Archive of Our Own

Being the one to usually go on recon for jobs has its hazards. It often means there’s a chance of running head-first into trouble, like facing off against ex-CIA agents in the lobby of a building or bumping into the mob at a warehouse.

So Eliot’s prepared for some security guards prowling the halls or maybe even an alarm system to trip when he sneaks his way in the late afternoon around the mansion that belongs to their mark. Eliot’s here under the guise of a caterer for the fancy party the mark will be throwing here later tonight, and he’s hoping to use the whole aw shucks I got lost routine to get himself out of trouble if need be, but there’s no trouble.

There’s no trouble, right until Eliot stops in front of the study.

The door is cracked open a couple inches, wide enough for Eliot to get a clear view of the whole room, but he doesn’t need to look at the whole room. The mark is here, his shirt unbuttoned and his hair a tousled mess as he pants like he’s running a marathon, hips snapping forward to fuck into the person half-sprawled across his desk. From Eliot’s point of view, the desk is perpendicular to him, meaning that he can see the action pretty clearly: the side profile of the mark as he grunts and buries his cock deeper; the toned, long-limbed body of the man with his back on the desk, propping himself up halfway on his elbows; the curls escaping a messy ponytail, half-obscuring the man’s face—but not enough to stop Eliot from recognizing who it is.

It’s Quinn. Quinn, who broke Eliot’s ribs almost four years ago. Quinn, who stepped into Eliot’s role for a job five months ago. Quinn, who is dangerous and laid-back and snarky as hell in a way that never fails to make Eliot grin.

That very Quinn is getting fucked on a desk less than ten feet away from Eliot, thighs squeezing around the mark’s waist as he moans shamelessly, tipping his head back just a bit, eyes fluttering closed. The sight is such a shock to Eliot’s system that he freezes, unable to get the hell out or back off or even look away. And Eliot can’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Quinn flushing red all the way down his neck to his chest, dress shirt slipping off of one shoulder and revealing his bare chest, hard cock curving up his belly and oozing precome. Somebody could have a gun to Eliot’s head right now and he wouldn’t be able to stop staring.

Quinn tips his head back even more, baring his throat as he groans, and the very sight of it makes heat slither through Eliot’s blood. His heartbeat is like thunder in his ears as he watches the scene unfold in front of him: Quinn hooking his ankles behind the mark’s back and urging him to go faster, greedy hands on Quinn’s hips, Quinn’s voice cracking open on a moan.

Then, without warning, Quinn’s head turns, just a bit, purely by chance, and he sees the open door. His gaze flicks up and meets Eliot’s. Quinn’s eyes widen in recognition and then—

Quinn comes with a half-choked gasp, his gaze still locked with Eliot’s.

Eliot doesn’t know what happens after that, because he flees the scene like he’s been burned, rushing down the hall and finding his way back to the kitchen, and then locking himself into the spacious pantry because nobody is inside it right now.

Fuck. Eliot takes a deep breath, exhales through his nose, trying to calm his heart rate, but all he can think of is brown eyes meeting his. The choked gasp that escaped swollen lips. Come splattering all over a toned stomach.

Eliot takes another deep breath, looks down, and swears inwardly when he discovers he’s hard.

Fuck.

-

Later, the team discovers that the incriminating documents that they’d been aiming to liberate from the mark’s safe are already gone. Stolen by somebody else. They pull off the con anyway, courtesy of Nate’s Plan H, but they never do find those documents.

Eliot has a pretty good idea of who beat the team to the punch, but he doesn’t breathe a word to them. He decides it’s something better left alone. He doesn’t want to relive the moment anyway.

-

Unfortunately, Eliot can’t stop thinking about what he witnessed in the study that day. The sound of Quinn’s moans, the slap of flesh against flesh, the line of Quinn’s throat and the haphazard curls hanging loosely as they frame his face. He can’t forget any of it, no matter how hard he tries. Especially the moment when Quinn locked eyes with him and then came all over himself. That whole moment is seared into Eliot’s brain and he can’t fucking get rid of it. The memory assaults him at random moments and haunts his dreams, and it’s really pissing Eliot off. He hasn’t been a teenager in twenty damn years, and he’s too old to be getting boners at all kinds of inconvenient times.

So Eliot tries to solve the problem the logical way: having sex. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for him to take somebody to bed regularly, and thus it’s a practical solution. So what if he turns up the charm a little more than usual just so he can get laid on a near-daily basis? So what if he’s spending all his free time outside of jobs finding somebody to fuck? He just needs to get it out of his system and let his libido burn out. Things will go back to normal once enough time has passed and he’s bedded a sufficient amount of people.

Except…the more people he has sex with, the more time passes, things get worse. He doesn’t understand how that’s even possible, but the memory sinks its claws into him deeper and deeper, until it’s digging into his bones and cracking his skull open. Every time he gets invited into somebody else’s bed, all he can think of is honey-brown eyes, near-golden curls, and a filthy moan reverberating in his ears. It’s driving him insane.

Eliot’s been through a lot of uncomfortable and nightmarish things: imprisonment, torture, and several near-death experiences.

Somehow, this obsession is decimating his sanity more than any of those things ever did.

-

After nearly a whole month of losing his goddamn mind, Eliot runs into the crux of his problem. As in, he’s in the middle of doing his part for another con when he turns a corner and bumps into the person in front of him. Just when he’s on the verge of automatically apologizing, he realizes that Quinn is the one who’s standing in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Eliot hisses.

“Business trip,” Quinn says smoothly, opening a door that leads into an empty conference room. Eliot recognizes that this isn’t a conversation to be had in the busy hallway of a corporation’s headquarters, so he follows Quinn inside and makes sure to lock the door behind them.

Fuck, now that he gets to see Quinn up close, he looks nothing like the debauched mess that he witnessed in the study that day. Here, Quinn’s hair is immaculately tied back and his suit is impeccably buttoned up, complete with a navy blue necktie tied in a perfect Windsor knot. There’s no trace of the vision that’s been haunting Eliot day in and day out, and somehow that’s even more frustrating.

Eliot crosses his arms and heaves a sigh. “Don’t tell me you’re here for the Vermeer.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” Quinn says agreeably, and Eliot scowls. “I suppose you’re here for a con, and not because you’ve decided to take on a new career as…” He pauses, appraising Eliot from head to toe, slow in a way that feels entirely intentional, and that alone makes heat lick up Eliot’s spine. “A delivery guy.”

“Eliot, what’s going on?” Nate’s voice asks through the comms, and Eliot abruptly remembers that Quinn’s presence is going to throw a rather hefty wrench into the con. Shit.

“Quinn’s here for the Vermeer,” Eliot says aloud, because there’s no point in pretending he doesn’t have the team listening in, and as expected, Quinn doesn’t seem surprised. He just shrugs, in that amicable little gesture of well, what can you do? He looks so professional and perfectly put-together, like he’s not even that bothered by Eliot’s presence. It makes Eliot want to make a mess out of his clothes, pull on those curls til the neat ponytail is gone, have Quinn flushed and panting and at his mercy. He wants to wreck Quinn.

Jesus, Eliot is going to lose his goddamn mind in the middle of a job in hostile territory, just from the fact that Quinn is doing nothing but standing there in front of him. Eliot almost wishes somebody would come in this room to try kill him so that he can at least stop obsessing over all the ways he wants to debauch Quinn.

Thankfully, Eliot’s distraction comes in the form of Sophie’s voice cutting in. “We can’t give it to him. The Madisons need that painting. It’s rightfully theirs.”

“If you start a fight right there, we’re gonna be blown,” Hardison adds.

“Hold on.” There’s that thoughtful tone Nate uses when he’s putting puzzle pieces together, rather than the tense one he uses when there’s a problem and he’s busy thinking of backup plans. “Eliot, ask him if he knows what we’re up to, here.”

He’s not sure what Nate’s play is just yet, but Eliot doesn’t hesitate to follow the order. “You know why my team’s here, then?”

Quinn looks at him, glances towards the door, the smile sliding off his face as he considers Eliot’s question. Then he blinks and looks back at Eliot. “I’d guess you’re doing your usual thing. Taking down corrupt higher-ups and dispensing justice. Your mark’s probably Richter, and I suppose you’re taking the Vermeer as part of the plan. Probably on Wednesday, before the insurance investigator shows up.”

He’s entirely correct. Eliot is starting to wonder if he’s going to have to get in a fight after all.

“Interesting,” Nate murmurs. “There’s no way he’d know about the insurance investigator, unless… Eliot, tell Quinn we’ll let him take the Vermeer—”

“What?!” Parker yells in synchronicity with Hardison and Sophie.

“—if,” Nate continues, “his client is Richter himself.”

Oh. Huh. Eliot raises an eyebrow at Quinn. “If Richter’s the one who sent you, you can have the Vermeer.”

Quinn stares for a moment, then he laughs, bright and wicked. “Damn, that was easy. I should’ve known your team would figure it out.”

“Insurance scam, huh?” Eliot’s not surprised. It’s exactly the kind of stunt Richter would pull, especially when Nate’s been playing insurance investigator to apply quite a lot of pressure. “You can get him the Vermeer. We can steal it back after you’ve done that.”

“Hmm.” Quinn grins at him. Then he holds out a hand, the way he once did in a warehouse in Kiev many months ago. “Deal.”

When Eliot takes his hand and shakes it, Quinn pulls him in close, and in a low voice that the comms won’t be able to catch, he murmurs against Eliot’s cheek, “The uniform suits you.”

Then he’s brushing past Eliot, heading for the door, and Eliot’s left along in the conference room for a minute, still reeling from the heat of Quinn’s breath against his skin, the tight squeeze of Quinn’s hand, the low purr of his voice in Eliot’s ear.

