bracketing Whistler’s, his hands drawing him down for another kiss — this one hot and open and reckless.
Whistler’s hands are moving feverishly along Carl’s arms, down across his front, up to cup the back of his head, to tug his hair. Carl feels drugged with it, pressing his tongue into Whistler’s mouth, kissing him deeply, letting all his need show, shameless, plain for Whistler to find out.
It’s slick and dirty and so fucking good. Time gets kind of blurry as they trade kiss after kiss, sweet and hot in the dark of Whistler’s apartment. Carl’s got his arms around Whistler, tight, and Whistler makes this noise when Carl sucks a path down his neck, licking and biting at the junction of his shoulder, too far gone for finesse. Whistler bucks against him, and Jesus, that’s his cock pressing against Carl’s hip. Whistler is hard. Because of him.
Carl snakes his hand down and gets a palmful of Whistler’s ass, squeezing tight and pulling Whistler in to grind against him, so Whistler can see what he’s done to him. Whistler gets with the picture right away, thrusting against him and drawing him into another filthy, wet kiss. It’s so good. It’s too good. Carl is going to come in his pants if they keep this up.
“Bedroom,” Carl says, pulling together what little brainpower he can muster. Whistler is pushing his jacket up off his shoulders, slipping it down his arms. “This is—”
“Yeah,” Whistler says. He’s panting a little, smiling crookedly, and he looks like sex incarnate, his hair ruffled, eyelids at half mast, and his sharp, sardonic mouth all wet and bruised-looking. Carl doesn’t push him down on the carpet and yank his pants off right there, but it’s a close thing.
“Bedroom,” Carl says again, meaninglessly. He heaves himself to his feet and pulls Whistler up after him, thinking fleetingly that he’d done the same thing just that morning, in the abandoned building where he’d found them, his old team, his heart jumping out of his chest for relief. He’d given Whistler a hand up, and it had been hard to let go, even though he knew they had to run. It’s hard to let go now, and there’s no reason to.
Whistler leads him into the bedroom, Carl clutching his hand and stumbling like he’s the blind one.
Whistler’s bedroom is probably as elegant and tidy as the rest of his place, but all Carl sees is the bed, low and wide and welcoming. Whistler stops at the foot of it, dropping Carl’s hand and reaching for his shirt, his fingers fumbling a little. Carl shed the bow tie hours ago, but he stands quietly in place as Whistler systematically removes each stud from his shirt front, and then moves to his cuff links. When he’s done, he pours the palmful of metal and onyx into Carl’s palm, and Carl slips them into his pocket. They click softly when Carl’s pants hit the ground not long after. He steps out of them, kicking them into a corner, and goes to work on Whistler’s clothes. He has to work around Whistler’s hands, which won’t stop drifting up to ghost over the planes of Carl’s naked torso. But still, it doesn’t take long before they’re both naked.
Whistler is beautiful. Soft olive skin, trim and sleek with long, elegant legs, entirely unselfconscious, entirely graceful. Carl licks his lips. He isn’t sure where to start.
Whistler’s arms come up, and Carl steps into the embrace automatically, their bodies fitting together from knee to shoulder. Whistler’s cock, still hard, nestles into the hollow of Carl’s hip, but some of the urgency is gone. They kiss again. It’s soft and sweet, unhurried.
“I looked for you,” Whistler says softly, his lips brushing Carl’s mouth as he speaks. “I looked for you everywhere. I broke a lot of laws. But there was no data. No trace of you. Anywhere. They made you disappear so even I couldn’t find you.”
“I’m sorry,” Carl says. And he is. Sorrier than he can say.
“Just glad you’re back,” Whistler says between kisses, “missed you.” His voice is so soft it’s nearly a whisper.
The next kiss is achingly sweet, and it sets Carl’s heart to pounding again.
“C’mon,” Carl mutters, lowering himself onto the bed and pulling Whistler down with him.
Whistler’s hands are deft and sure, tracing apparently random paths across Carl’s body, and he’s hitting hotspots Carl didn’t know he had, setting sparks racing down his spine, straight to his cock. Whistler’s hands. Carl can’t remember being this turned on, ever. “Fuck,” he pants.