Fuck. Eliot closes his eyes and tries to think of the job. The despondent, wounded looks on the Madison family’s faces. The ugly sneer on Richter’s face. His team, who need Eliot’s head in the game so that he can have their backs. Shaking his head and clearing his mind, Eliot calms himself and focuses on the con. He can obsess over Quinn later. Right now, he has work to do.

-

Still, he can’t quite get rid of the flickers of heat in his gut throughout the job entirely. It’s impossible to, when Quinn is constantly hovering around the periphery of his awareness, meeting Eliot’s eyes every once in a while, a private smirk gracing his lips whenever he captures Eliot’s attention. Once, when everybody else’s focus is on the grand speech Richter is making, Quinn winks at him. To say that he’s a distraction is putting it lightly, much like saying that a stab wound from a sword is just a paper cut.

Otherwise, though, Eliot sees Quinn at his most professional throughout the remaining three days of the con. Nary a hair out of place, efficient and graceful, buttoned up in a spotless suit, even when he fluidly disarms and knocks out the security guards while Eliot watches from afar.

During those fleeting moments when he can afford to let his thoughts wander, Eliot thinks of getting his hands on the skin that’s covered by that damned suit. Thinks about leaving bite marks everywhere, about seeing Quinn’s curls spread across rumpled bedsheets, about fucking Quinn so hard that he has trouble maintaining that solid, confident, graceful gait of his.

By the time they’re finishing the job and Eliot’s leaving Richter’s men groaning on the ground at his feet, he’s still thinking about all those things. The heat from the fight fueling a different kind of fire in his blood.

When he takes the Vermeer from where it’s been stowed away in a private facility and turns around, he sees Quinn watching him with hungry eyes and a slow lick of his lips.

That’s when Eliot knows Quinn’s thinking of the exact same things, too.

-

Quinn sticks around for the post-con celebratory dinner, and he spends the whole time barely sparing Eliot a glance. But Eliot knows that Quinn’s attention is on him. It’s impossible to think otherwise when the tip of Quinn’s shoe is tracing lazy circles against the inside of Eliot’s shin.

Eliot barely remembers how the dinner passes by. He manages to keep it together just enough to make sure he’s not sporting a hard-on when he stands up, but otherwise he’s working on autopilot. Shoving the dishes into the dishwasher, bidding the rest of the team a good night, heading off towards his apartment afterwards. Quinn doesn’t say a word to him, but he trails after Eliot all the way back to his front door. It’s only when Eliot is unlocking the door when Quinn leans against the wall beside it and breaks the silence.

“Before we get started,” he says in that cheerful, relaxed voice of his that he tends to use when he’s inches away from being at his most lethal, “you got any ground rules?”

Eliot pauses, his hand on the doorknob. The sidelong glance Quinn sends him is unreadable, and that tempers the heat that’s been consuming Eliot’s mind a little. Just enough for him to consider the question seriously.

“Playing rough is fine, but watch it with the manhandling.” Eliot doesn’t bother to elaborate that too much aggression would trigger a violent response; Quinn is smart enough to connect the dots. And though he’s less confident about this assumption, he thinks Quinn would be smart enough to figure out where the line between fun and threatening is, too. “No restraining me, either.”

Quinn hums in acknowledgment. Then, he says in a neutral tone, “You stay in my line of sight.”

That’s…fairly specific. It does cross off some of the possibilities that Eliot’s fantasized about, but ultimately, it’s not a problem. That still leaves plenty of space for Eliot to work with, and to be perfectly honest, he wants Quinn badly enough that he’d put up with an entire laundry list of demands, if it came down to it.

“I can do that,” Eliot tells him, then opens the door and drags Quinn inside.

He shoves Quinn up against the door once it’s closed, locking it with one hand while his other one hauls Quinn in by the necktie for a heated kiss. After all the weeks Eliot’s spent obsessing over that mouth, it’s breathtakingly satisfying to have it open and let him in when he licks at the seam of Quinn’s lips. It’s even more satisfying when he gets to use his free hand to cup Quinn’s nape, rubbing over the warm skin there before his fingers thread their way into soft curls, tugging on them like he’s been dreaming about for ages now.

Quinn doesn’t waste any time feeling up Eliot, either. His hands are greedy as they run up Eliot’s sides over his henley, roaming over his shoulders before they slide down again, over Eliot’s back and all the way to his ass. Soon enough, Quinn’s pulling Eliot closer so that he can roll their hips together, and the pleasure that ratchets up Eliot’s spine makes him growl against Quinn’s mouth. He has half a mind to just hitch one of Quinn’s legs up so he can grind up against him, keeping Quinn pinned until he comes in those expensive pants of his, but then Quinn’s hands are on his chest, pushing him away.

Eliot resists for about half a second before he takes a step back, frustrated by the loss of the immediate heat of Quinn’s body against his, still hungry for the taste of Quinn’s mouth.

“As fun as this is,” Quinn says, and Eliot takes no small amount of pleasure at the way his voice has gone a little breathless, “I’ve waited way too long to have you inside me. So unless you have condoms and lube in your pockets right now, we’re moving this to the bedroom.”

Eliot would love to make a smart retort to that, but his brain is so consumed by the imagery invoked by Quinn’s words—to have you inside me—that he can’t muster the coherency to do so. Instead, he grabs Quinn by the wrist, dragging him towards his bedroom.

Once they cross the threshold, it’s only a few steps to the bed. Eliot unceremoniously shoves Quinn onto it and crawls over him, dipping his head down for another wet kiss before he nips at Quinn’s lower lip. He moves down, kissing his way down Quinn’s jaw and throat, scraping his teeth over his Adam’s apple and enjoying the groan that tumbles out of Quinn’s mouth. He unbuttons the top two buttons of Quinn’s shirt, mouthing his way down bare skin until he meets Quinn’s collarbone. He grazes the sensitive skin there with his teeth, and in response, Quinn growls and hauls Eliot up by his hair for a filthy kiss that has makes Eliot’s whole body shiver.

“I swear to fucking god,” Quinn rasps when they break apart, “if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to kick you off this bed and ride you on the goddamn floor.”

“You say that like it’d turn me off.” Eliot rolls his eyes, but he takes the hint and moves off of Quinn to grab the condoms and lube from his bedside drawer, clicking the bedside lamp on while he’s at it. He tosses the supplies onto the bed, taking a second to watch Quinn make quick work of the rest of his shirt buttons before Eliot grabs the hem of his own henley and pulls it off over his head.

Once he’s tossed the henley aside, he notices the way Quinn’s blatantly appreciating his bare skin, so he deliberately makes a show of undoing his belt and unzipping his jeans. By the time he’s kicked those off along with his shoes, Quinn’s entirely forgotten about undressing and is instead openly ogling Eliot. It’s a nice ego boost; while Eliot’s gotten used to having people find him attractive—and he appreciates it every time—there’s something about Quinn’s attention on him that does wonders for his pride.

“You’re gonna have to take the rest of your clothes off if you want me to fuck you,” Eliot reminds Quinn in a smug tone.

Quinn glares at him as he shrugs out of his jacket and shirt, dropping them both over the side of the bed before he undoes the front of his slacks, toeing off his shoes at the same time. Then it’s Eliot’s turn to stare when Quinn slides his slacks and underwear off in one go. The socks follow soon after, leaving Quinn naked and half-hard in Eliot’s bed. The sight alone makes Eliot’s dick throb.

Clearly sensing that the tables have turned, Quinn smiles. “You’re gonna have to take the rest of your clothes off if you want to fuck me.”

Eliot grumbles under his breath, but he bends down to pull his boxer briefs down and get rid of his socks while he’s at it. It takes maybe two seconds. When he straightens back up, Quinn’s already coating his fingers with lube, watching Eliot with rapt attention as he squeezes the bottle. When their eyes meet, Quinn drops the bottle onto the mattress and shifts position so that he’s seated on the bed with his knees spread. Then, maintaining eye contact with Eliot the whole time, he reaches down and slides a finger into himself.

“Impatient, much?” Eliot manages to say, which is a miracle because he’s not sure how he’s still capable of speaking English when Quinn is single-handedly wiping his mind clean of rational thought.

“You’re just slow,” Quinn tells him, his breath hitching the tiniest bit as he adds a second finger almost immediately. The wet squelching sounds of his fingers make Eliot dizzy with pure want. “Which, y’know, happens when you’re old, I guess. Takes you a while to get it on, right?”

Eliot growls, finally getting on the bed and moving so that he’s settled between Quinn’s legs. “You’re gonna regret saying that real soon.”

“I don’t know, at the pace you’re going,” Quinn starts, but Eliot shuts him up by shoving his thumb into Quinn’s mouth.

Quinn narrows his eyes, gently biting down, not hard enough to hurt but insistent enough to indicate that he’s only allowing this because he wants to. Then his tongue laps at the pad of Eliot’s thumb, warm and wet, sending a frisson of pleasure flickering through Eliot’s blood. The room is quiet, filled with the sound of their breathing and the filthy, wet sounds of Quinn fingering himself and sucking at Eliot’s thumb.

By the time Quinn’s added a third finger, he’s tracing lazy circles around the tip of Eliot’s thumb in a dirty mimicry of what he could do to Eliot’s cock. Eliot’s not even moving right now, but he feels overheated, his blood too hot under his skin, and then Quinn’s pulling a little away, just enough to nip at the pad of Eliot’s thumb, his eyes dark and half-lidded as they meet Eliot’s. That final sting is what makes Eliot’s patience run out. He rubs his spit-slick thumb across Quinn’s lower lip, then pulls him in for a hungry kiss, tipping them both sideways onto the bed, rolling them over so that he’s on top of Quinn and dislodging Quinn’s fingers somewhere along the way.

“You said I’m slow, huh?” Eliot’s breathing is a bit uneven as he rolls the condom on and slicks himself up. “Lemme teach you a lesson about taking it slow.”

Quinn huffs, even as he tilts his hips up when Eliot presses the head of his cock to Quinn’s entrance. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna lecture me about the virtue of patience right now.”

“Nope.” Eliot teases the rim of Quinn’s hole, watching Quinn squirm in impatience, then he grins. “That’d be too easy.”

Then, without warning, he rocks his hips forward, pushing his cock into the tight, damp heat of Quinn’s ass. The breathy, broken moan Quinn lets out is music to his ears, and he manages to draw the sound out by sliding in further, not stopping until he’s completely inside Quinn. It’s warm and tight in a way that makes Eliot’s head spin. It’s how Quinn clenches around his cock, how his thighs squeeze around Eliot’s waist, and how Quinn’s right hand grabs onto Eliot’s wrist where he’s bracing against the mattress. It’s like Quinn wants to drag Eliot in close and not let him go, and there’s something about the idea that makes Eliot’s blood burn.

And then Quinn adds fuel to the fire by hooking his ankles behind Eliot’s back and pulling him in even deeper, his left hand sliding around Eliot’s nape to pull him closer, til their lips are brushing.

“Thought you said something about teaching me a lesson?” Quinn whispers.

Eliot wonders if he can fuck Quinn’s sass out of him.

There’s really only one way to find out.

He pulls out, just until the head of his cock is still in Quinn, then he thrusts back in, hard. The way Quinn shudders and swears makes satisfaction roll through Eliot’s system, and he repeats the action, keeping a steady, slow rhythm even as he fucks Quinn as hard as he can.

At some point, he finds the angle that makes Quinn’s voice crack open mid-whine, and he uses it ruthlessly. It tests Eliot’s patience to keep his pace so slow, but it’s worth it to see Quinn thrashing under him, trying to urge Eliot to speed up, his whole body shuddering every time Eliot hits his prostate. There’s a kind of heady pleasure in building the tension up, too. A delicious buzz reverberating through every inch of his body as the heat slowly but surely intensifies.

“You asshole,” Quinn rasps, panting under him, his cock leaking precome all over his stomach, neglected only because Eliot ended up pinning both of Quinn’s wrists to the bed. Quinn can come when Eliot lets him come. Until then, Eliot’s going to take his sweet time taking Quinn apart.

“Told you I’d teach you a lesson,” Eliot reminds him, thrusting forward again, then grinding a slow and dirty circle that has Quinn biting out some impressive curses in a handful of languages.

He pulls out and thrusts again, not as rough this time, prolonging the buzz rather than building it up, and he keeps it up for a few more minutes. He’s at that stage where he’s enjoying the burn of desire, that space where he just wants to draw things out because it feels so good. It’s especially enjoyable with Quinn trembling beneath him, flushed red and breathless, so desperate but still refusing to cave in and beg.

Eliot wonders if he can push Quinn far enough to make him break, and he’s pondering that when he thrusts back in with more force, purely to mix things up, when Quinn clenches around his cock hard and comes all over his stomach with a loud, filthy moan.

Feeling Quinn shiver against him, hearing the helpless, small moans that escape Quinn’s lips as the aftershocks rolls through his body, Eliot watches the way honey-brown eyes meet his own even as they go dazed and glassy with pleasure. It takes every ounce of Eliot’s fraying self-control to keep himself from rutting into Quinn like an animal to chase his own release. Instead, he tightens his grip on Quinn’s wrists—not too much, not enough to make Quinn feel trapped, but fuck, it’s hard to stop himself when Quinn bites his lip as if he likes it that way—and waits for Quinn to come down from his high.

It’s only when Quinn’s completely recovered from his orgasm that he blinks, glances down, then looks back up at Eliot with dawning realization. “Shit.”

“We’re not done yet,” Eliot says with a grin, then pulls back and snaps his hips forward again. He’s rewarded with Quinn’s choked gasp and full-body shudder, and he can’t help but feel a swell of satisfaction at the way Quinn chews on his lower lip and glares at him balefully. “C’mon, Huckleberry. Keep up with me.”

With that said, he resumes fucking Quinn at the same pace as before. It’s awfully hard to hold himself back, though. Just the thought that Quinn came only from Eliot’s cock inside him, that he kept eye contact with Eliot throughout the whole thing—it makes that tension coil tighter in Eliot’s lower belly, pushing him closer to the edge than he’d been planning for.

It doesn’t help that Quinn is shaking under him, his breath catching on a low whine every time Eliot rocks his hips forward. It’s obvious that Quinn’s oversensitive and overwhelmed at this point, but he’s not fighting Eliot off. Despite the fact that he’s perfectly capable of putting an end to this if he wants to, he’s still allowing Eliot to hold him down and take him apart. It’s equal parts arousing and humbling, to know that Quinn is willingly letting Eliot undo him, in a way that makes Eliot’s chest feel too tight, like his ribcage is constricting around his lungs.

He can’t help but lean down and kiss Quinn, lick into his mouth and swallow his shuddery moan as Eliot grinds his hips to go as deep inside as Quinn as he can go. He indulges in that for a long moment, letting the pleasure build and build until he can’t hold back any longer. Then he breaks away from the kiss, just enough so that he can breathe more easily as he thrusts into Quinn faster, harder, until the heat under his skin burns white-hot, like pure pleasure injected into Eliot’s entire nervous system at once. His hips stutter and he feels a groan punch out of him, and just as the initial peak fades and the first aftershock is about to wash through his body, Eliot feels the world tilt.

He has enough awareness to realize that Quinn’s moving underneath him, breaking out of Eliot’s hold to push him, and then they’re rolling sideways, ending with Quinn sitting astride Eliot. Somehow, the movement hasn’t dislodged Eliot’s cock, so he feels the first aftershock abruptly crash into him when Quinn clenches tight around it. He shivers through the pulse of pleasure, then some more as Quinn slowly rolls his hips in a lazy circle, drawing out the remnants of heat flickering through Eliot’s system.

“So that’s what you look like,” Quinn murmurs, a small, pleased smile curling across his mouth.

Eliot doesn’t bother to ask him what he means. Instead, he wraps a hand around Quinn’s fully hard cock, watching the way Quinn’s eyelashes flutter at the touch. This time, Eliot doesn’t bother with going slow and he jerks Quinn off rough and fast, feeling pleasure zing up his spine every time Quinn clenches around his softening cock at the stimulation.

It takes a couple minutes, and then Quinn’s coming with a bitten-off moan, splattering come all over Eliot’s stomach and chest.

When Quinn’s gotten his breath back, he quirks a sly smile at Eliot and asks, “So, want me to teach you a lesson about going fast, this time?”

“If it means you ain’t gonna last long, I don’t think I’ve got much to learn,” Eliot says, raising an eyebrow. He slides his palms up Quinn’s thighs, smoothing away any sting his words might deliver, but Quinn doesn’t seem bothered by the dig. In fact, he looks amused.

“Oh, I bet I can surprise you.” Quinn leans down to kiss the corner of Eliot’s mouth, and then he murmurs against his ear, “Why don’t we start with me showing you how quick I can get ready for another round?”

-

“So, how often do you fuck your marks for a job?” Eliot asks.

They’re both back in Eliot’s bed after several rounds of sex, a quick shower, and a change of bedsheets. Eliot is sitting up against the headboard, relishing the pleasant burn in his muscles, while Quinn is lounging on his stomach beside him. They’ve been chatting for a while now, and the subject of the conversation has turned from work to sex to the part where those two topics intersected in that encounter in the study many weeks ago.

“Maybe like, twenty percent of the time?” Quinn props up his chin on one hand, peering up at Eliot curiously. “Why, does it bother you?”

Twenty percent is a lot. It means that playing honeypot is not just the occasional trick up Quinn’s sleeve, but one of his main weapons. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; Eliot’s just surprised that he never saw it coming.

“None of my business what your professional methods are.” Eliot shrugs. “Just wondered what the chances of me seeing you in action were. Seemed like a hell of a coincidence.”

“That’s true.” Quinn laughs, low and amused. “I’ve gotten caught fucking a mark only twice before.”

Eliot snorts. “Third time’s the charm.”

“Guess you could say that.” Quinn’s eyes are warm in the dim lighting, the bedside lamp’s glow lighting up his curls and skin, making them look soft in a way that makes Eliot want to touch them. “You ever used sex for a job?”

“Not really.” He’s fucked a lot of people during or after a job, but it was always for personal pleasure. He’s never had sex purely for professional reasons.

A corner of Quinn’s mouth curls upwards. “Shame. You’d be good at it.”

“I probably would be,” Eliot says agreeably. He’s fairly confident about his skills, and the fact that Quinn openly said just as much solidifies that confidence. Doubly so because Quinn’s incredibly talented in bed, too. Eliot’s pretty damn sure he hasn’t had sex this amazing in the past ten years. “Were you good before you started doing this on the job?”

“Hell no.” Quinn shoulders shake from laughter, and Eliot can’t help but admire the shift of firm muscle under smooth skin. “I wasn’t that great at sex when I was sixteen.”

Eliot blinks. Rewinds that and processes it. He’s not entirely sure which part of that statement he wants to really tackle first, but he settles on, “Was that your first time, or did you at least get in some practice before you tried it out on a mark?”