“That’s sort of the idea,” Whistler says, running his hand down the crease where Carl’s thigh meets his hip. He’s maddeningly close to Carl’s cock, which is rock hard and leaking, dripping precum onto his stomach.
“Asshole,” Carl moans. “Please, just—”
He’s cut off by his own gasp when Whistler finally wraps a hand around his cock, his grip careful, measuring.
“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Carl hears himself babbling from a distance, impossible to stop himself from saying, “please, Whistler, don’t make me wait, please—”
“Christ,” Whistler whispers, sounding completely undone. He presses his face into Carl’s neck and breathes harsh and fast. His hand is flying over Carl’s cock, giving it to him fast and sweet and good, slick with precum and just tight enough. It doesn’t take long before Carl’s coming, his whole body bucking, pleasure seizing him hard. His cock jerks and Whistler’s hand moves up, catching the first spurt and slicking his grip with it. It’s so fucking good that Carl’s vision whites out a little as he shoots again and again.
Whistler keeps working him through it until he’s wrung out. When Carl opens his eyes, there are still spots dancing in his vision. They clear and he gets a good look at Whistler, who looks like he’s about to fly apart.
“Carl,” he says, voice tight, “I hate to interrupt your afterglow, but…”
Carl grins a kiss onto Whistler’s mouth and pushes at him gently until he’s lying on his back, then shuffles down the bed ungracefully. His whole body feels wrecked, in the best way. But he’s highly motivated to move: Whistler’s cock is sort of a thing of beauty. Carl lowers his mouth until it’s just over the shaft, and waits. Whistler can probably feel the heat from his open mouth; it’s probably driving him crazy.
“You’re driving me crazy,” Whistler says, and Carl laughs out loud, joy singing through him.
“Yes,” Whistler says tartly. “You’re hilarious. Now, for all that’s — ohhhhhh.”
Carl has his mouth over the head of Whistler’s cock. He smiles around it while Whistler twists and writhes, his fists crumpling the sheet. Then Carl goes to work.
It doesn’t take long. Carl’s pretty great at giving head (or so he’s been assured) and Whistler’s so keyed up he’s no challenge at all. Carl’s tempted to draw it out, to tease, but Whistler didn’t string him along, and Carl figures it’s only fair to return the favor. So he bobs his head down as far as he can go, the head of Whistler’s cock bumping at his throat, and swallows. Whistler shouts incoherently and his cock flexes and jumps as he comes. Thick fluid hits the back of Carl’s throat and floods his mouth. He pulls off just long enough to swallow, then slides back down, tongue working Whistler’s cock gently, coaxing a few more jerks out of it.
Whistler’s still making soft, helpless noises when Carl pulls off. His hands flail until they find Carl’s hair and shoulder and haul him up to lie with his head on Whistler’s chest. Whistler hums softly as he pets Carl’s hair. Carl feels sort of stupefied by the sensation. His throat is a little raw and his cock and belly sticky are with drying come, but he can’t move — Whistler’s fingers carding through his hair keep him fixed in place, his whole body heavy.
They lie there for a while, Carl’s mind drifting pleasantly.
Something soft brushes across his naked ass and he jumps a mile, elbowing Whistler in the side. Whistler yelps.
A throaty rumble starts up and Carl sees what touched him — one of Whistler’s cats is on the bed, nosing around and purring.
“Whazza,” Whistler says blearily. “Oh, it’s just—” he cocks his head, listening. “—Woz.”
“Your cat put its nose on my butt,” Carl says.
“Well, it’s a very nice butt,” Whistler replies, giving one cheek an appreciative squeeze.
“I knew it,” Carl mutters. “You just want me around because your cat likes my ass.”
“Hey,” Whistler says, offended. “My cats are very important to me.”
Carl snorts, laughing softly into Whistler’s armpit.
“Sure, you go ahead and laugh it up,” Whistler says, mock-outraged. “You’ve spent the last five years, I don’t know, seducing crime lords and learning how to shoot upside down. Meanwhile, I’ve got Mother reading me movie parodies from Mad Magazine when things are slow. You better believe I like my cats. They can’t read. They don’t even speak English.”
Carl isn’t laughing any more.
“I’m sorry about that,” he says. “About leaving.”
“Oh, kid,” Whistler says softly. Carl’s heart kind of melts. “I know. I’m sorry, too.”