“Definitely had some practice, but not enough of it.” Quinn lifts his head properly this time, looking at Eliot with a sharp gleam in his eyes. “And before you ask, I was never put up to it. I use sex because it’s easy. Or fun. Sometimes both. I’m a hitter; if I didn’t want somebody to fuck me, I could just shoot them.”

Eliot hadn’t intended to ask that, but he finds a small part inside of him relaxing anyway. He doesn’t know what kind of life Quinn led to end up on this career path as a teenager, but it helps to know that Quinn’s choice to use his body is his, and only his.

“Wasn’t gonna ask, but good to know,” Eliot says in a mild tone, and he waits for Quinn’s eyes to lose their sharp, defiant glint. When Quinn’s settled his chin back on his hand, the tension gone from his shoulders, Eliot changes the trajectory of the conversation. “No, but seriously, there’s no way the mark just opened the safe for you just ‘cause the sex was so good. How did you open it?”

-

Once Quinn leaves in the morning, Eliot starts cleaning the apartment with a satisfied hum.

Now that Eliot’s managed to fuck Quinn and gotten it out of his system, he’s going to be free from the obsession that’s been plaguing him for so many weeks. No dreams about messy curls or brown eyes or broken moans. No random assaults of the memories of that afternoon interrupting his day.

Life is finally going to be back to normal.

-

Life does not go back to normal. In fact, life gets worse.

Now, it’s not just the memory of Quinn on his back on a desk that has Eliot’s brain halting in its tracks at random times of the day, but then there’s the memory of Quinn in Eliot’s bed. Sometimes Eliot will be cooking at the pub and he’ll slice a lemon, only to be gut-punched with the memory of Quinn muffling a moan against Eliot’s shoulder, his sweat-slick skin smelling of citrus and cedarwood. Sometimes Eliot will be gathering the tools they need for a con and he’ll pause at the sight of a screwdriver, remembering how he’d used his tongue to trace a thin scar across Quinn’s thigh, something Quinn explained was a near miss with a stab from such a tool. Sometimes, he’ll hear a low voice moaning his name in the seconds before he jerks awake in his bed, half-expecting to find honey-brown eyes looking at him.

Somehow, instead of getting Quinn out of his system, Eliot’s only gotten more of Quinn injected into it. This is exactly the opposite of what Eliot was aiming for, and it pisses him off.

He tries his best to ignore it for a while, but once again, time doesn’t heal jackshit. The memories eat away at him, creeping into his mind during the quietest moments, refusing to fade away even when he’s trying to get on with his day.

Eliot is being slowly driven insane, and it’s not fair at all, because if he’s going to lose his mind regardless of whether or not he has sex with Quinn, then what the hell is he supposed to do?

-

After a month of torment, Eliot makes up his mind. If not fucking Quinn and fucking Quinn both lead to the same result, then he might as well choose the more pleasurable option.

Which is how he ends up tracking Quinn all the way down to a plush hotel in central Denver. It’s probably insane, with a healthy dose of creepy, but who the fuck knows when Quinn will ever show up around Portland again? And while Eliot would’ve called ahead and asked Quinn over for drinks and a fuck, like a normal human being, Quinn’s phone has been turned off for three days now, so Eliot wants to make sure Quinn’s not dead.

Also, Eliot’s probably not a normal human being, but that’s not important.

When he knocks on the hotel door with the number he obtained from his intel, it takes a minute, but Quinn eventually opens the door, looking a little confused and fairly wary. At least he’s not dead. “Eliot? What’s the occasion?”

“You weren’t picking up your phone,” Eliot says.

“I kinda broke it. It’s getting repaired, so I should have it back tomorrow.” Quinn’s gaze flickers from Eliot’s face to his casually crossed arms to the duffle bag slung over one shoulder. Quinn raises an eyebrow, clearly connecting some dots, and he looks Eliot in the eye once more. “Wanna tell me why you’re here, pal?”

“I have the next couple days off.” Eliot shifts on his feet, uncrossing his arms to deliberately make his posture less guarded. He knows it’s pretty forward of him to come all the way here and show up at Quinn’s hotel room door, and he doesn’t want to seem like he’s here to pressure Quinn into anything. He doesn’t want to seem completely desperate, either, though. So he keeps his tone casual when he adds, “I wanna have some fun, and you’re the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

Quinn blinks at him, once more looking Eliot over. Reading his body language, observing his facial expression, and anything else he can take in to assess how genuine Eliot’s words are or whatever the hell he’s doing. Eliot waits patiently, trying not to show any nervousness, because fuck, he’s never done this before. He’s never pursued an encore with any of his one night stands; he’s never crossed state lines just to fuck somebody; he’s never had to hope that a person would say yes because nobody else will sate the hunger inside of him.

Whatever Quinn sees, he must like it, because he grins and opens the door wider, inviting Eliot in. “Well, I’m flattered. Did you actually come all the way to Colorado just to have some fun with me?”

“Maybe.” Eliot keeps his tone noncommittal, but Quinn’s smile turns wicked anyway.

“Guess I should make the trip worth it, then,” Quinn says, and kisses Eliot.

It’s like getting a cold drink of water after spending days in unrelenting heat that left his throat parched. Eliot didn’t know he could miss just a kiss this much, but apparently he did, because the faint scent of citrus, the rumble of Quinn’s laughter, the warmth of his steady hands on Eliot’s hips—they soothe a craving that’s been eating him up, and it’s such a relief to be free from it that his knees almost give out on him.

They kiss as they stumble their way to the bed. Eliot drops his bag somewhere along the way, and loses his jacket and shirt at some point, too. Quinn’s only in a dress shirt and slacks, so Eliot’s working on Quinn’s belt buckle when he watches Quinn undo the buttons of his shirt and sees the dark marks on Quinn’s skin, littered across his collarbone and chest, carefully hidden from sight under his clothing.

“For work or for pleasure?” Eliot asks, tapping a finger against the marks, and regrets asking even before he’s finished the question. It’s none of his goddamn business, but he’s curious anyway.

Quinn doesn’t seem bothered, though. He simply glances down to confirm where Eliot’s fingertips are resting, then resumes unbuttoning his shirt. “Work.”

It’s strange that this is the answer that bothers Eliot more than the alternative. If Quinn had been fucking somebody else for the fun of it, then Eliot would mind the hickeys less. It’s stupid, he knows, but he dislikes the thought that Quinn would have sex to get his job done and have the reminders of that left on him, even after the job is completed and the payment is collected. For all Eliot knows, Quinn might even like it this way; Eliot has no claim on Quinn’s body, and he doesn’t have the right to be disgruntled about whatever marks have been left on it by other people.

Ultimately, it’s none of Eliot’s business, but he still can’t help but stop Quinn from sliding the shirt off once it’s fully unbuttoned. “Keep it on. You look good that way.”

“Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me to keep on my entire damn suit.” Quinn sounds amused by Eliot’s request, which is a good sign. “Do you have a suit kink, Spencer?”

“Only if you’re the one wearing it,” Eliot says, which might’ve been more honesty than he’d been planning to offer, but the way Quinn flushes a little makes it entirely worth it. Using the moment that Quinn’s been caught off-guard, Eliot manages to finish undoing the front of Quinn’s slacks and pushes him down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Condoms?”

Quinn indicates his emergency kit on the coffee table, which Eliot grabs to rummage through. He finds the condoms and lube quick enough, and when he turns around, he notices the way Quinn’s eyes flicker upwards from where they were clearly appreciating Eliot’s ass. Suppressing a grin, Eliot brings his prizes back to the bed, tossing them onto the bed and tearing a condom open with his teeth while he drops to his knees between Quinn’s legs.

“If I’d known you were up for an encore,” Quinn murmurs when Eliot pulls out Quinn’s cock through his open fly and rolls the condom on, “I would’ve come over to Portland a lot sooner.”

Eliot hesitates, because he’s not sure if this is a good idea or not. But he’s made far worse choices, so he says, “Then you can come over again some other time, whenever you want. Standing invitation.”

Quinn’s eyes brighten and his grin turns a little softer, like he’s genuinely pleased. It does something funny to the inside of Eliot’s stomach. The sensation only intensifies when Quinn tucks Eliot’s hair behind his ear in an unexpectedly tender gesture. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Unable to bear looking at Quinn’s expression anymore, Eliot ducks his head and leans in closer to press a kiss to the tip of Quinn’s cock. He hears the hitch in Quinn’s breathing, feels a hand thread through his hair and tighten in a way that sends a pleasurable sting zipping down Eliot’s spine. Encouraged, Eliot opens his mouth, taking Quinn’s cock in deeper, teasing the frenulum with his tongue just to hear Quinn curse under his breath. Then he swallows Quinn down farther, as much as he can go before his gag reflex kicks in. He wraps a hand around the base of Quinn’s cock, moving his hand in tandem as he bobs his head, sucking Quinn off leisurely, paying attention to the sounds of Quinn’s breathing, listening to it grow gradually harsher. When Quinn starts moaning on his exhales, low and shaky, Eliot kicks up the pace without warning. He sucks harder, pushing forward so he can take Quinn in as far as he can, even when it makes him choke a little. He chances a glance up, meeting Quinn’s gaze, and then Quinn’s letting out a broken, desperate whine as he comes.

Eliot eases off of Quinn’s cock a bit, just enough so he’s not choking on it anymore, and keeps sucking lightly while Quinn shivers through the aftershocks. When he deems Quinn sufficiently recovered, Eliot pulls off, licking his lips and palming at his own half-hard erection through his pants. He’s always enjoyed that heady sensation of undoing somebody with his mouth and hands, focusing entirely on the pleasure of another person without his own urges distracting him. He enjoys the rush of satisfaction at the sight of Quinn panting, pupils blown and cheeks flushed, and he unzips himself to more easily rub at his cock through his underwear.

Quinn hauls him up for a hungry kiss as he pulls Eliot onto the bed, rolling them over so that he’s pressing Eliot into the mattress. After a minute of kissing, Quinn moves downwards, sucking and biting marks into Eliot’s skin as he goes, from throat to chest to stomach. By the time he’s mouthing wetly at Eliot’s cock over the dampening fabric of his underwear, Eliot’s fully hard.

“Christ,” Eliot swears when Quinn finally strips off the rest of Eliot’s clothes, pumping Eliot’s cock once, twice. He swears again when Quinn uses his thumb to spread the precome oozing from the tip of Eliot’s cock around the head. Eliot can’t help but briefly fantasize about Quinn leaning in to lick at the precome, taking Eliot into his mouth and sucking him off til Eliot comes down his throat. He wants to see Quinn’s mouth smeared with Eliot’s come, and fuck, the image of it makes his cock grow impossibly harder.

“Somebody’s eager,” Quinn comments, tearing a condom packet open and settling down into a more comfortable position.

Eliot’s trying to string together a response that doesn’t include I want to see you dripping with my come when he forgets to speak altogether when Quinn places the condom between his lips, then rolls it onto Eliot’s cock with his mouth.

Before Eliot can even process how hot that is, Quinn starts sucking him in earnest, applying just enough suction to make Eliot choke on a groan without tipping over into too much intensity right off the bat. It’s good, it’s more than good, feeling Quinn take him in all the way because the bastard has no gag reflex and the unique ability to drive Eliot out of his mind just by looking up at him through his lashes and saying Eliot’s name, low and raspy.

As the pleasure builds in the pit of Eliot’s stomach, he feels a slick finger trace the cleft of his ass, and that’s all the warning he gets before it pushes its way inside of him. He has no idea when Quinn got his hands on the lube, but he’s not complaining.

The second finger stings, making Eliot feel the stretch and burn, but Quinn does something with his tongue that distracts him thoroughly. Quinn fingers Eliot slow and steady, a stark comparison to his relentlessly efficient blowjob, and Eliot’s hips shift without his permission, torn between chasing the warmth of Quinn’s mouth and fucking back onto Quinn’s fingers.

By the time the third and fourth fingers are in, Eliot’s starting to tremble all over, the tension pulled near to it’s breaking point in the pit of his stomach, and he’s moments away from coming when Quinn pulls off of his cock entirely.

“Son of a bitch,” Eliot growls, and Quinn laughs at him.

“You say the sweetest things.” Quinn sits back up and hooks an arm under Eliot’s knee, forcing Eliot to turn over onto his stomach. Eliot manages to prop himself up onto his elbows as Quinn bullies him onto his knees, and then there’s the telltale crinkle of a condom wrapper. Eliot hadn’t even realized Quinn had gotten rid of the first condom earlier, which says some unflattering things about Eliot’s sex-addled self-awareness, but that train of thought derails when he feels the blunt head of Quinn’s cock nudging tracing his rim. “Relax, I’ve got you.”

It’s impossible to relax when he’s so keyed up, close to the edge but not quite there, but Eliot bites down on a snarky retort, because he doesn’t want to risk Quinn drawing this out even further.

Then Quinn is pushing inwards, slower than Eliot expected him to, and he can’t help the moan that escapes his throat at the sensation of being filled up. His cock aches from how turned on he is, just from having Quinn fully seated inside of him. He thinks his spine is turning into liquid.

When Eliot feels acclimatized enough, he clenches down, enjoying the sound of Quinn hissing behind him, and then he promptly forgets that satisfaction when Quinn pulls out halfway and snaps his hips forward, somehow grazing Eliot’s prostate on the first try. Eliot barely manages to keep an incredibly dirty moan contained behind his clenched teeth, but the way his limbs jerk and the muffled sound of his pleasure trapped in his chest give him away, and he can hear Quinn’s grin when he says, “There we go.”

Quinn immediately sets a brutal pace, thrusting back in over and over at an angle that sends shocks of pleasure straight to Eliot’s dick, and given how close he was just moments earlier, it’s a miracle that he even holds out for another three minutes before he comes with a breathless moan.

He lets Quinn have his way with him after that, shivering as the oversensitivity starts seeping in, enjoying the way pleasure zings sharply up his spine, less intense now that he’s relaxed from his orgasm. He’s not going to get hard any time soon again—he doesn’t have Quinn’s insanely short refractory period, after all—but It still feels good, to be full and fucked and taken apart.

When Quinn finally comes and collapses over Eliot’s back, Eliot grunts and topples sideways so that he’s not bearing Quinn’s weight. He can feel Quinn pressing his lips to the sweaty skin of his nape, arms squeezing around Eliot’s waist as they lay there, catching their breath. After a while, Quinn kisses the back of Eliot’s shoulder and then moves away, pulling out of Eliot before he goes fully soft. The space allows for Eliot to roll onto his back, which gives him a good view of Quinn’s grin.

“You’re gonna need to do more than that to make my trip worth it,” Eliot tells him.

Quinn huffs, his mouth curving upwards in amusement as he leans down to brush his lips against Eliot’s. “We’re just getting started, darlin’.”

-

The next morning, after some lazy, sleepy sex, they order room service and sit on the balcony to eat. The view isn’t really that great; it’s pretty dull, overlooking an assortment of stores lining the busy road. Which is Eliot’s excuse for why he spends most of the meal just looking at Quinn instead.

Quinn’s hair isn’t tied back just yet, hanging loose around his face as he eats his toast, and for once Eliot doesn’t want to pull it. He just wants to run his fingers though the curls that are half-golden in the morning sunlight, coax Quinn into tilting his head for a kiss that tastes of coffee and maple syrup. Wants to drag Quinn back to bed and curl up beside him just to sleep some more.

Instead of doing any of that, he says, “When do you have to check out?”

“10 o’clock,” Quinn replies, eyes flickering to Eliot’s. His tone is cautious. “But I could extend my booking.”

Eliot smiles. “One more day?”

“One more day,” Quinn agrees with a grin, and this time Eliot does lean in for a kiss.

-

It becomes a regular thing, after that. Either Quinn drops by Portland whenever he feels like it, or Eliot invites him over when the obsession starts invading his daily life too much. Eliot’s never had a steady friends-with-benefits arrangement before—there are people he has sex with if they cross paths once in a while, but he’s never actively maintained an ongoing sexual relationship—but it works out pretty well. He gets to have fantastic sex on the regular, he doesn’t have to worry about keeping secrets because Quinn everything that comes with the territory of being a hitter anyway, and best of all, he actually likes Quinn as a person.

Quinn is great in bed, which is most of the reason why they’re doing this in the first place, but Eliot’s always had a healthy amount of respect for the man anyway. It’s hard to not be impressed by the guy who came so close to taking him down when so few others have ever accomplished that. And now, he gets to see Quinn when he’s just—himself, without the sex or the work.

-

“What the hell.” Quinn’s laughter is incredulous as he watches Eliot throw a dart directly onto the dart he’d thrown previously into the dead center of the dartboard. “You’ve spent way too much time in bars, if you’re this good.”

They’re in a half-filled bar in downtown, far away from the brewpub so that none of the team members will come along and interrupt them. More importantly, there’s a dartboard here. There’s no dartboard in the brewpub or in Eliot’s home, so he hasn’t been able to show off to Quinn before. He’s glad he went through the trouble of finding this place, if only because Quinn’s reaction is making a warm kind of satisfaction bloom in his chest.

“Nah, I’ve always had good aim,” Eliot says, because it’s true. He did have to hone this particular skill a bit, but Eliot was pretty accurate at throwing things since his childhood. His aim is pretty damn good with firearms, too, but he tries not to think about that. “Was a quarterback in high school, y’know.”

Quinn rolls his eyes. “Let me guess: you were one of the popular kids. Tons of girls trying to get in your pants. Your locker was always stuffed with love letters and you had people holding boomboxes outside of your house.”

Eliot raises an eyebrow. “Does all your intel about high school life come from old rom coms?”

“Never been to high school, so.” Quinn shrugs like it’s no big deal. It reminds Eliot all over again about the fact that Quinn’s teen years were nowhere near normal. He wonders how many people know about Quinn’s past. If Quinn is telling him a secret, or if it’s something he freely admits to anybody.

Eliot wonders how much Quinn will tell him. How much he’ll trust him.

He knows it’s unlikely, but he hopes the answer is all the way.

“Yeah, well. High school didn’t teach me this trick.” Eliot flips the dart in his hand over, then throws it, making it stick to the middle of the second dart, completing a line of three.

“Christ.” Quinn sets his beer bottle down and goes to the dartboard. He’s wearing a tight black shirt and jeans that really show off his ass, so Eliot enjoys the view while Quinn admires the line of darts for a few seconds. Then Quinn takes them out one by one and returns to Eliot. Pressing the darts into Eliot’s palm, he leans in close and whispers into Eliot’s ear, “Wanna go hustle the assholes who’ve been harassing the bartender for the last five minutes?”

Eliot grins. “Yeah, let’s teach ‘em a lesson.”

-

So now Eliot gets to see Quinn in teeshirts and jeans when he’s off the clock. He gets to witness Quinn openly enjoying the food Eliot cooks for him when he’s staying over, and he gets to know what Quinn likes, what he dislikes, and about his addiction to coffee. He gets to hear Quinn’s dry sarcasm, as well as his unrestrained laughter when Eliot tells him his most outrageous stories regarding past jobs and past flings. Eliot gets to experience Quinn as a friend, and he’s come to terms with the fact that he enjoys Quinn’s company even when they don’t have sex.

-

“You've gotta be kidding me,” Eliot says, much louder than he intended, and he immediately lowers his voice to a hiss. “There's no fucking way you could've transported that. Not without help.”

Quinn gives him a shit-eating grin. “I kid you not, it was a one-man job, and I got it done.”

“I mean, I've definitely stolen a monkey before,” Eliot grumbles. He looks around the acrylic underwater tunnel they're walking through in the Oregon Coast Aquarium, spotting a sand shark swimming its way above them. “But stealing a goddamn shark?”

“Rich people are weird.” Quinn shrugs, his gaze tracking a sea turtle drifting overhead. “I've had to transport a tiger before, too.”

Eliot snorts. “Okay, now that's more believable.”

“Oh yeah, Mr. I-Fought-A-Bear-And-Won. Because your track record is totally plausible,” Quinn says with a smirk, then he checks his watch. “Okay, I think we've killed enough time. The store should be opening soon.”

“Let's go.” Eliot walks past the people who are all captivated by the displays. Families, couples, gaggles of teenagers. None of them pay attention to him or Quinn. Tourist spots are good like that; everybody's too focused on the attractions that they don't notice the people around them. It's a relatively safe alternative if there aren't any nearby bars or cafes where you'd stand out too much amongst the locals. 

“This place better be worth three hours of watching fish,” Quinn says as they exit the building.

Eliot digs out the rental car keys from his pocket and unlocks the doors. It's only when they're both seated in the car with the doors closed that he replies, “Trust me, it's worth the wait. This guy makes killer custom knives. Literally.”

-

They work well together, both in bed and outside of it. They fit incredibly well, despite all the differences between them, because they're fundamentally similar in all the ways that matter the most. So it's easy for Eliot to just be himself, when he's around Quinn. He doesn't have to really change anything to make Quinn fit into his life.

He doesn't have to. But he finds himself changing anyway. Not hugely, not badly. Just in ways that he never expected.

-

Eliot usually wakes up first. It’s because Quinn is not a morning person at all; he hates waking early, and even when he wakes up, he tends to laze in bed for a while. If Eliot’s still in bed when Quinn regains consciousness, he’ll curl close and leech body heat, ignoring Eliot’s attempts to coax him out of bed until Eliot escapes his clutches to go make coffee. Usually the smell of it will finally drag Quinn out.

In the beginning, Eliot left Quinn in bed, often before he’d even wake up, to head to the kitchen. He’d make coffee and breakfast, then go lure Quinn out. That, or he woke Quinn up with his mouth and hands and cock.

Now, though, he stays in bed until Quinn wakes up. Sometimes he sits at the headboard and reads, until Quinn mumbles something and buries his face against Eliot’s hip, clearly not ready to face the day. Sometimes, if he’s still feeling lazy himself, Eliot just lays in bed, enjoying the warmth of Quinn’s skin against his, listening to Quinn’s steady breathing until there’s that telltale sharp inhale heralding wakefulness. Then he allows Quinn to move closer and curl his arms around him, tugging Eliot in.

Eventually, Quinn grows alert. Then they sometimes have sex. Sometimes they don’t, and just have breakfast instead. Whatever the case, Quinn always leaves once the plates are loaded into the dishwasher.

So Eliot doesn’t wake Quinn up early anymore. He tells himself that it’s because he’s learning to enjoy lazy mornings. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with wanting to keep Quinn just a little longer, if only for another hour.

-

“You really don’t have to do this,” Quinn says, sounding a little amused. He’s sitting on a shower stool that Eliot keeps for occasions when he’s injured enough to have trouble keeping his balance, his back towards Eliot. “I can do it myself.”

Eliot scoffs, turning on the water so that it sprays over the both of them. “Yeah, good luck doing that with your shoulder, man.”

He takes the handheld shower head to wet Quinn’s hair more thoroughly, and places it back so they’re both under the spray. He grabs his bottle of shampoo to squeeze some onto his palm, then gets to work. It feels a little odd, because Eliot’s never really washed anybody else’s hair for them before, even if he’s had enough shower sex with his hand in somebody’s hair as they sucked him off. But right now, there’s nothing sexy about the situation. Quinn’s a mess of bruises, with sore ribs and a sprained ankle and a dislocated shoulder. Eliot helped slot the shoulder back in, but it’s definitely going to be sore for a while.

Quinn’s really in no shape for sex. Or for a regular shower, for that matter. Which is why Eliot’s managed to argue his way into the bathroom with him, even though it feels a little like crossing a line.

Under the spray of warm water, Eliot feels the wet curls between his fingers and gently massages Quinn’s nape. He hears Quinn sigh, leaning into the touch, and he thinks, off-handedly, that this is a line he wouldn’t mind crossing again.

-

So things are going great. It’s easy and comfortable and has zero strings attached, which is just the way Eliot likes it.

Except…as the days turn into weeks turn into months, Eliot starts noticing a small problem.

-

“Job went well, huh?” Eliot’s a little breathless from the heated kiss Quinn dragged him into as soon as he opened the front door. He’d gotten a heads up the previous day, something about how Quinn was nearly done with a very profitable retrieval gig, so to expect him dropping by in the near future. Going by Quinn’s enthusiasm, he must’ve been paid very handsomely.

“Very,” Quinn purrs, his hands sliding under the hem of Eliot’s shirt, teasing at the skin right above his waistband. It makes Eliot shiver a little, and Quinn’s smile grows more smug.

Just to wipe that look off of Quinn’s face, Eliot yanks Quinn into another kiss, deepening it until Quinn is moaning, his hands scrabbling at the front of Eliot’s jeans. Then they’re stumbling towards the bedroom, shedding clothes as they go.

It’s only when Quinn’s stripped off his own shirt that Eliot sees the hickeys littered across his skin, and he pauses for a moment. Quinn doesn’t notice because he’s busy dropping to his knees, but Eliot’s eyes track the marks even as Quinn starts to suck him off.

Minutes later, when Eliot’s finally pushed his cock all the way inside of Quinn, he leans down and bites at the red mark high up on Quinn’s chest.

He spends the rest of that night making sure every damn hickey is covered by his own marks, until all that’s left on Quinn’s skin proof of Eliot’s touch. Just Eliot’s.

-

Every once in a while, Quinn turns up on his doorstep and there are marks on his skin. There’ll be hickeys hiding below Quinn’s shirt collar, or bruises on his hips, and on one occasion, a very reddened, tender ass.

Quinn is not the problem, here. The problem is Eliot.

The problem is that Eliot hates seeing those marks on Quinn. Whenever he sees Quinn’s bare skin marked up by somebody else, he can’t help but scrape his teeth over each mark, til all that’s left on Quinn is the proof of Eliot’s touch. He sees bruises on Quinn’s hips and he squeezes Quinn’s wrists and ankles instead, like leaving his fingerprints there will somehow negate the frustration he feels. The one time he saw the lingering redness on the skin of Quinn’s ass, like it had been spanked hard and long, Eliot fucked him so hard that Quinn walked with a limp the next day.

And it’s stupid, really, because this isn’t any of Eliot’s business. This is just what Quinn does to get a job done sometimes. It’s entirely Quinn’s choice, and nobody has the right to argue against it. Eliot’s just a fuck-buddy. Nothing more, nothing less. He has no claim on Quinn’s body.

-

One day, Quinn drops by with a sly grin, and Eliot pushes him down onto the mattress and gets him to spread his legs. There, he finds a bite mark on Quinn’s inner thigh. It’s red and dark against Quinn’s pale skin, and it makes Eliot want to break something. Preferably the jaw of the guy who left the mark.

He settles for marking Quinn up everywhere, then fucking him until the only word Quinn remembers his Eliot’s name.

-

The small problem: Eliot does want to have a claim on Quinn’s body. Exclusively.

He ignores that desire. Crushes it under his foot and buries it in the ground, because he can’t tell Quinn to stop sleeping with marks. That’d mean he wants more than what they have right now. That he wants to be the only one sharing a bed with Quinn, the only one to taste Quinn on his tongue, the only one to have Quinn entirely. It cuts too close to the idea that Eliot can’t stand sharing Quinn, that he’s possessive and jealous and emotionally invested in Quinn.

He doesn’t want to acknowledge any of that out loud, so he ignores the problem as best as he can. But like all the things in his life involving Quinn, it doesn’t go away. It gets worse, and worse, and worse, until he feels himself buckling under the weight of how much he wants Quinn, in every single way that matters.

-

“You better thank me for this,” Quinn says, settling a six pack of ales that Eliot knows for a fact that you can only get from a very specific town in the Czech Republic. He’d mentioned it in only once in passing, wistful and nostalgic, during Quinn’s last visit. He hadn’t even realized Quinn was paying attention to his off-handed remarks while he’d been cooking. “Do you know how many people I had to bribe to get these and transport it back?”

Eliot feels a helpless kind of gratitude swell in his chest. Not because of the ale, but because Quinn is here. That Quinn listened and cared and put in this kind of effort for something so trivial. He knows that it’s not even a grand gesture from Quinn’s part. It’s just a six pack, after all. But somehow it makes Eliot’s heart rattle in his ribcage, like it wants to escape, carve its own way out his chest so it can offer itself to Quinn. Somehow, Quinn has dug his way into Eliot, until Eliot’s obsession with him has morphed entirely.

These days, it’s not Quinn’s moans that haunt him in his dreams, but his laughter. During his days, he thinks less of Quinn’s body shaking apart under him and more about Quinn curled around him under the golden sunlight. Nowadays, all he can think about in the quietest moments isn’t about having Quinn, but about keeping him.

His chest aching, lungs too filled with a nameless longing, all the words he can’t speak aloud catching in his throat, Eliot forces himself to smile. Like nothing’s wrong. Like he’s not drowning in his own yearning. Instead of giving any of that away, he goes to kiss Quinn and tries to breathe all of his heartache into Quinn’s mouth, hoping that Quinn will swallow it down and feel even of a fraction of it.

-

For all that Eliot’s been through a lot of uncomfortable and nightmarish things, nothing comes as close to breaking him as the fact that Quinn won’t ever be entirely his.

-

“If I said it bothered me,” Eliot says one day, “would you stop?”

Quinn blinks at him, clearly confused. Which is fair. It’s a complete non-sequitur, unrelated to whatever they’d been talking about as they sat across from each other at the breakfast bar, their emptied plates between them. But it’s a question that’s been sitting on Eliot’s tongue for weeks now, and he’s only found the energy to voice it today morning, after Quinn came to his apartment last night with fresh hickeys scattered across his shoulders.

“Stop what?” Quinn asks.

“Having sex for jobs.” It takes all of Eliot’s courage and willpower to not look away from Quinn’s eyes, even as they narrow at him. “If I told you it bothered me, would you?”

Quinn looks at him for a long, quiet moment. “Is this a hypothetical question, or is this your way of saying you’re bothered by it?”

Eliot takes half a second too long to answer, and that’s really enough.

“Why does it bother you?” It’s aggravating that Quinn isn’t actually answering Eliot’s question and instead asking one himself, but he’s lost the advantage by accidentally admitting that he has a problem with the way Quinn works. He doesn’t really have a choice but to answer the damn question.

“Because it’s annoying.” Eliot knows it’s a vague answer. He can’t help it, though. He doesn’t want to get any more specific, because if he does, then Quinn will realize just how badly Eliot wants to keep Quinn to himself. That Eliot is a jealous bastard who wants more than what Quinn is willing to offer. “You’re good enough to get the job done without pulling that kind of stunt anyway.”

Quinn frowns, looking just a little bit on the wrong side of displeased. “You’re saying it annoys you that I fuck other people when I’m better than that?”

Phrased that way, it sounds bad. Eliot tries not to wince. “I’m saying that I know it’s not necessary for you to fuck anybody for a job. You don’t need it, so I don’t see why you can’t just stop.”

“But why should I need to stop?” Quinn says, his voice growing a little louder, sharper. Normally it wouldn’t be enough to trigger Eliot’s temper, but he’s already on edge, and the aggression in Quinn’s tone is enough to make his defensiveness get the better of him.

“Because it pisses me off!” Eliot barely manages to keep himself from yelling, but his voice is too loud and vehement, betraying just how much he hates this. “You go around having sex with marks and I gotta put up with you coming over here looking like,” he gestures at the hickeys not quite hidden by the wide collar of Quinn’s teeshirt, “that, and I’m sick of it, okay?”

“Fuck you,” Quinn snaps, standing from his seat, and Eliot mirrors him. “If it bothers you so much, then you can go find somebody else to fuck. I sure as hell will.”

“Good for you,” Eliot spits reflexively, too stung by the nasty, spiteful tone Quinn used when he said I sure as hell will. “Go have all the fun you want.”

“You bet I will.” Quinn’s voice is simmering with anger as he strides into the bedroom, and Eliot grits his teeth, trying to calm down. This wasn’t what he intended. He’d wanted to have a civil discussion, to come to an agreement, and if failing that, to put an amicable end to their arrangement. For all that he was ready to end the sex, he hadn’t wanted to end their friendship, but now it seems like that bridge is burned, too.

Eliot clenches his fists til his knuckles turn white, and for a desperate, terrifying moment, he wants to take it all back. He wants to rush into the bedroom and get on his knees and apologize. He wants to beg Quinn to stay, to convince him that what they have means more to Eliot than he’s willing to admit, to confess that he wants more than just Quinn’s body.

But he won’t do any of that. He can’t. Eliot doesn’t know how to offer his heart to anybody else anymore. He’s grown too scarred, too jaded, too fucking scared of it. The terror of admitting how much he wants Quinn, to willingly render himself vulnerable like that, makes him freeze, unable to move. Unable to do a single damn thing when Quinn reappears, dressed immaculately in his suit, the only indication of his anger showing in the way his tie is a little crooked.

Eliot looks at the cold brown eyes, the suit, the go bag slung over one shoulder, and he registers that this is his last chance. If he says nothing now, it’ll be all over, and he might not see Quinn ever again.

A plea catches in his throat and he chokes on it, unable to force it out. He can hardly breathe past the words taking up all the space inside of him.

Quinn gives him a long, silent look. Then he walks past the breakfast bar, past the kitchen, and then out the front door.

Even after the front door slams shut, Eliot doesn’t move for a very long time.

-

Three months after Quinn walked out of Eliot’s apartment and his life, Eliot gets a phone call that he’d given up on ever expecting.

“I’m calling in the favor,” Quinn’s voice says over the phone, curt and professional, like there was never anything between them except a fight and a job. “Two days, Chicago. Bring your fancy clothes. I’ll text you the address.”

He hangs up before Eliot can even reply.

-

The favor, it turns out, is a thinly veiled excuse for Quinn to mess with Eliot’s head. There’s no other explanation for it. While Eliot’s presence definitely facilitates the job that Quinn’s doing, there’s no good reason for Eliot to specifically be playing Quinn’s jealous boyfriend. There’s no necessity for Quinn to climb onto Eliot’s lap and make out with him to sell the act.

And there’s no fucking purpose to Quinn coming on to the mark’s bodyguard except for him to give Eliot the middle finger. Eliot is sure of it, because Quinn checked to see if Eliot was watching before he kissed the guy.

Eliot hates him.

He knew Quinn was pissed at him, but he’d never thought Quinn could be so vindictive. Even the way he’d kissed Eliot as a ruse had been filled with spite, nothing like the way he used to kiss Eliot warm and wet and sweet, and Eliot hadn’t known a kiss could hurt so much until then.

By the end of the job, Eliot is fed up and tired and feeling wretched, like he’s been kicked while he was down. He’s angry, but more than that, he wants it to stop. He wants Quinn to stop looking at him with barely repressed resentment. He wants Quinn to stop making Eliot watch while he seduces other men. He wants Quinn to stop breaking his goddamn heart.

So when everything is over, the package retrieved and the relevant parties sufficiently beaten to whimpering messes on the floor, Eliot goes back to his hotel room and starts packing right away.

“You forgot your tie,” Quinn says from behind him at the doorway. They’re using separate rooms, but Quinn’s apparently kept a copy of the keycard to Eliot’s room. It feels like one more detail that he deliberately chose just for the sake of driving in the knife deeper into Eliot’s chest.

Eliot turns around, and Quinn tosses him the necktie. Eliot catches it, then hesitates when he realizes Quinn is still standing there. “You got something to say?”

“Not really.” Quinn raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

So he’s here just to twist the knife. Eliot almost laughs. He’d known that Quinn had a reputation for being particularly ruthless when the situation called for it, but he hadn’t realized his methods could be this brutal.

It’d be best for Eliot to just turn around and keep packing. There’s nothing to gain from answering Quinn, and he’s already lost so much.

But he can’t help it. The wounded part of him, aching deep inside his chest, is too defeated to keep his hurt and resentment and bitterness back behind his teeth. “You didn’t have to go this far.”

Quinn looks at him for a long moment, then steps forward to allow the door to click shut. He leans back against it and asks, “You wanna elaborate?”

Now it’s just downright cruel. “You’ve made your point. You can stop being an asshole about it.”

“Oh, I’m the asshole?” Quinn looks unimpressed, and something about the callousness of it, the way he’s so casually ripping Eliot apart, sparks a hot kind of fury in Eliot’s blood.

“Yes, you’re the asshole,” He growls. “You called me in for a favor just to fuck with my head, and I’m sick of it now. You could’ve just started a fight with me, try to kick my ass to make yourself feel better, but no. Instead, you decided to pull this shit, because that’s what you do, right? You don’t fight head-on, you just fuck people instead—”

“Right, because you’re too good for that,” Quinn snarls, moving forward at a fast, steady stride that Eliot immediately recognizes as a precursor to a fight. “All that shit is beneath you.”

Eliot doesn’t reply, because Quinn’s throwing a punch and he’s dodging it, and then it’s a familiar dance. Sizing each other up, blocking blows and counterattacking, trying to catch the other person off-balance as they circle each other in the limited space of the hotel room. It’s like all of Eliot’s emotions have found the right outlet, and he relishes it. The heat in his blood drives him forward, taking a blow to his side but managing to tackle Quinn backwards.

They very nearly break the coffee table, but manage to sidestep it, and then Quinn spins, tripping Eliot over his own feet and sending him stumbling backwards, the backs of his knees hitting the bed as he sprawls over the covers.

“Losing your touch, Spencer?” Quinn snipes, placing one knee beside Eliot’s hip to keep his balance as he leans down to haul Eliot up by the front of his button-up shirt. The hand that’s not grabbing Eliot clenches into a fist and pulls back, clearly telegraphing the punch Quinn’s about to deliver, and before Eliot’s rationality can think things through, he acts on instinct and yanks Quinn closer and kisses him.

There’s a very thin line between the instinct to fight and the instinct to fuck, when you’re a hitter of a certain caliber with an active sex drive. Eliot’s spent so much time on the latter side of the line with Quinn that it’s easy as breathing to flip them over from fighting to fucking, the adrenaline in his blood boiling over into another kind heat as he pulls Quinn more firmly over him, making him lose his balance so that he falls onto Eliot. The logical part of him is loudly saying that this is a terrible idea, that he needs to stop, that this won’t end well. But the louder, more insistent, hungry part of Eliot that’s been missing this for so long spurs him on, kissing Quinn hard and rough as he scrabbles at the buttons on Quinn’s shirt.

Quinn isn’t stopping him, for that matter. In fact, Quinn is kissing him back with liberal use of his teeth, and he’s not even bothering with Eliot’s shirt buttons; he just rips Eliot’s shirt open, and while that serves to piss Eliot off even more, he can’t help the way his dick twitches at the action.

Even as they strip each other, it feels more like a fight than a fuck. Eliot flips them over and tries to pin Quinn down, but Quinn manages to get his thigh up between Eliot’s, rubbing up against Eliot’s half-hard cock. Taking advantage of the shock of pleasure that goes through Eliot’s system, Quinn shoves Eliot off of him and reverses their positions once more, this time seating himself on Eliot’s erection and grinding his ass down.

Eliot’s naked from the waist-up at this point. Quinn is still in his shirt, though it’s fully unbuttoned, but otherwise he’s just in his underwear, and Eliot is still furious. He wants to fight Quinn and he wants to fuck Quinn and either way, he wants the upper hand. So when Quinn leans down to bite at Eliot’s throat, Eliot bucks his hips up, dislodging Quinn as he pushes himself upright. Before Quinn can recover from where he’s tipped over onto his side, Eliot wrestles him down, effectively pinning Quinn on his stomach to the bed.

Quinn squirms underneath him, but Eliot doesn’t budge, and a vicious kind of satisfaction fills Eliot’s chest when he hears Quinn swear angrily against the bedsheets.

Eliot turns his attention to Quinn’s ass, which looks inviting, clad in snug briefs while Quinn is still struggling to get Eliot off of him. He can’t get his cock into it just yet, since that would require him to get off of Quinn, who won’t make it easy. Not to mention that they don’t even have lube or condoms in easy reach. Eliot can work with that, though. Quinn might cooperate more if he’s sufficiently aroused, and that could give Eliot the opportunity to hunt down the supplies they need.

For now, Eliot settles with pushing two of his fingers into his own mouth, getting them sloppy and wet with his own spit before he pulls them out. Then he slides his hand down under the waistband of Quinn’s underwear, tracing down the cleft, one slick fingertip finding Quinn’s rim, and then—

“No,” Quinn says, too fast and too loud and too vehement, and Eliot’s off of him in a flash, the heat immediately cooling off as he puts a full arm’s length of space between them. Quinn pushes himself up immediately, turning to face Eliot with a wary look, and that’s when Eliot remembers the one thing that Quinn demanded from him since the first time they had sex: stay in his line of sight.

“Sorry,” Eliot says as soon as he realizes his error. He means it, too. It doesn’t matter how mad he was or that Quinn was an asshole or even that Quinn himself had crossed Eliot’s line regarding the aggression in bed. Eliot’s demand had been a practical one. Quinn’s had been more personal. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

Quinn looks at him for a moment. Then the wariness drains away, leaving pure exhaustion as he sighs and his shoulders slump, the tension leaves his body. “It’s fine. Neither of us were thinking straight.”

That’s true, but the guilt doesn’t quite go away. It’s what pushes Eliot to say, “I’m just tired of having you hate me.”

“Why do you even care?” For the first time since he came to Chicago, Eliot sees something familiar through the cracks of Quinn’s resignation. It looks an awful lot like what he sees in the mirror these days. Like misery. “You’re the one who can’t stand sleeping with me.”

Eliot opens his mouth. Closes it. Then he slowly says, “I said that I don’t like you sleeping with other guys.”

“You said that you’re sick of putting up with me because I fuck other people sometimes.” Quinn is starting to look a bit pissed off again, and Eliot can feel his own hackles rising in response, but he keeps a lid on it, because he’s starting to get the sense that they’re not on the same page right now.

“I’m not sick of you.” Eliot watches the furrow between Quinn’s brow deepen, measures the confusion in Quinn’s eyes as they dart from the wall to the door to Eliot’s face. “I’m sick of other people touching you.”

“Not sure what the difference is.” The irritation in Quinn’s voice starts bleeding away. “The last time we talked about this, you sounded pretty judgmental about me having sex for jobs.”

“That wasn’t what it was.” In hindsight, Eliot probably did come off as judgmental. It’s not like he’d really given a real reason for why he wanted Quinn to stop. “Quinn, I don’t think any less of you for fucking people for a job. There’s nothing wrong with using sex for work. I know you only used it with people who wanted it, and that’s really the only part that I’d actually care about.”

“Alright, you’re starting to sound less like an asshole now,” Quinn says, still looking a bit skeptical. “Doesn’t explain what your actual problem was with my methods, though.”

Eliot hesitates. He’s not sure he can do this. The past couple days have only proven that Quinn can break Eliot’s heart and grind it to dust if he made up his mind to do so. He’s not sure if letting Quinn be aware of how much power he holds over Eliot is a safe idea.

But if Eliot says nothing, Quinn will leave him behind and break his heart, anyway.

If it’s a choice between losing Quinn because he kept his damn mouth shut and losing Quinn by telling the truth—he’s already tried the first option. And he just might be operating on false hope here, but he thinks of the flickers of misery he’d seen on Quinn’s face just moments ago, and he thinks taking the second option might be the only shot he has at getting Quinn to stay.

“I was…jealous,” Eliot finally manages to say, dragging the words out of him even when they scrape through his throat. “Because I don’t wanna share you. Not your body, and not—any part of you.”

Quinn stares at him for a long time, til the silence starts unnerving Eliot. He’s starting to think he said the wrong thing after all when Quinn finally opens his mouth. “So you’re saying you want to be exclusive with me.”

“I thought that was obvious,” Eliot grits out.

“Because you have feelings for me,” Quinn adds, and that makes Eliot look away. He feels too vulnerable and exposed. Quinn might be the one who’s more undressed between the two of them right now, but Eliot feels more naked than he’s ever been.

There’s a beat of silence. Then:

“I would’ve said yes,” Quinn says, and that makes Eliot’s head jerk around to face him again. There’s warmth and exasperation in Quinn’s eyes, something Eliot’s missed so much after all these months, and he’s captivated by the sight. He can’t even move when Quinn crawls closer into his space, one hand carefully settling on Eliot’s clothed thigh. “You idiot, I would’ve stopped if you’d just told me that in the first place.”

“You didn’t seem interested,” Eliot says, helpless but to tell the truth now. “How the hell was I supposed to know you’d say yes if I asked you out?”

“Fair enough,” Quinn concedes. He tilts his head, leaning closer. His breath is hot against Eliot’s mouth when he murmurs, “Now you know. So now’s your chance to ask me.”

“I want this to be serious,” Eliot says readily. “Stop fucking anybody else. Do the whole dating thing with me. Just me.”

Quinn smiles, soft and pleased. “Okay. Yeah, I can do that.”

When Quinn kisses him, Eliot feels—for the first time since that day in the study—like he’s completely at peace.

-

After they settle down under the bedcovers, sweat still cooling down from all the slow, lazy sex they’ve had, Quinn presses a kiss to the palm of Eliot’s hand, and it somehow makes Eliot’s chest ache. Despite the fact that Quinn spend a thorough hour taking Eliot apart like he wanted to leave a permanent mark on Eliot as he put him back together, despite the fact that Eliot spent his sweet time worshiping Quinn’s body, mindful to stay where Quinn could see him, the simple gesture still sends a riot of emotions through Eliot.

“I didn’t care with any of the others,” Quinn says quietly. “For jobs. Didn’t matter who they were. It never meant anything, because it was just a means to an end.”

Eliot doesn’t say anything. He has a feeling that this isn’t easy for Quinn to share, and he doesn’t want to interrupt him.

“But I wanted to see you.” Quinn’s words are almost muffled against Eliot’s skin, like he wants to hide. Like he thinks Eliot’s touch will shelter him as he peels his heart open. “Needed to know you were the one touching me. Not anybody else.”

Eliot swallows. It hurts a little, because there’s so much he wants to say, but nothing is good enough to express just how grateful he is. How much Quinn matters to him, even when he roots for the wrong team when they watch soccer games and when he steals the last of Eliot’s fries and when he’s all the way across the world.

“It’s always gonna be me,” Eliot says, even though it’s a risky promise to make. He doesn’t care. He’ll take every risk, if it’s for Quinn. “From now on, it’s only ever gonna be me, sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” Quinn says, and even in the dark, Eliot can hear his smile. “Just you.”

-

The team invites Quinn over for a con that requires some finesse and more roles than they can usually handle. Eliot has a sneaking suspicion that it’s also because the team’s figured out that he’s dating Quinn now, but he doesn’t bother confirming it. He knows it’s only a matter of time before they all start openly acknowledging it.

Eliot watches from the second floor mezzanine in the upscale establishment he’s staking out as Quinn sits at the bar, sipping a martini. Quinn is here to be the distraction while the rest of the team work on setting the mark up, and it takes only a few minutes for him to catch the mark’s attention.

When the other man approaches Quinn, Eliot doesn’t feel bothered at all. In fact, there’s a kind of smug anticipation settling in his gut, even before the mark asks if he can buy Quinn a drink.

“Sorry,” Quinn’s voice rings through the comms, “but I’m taken.”

After the mark leaves, disappointed, Quinn glances up and catches Eliot’s gaze. Then he winks at Eliot.

Not even bothering to suppress his smile, Eliot winks back.