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The shop was always ridiculously busy early mornings and afternoon breaks, but Pete doesn’t mind it. He’s used to the loud and boisterous nature of the midmorning rush, courtesy of growing up in a tiny village in Chumphon that was always so full of life, and it helps Pete keep his mind off of…’things’. ‘Things’ being Vegas, his ex-boyfriend that he left Bangkok to get away from.
Pete smiles at the harried looking man in an unpressed suit who growls out an order for a large black coffee and drops his money on the counter, either completely ignoring or not seeing Pete’s outstretched hand. Pete keeps his smile in place as he enters the order and gets the change from the till, even as a strange prickle works its way up his spine and makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He shakes off the feeling and hands the man his change with the same put-on smile and goes to work on his order.
“Have a good day, sir,” Pete says, once he hands the man his piping hot coffee, who says nothing and just grips his paper cup like his life depends on it and leaves.
The morning proceeds pretty much the same–Pete’s the only one working the morning usually, but he’s joined later by his best friend and coworker, Porsche, who sweeps in with a wide and toothy grin and takes over the front register for Pete happily. Porsche is conventionally attractive, while somehow still managing to be pretty in a feminine-masculine way that used to make Pete jealous until he realized the amount and sort of people it attracted to him in droves. Pete's definitely not equipped to deal with people like Porsche is, who can command the counter with the presence of a performer or a bouncer, depending on the customer.
The undergraduates from the university up the road love it.
The midmorning rush is just about over, the last few tired looking students and businessmen filing out with their drinks and paper sacks of pastries and even fewer tables still occupied with active patrons. There's a particularly desperate looking man that's been tucked in the corner since opening that Pete isn't sure is still conscious or breathing, slumped over a massive pile of textbooks and empty coffee cups.
"Hey, Pete," Porsche says, drawing Pete's attention away from Schrodinger's patron, who comes over when Porsche beckons him closer, frowning when Porsche then immediately nudges him in the ribs with his elbow with a toothy grin.
"Ow," Pete grumps, annoyed, and swats Porsche away. "What the hell, Porsche."
"Who's that guy?"
Pete blinks, confused. "What guy?"
"That guy that's been staring at you since I got here," he says.
Pete frowns and turns towards the front door, where Porsche had indicated by tipping his head, and looks outside the large glass windows.
There, across the street sitting at a bench with a book open in his lap, but with his eyes trained firmly on Pete, is Vegas.
Pete feels his blood run cold, his heart beating erratically in his chest.
Pete groans. His face is pressed into the mattress, ass up and legs open, held in place by Vegas, who looms over him as he fucks into him mercilessly.
"How do you like it, Pete?"
A different time , Pete’s back slams into the bedroom door, only this time, instead of being turned on by it, he’s pissed and he makes that point unmistakeably clear by lashing out with his arms, setting Vegas off balance and shoving him back roughly once Pete gains the momentum. He tries to ignore the sinking feeling in the stomach when he sees the red handprint on his boyfriend’s face.
“Fuck you, Vegas, I’m not your property !”
“Aren’t you?” Vegas snaps back with a derisive snort, unimpressed.
He must be making some sort of pained or ugly face because Porsche steps into Pete’s view an undetermined amount of time later, his pretty face scrunched up in concern.
“Vegas, you can’t just let him keep doing this to you,” Pete tries. “I know he’s your father, but—”
Pete’s words cut off with a gasp, sitting otherwise ramrod straight as Vegas wraps both his hands around his neck, jerking him forward and then back, angrily.
“Don’t you ever think that just because we have sex that you can say anything like that to me.”
“Know your place, Pete. You’re just my pet.”
"Pete? Are you okay?"
"Huh?" Pete blinks, just noticing Porsche standing in front of him, who he looks at only briefly before his eyes are flickering back to Vegas, who's snapped his book shut and is rising from the bench with a scowl. Pete can’t take his eyes off of Vegas, who, instead of storming into the coffee shop like Pete’s expecting him to, levels Pete and the back of Porsche’s head with a heated glare and then stalks down the block until he disappears around the corner.
Pete sways on his feet a bit, unsteady and dizzy, unaware that he’d been holding his breath during that entire exchange until the edges of his vision had grown soft and fuzzy and he exhales, loudly.
“What the fuck was that just now?” Porsche demands, assessing Pete with a now equally annoyed and worried expression. “Pete?”
“It’s nothing,” Pete insists and tries to move Porsche to the side and out of the way to mop up a spill he’s just noticed on the counter. “Probably just some weirdo.”
“You’re ass at lying Pete and you and I both know it,” Porsche says flatly and with his hands on his hips. Pete’s tempted to snap and ask Porsche if he’s this nagging towards his boyfriend as well, but that’s meaner than Porsche deserves just for being concerned for his best friend. Even if it does make him a persistent and annoying menace in the moment.
“I said it’s nothing, Porsche,” Pete says a little more harshly than he means to and when he notices the wilted look on his friend’s face, Pete offers him a placatingly soft smile. “Sorry. I just haven’t eaten yet. Can you watch the front for a bit while I grab something real quick?”
Porsche nods, looking a little bit less like a kicked puppy than he just did a second ago.
—
There’s a curry place a few blocks down from the coffee shop that makes mildly decent spicy curry. It’s not nearly as good as what he could get at home with his grandma, but it’s as close as he’s going to get this far out of the south. They know Pete well enough by now, so he’s not surprised when as soon as he walks in after the mid-morning rush, the owner’s little kid is standing up on the footstool behind the counter and waving at him with both arms, a bag full of khua kling and sweet pork skewers hanging at her elbow.
Pete laughs, giving her a fond pat on the head and slipping her a chocolate chip pastry that she slides into an apron after giving him a conspiratorial nod in approval.
Pete makes short work of the pork skewers on the walk back, planning on saving the curry in the fridge to take home after his shift, knowing he’d be too dead on his feet to make it to the shop fast enough to also catch his bus. (There was no way he was asking Porsche for a ride home again on his bike while carrying curry—Pete still hasn’t fully forgiven him for his dinner becoming roadkill the last time when Porsche decided to show off hugging a corner.)
There’s enough time before the next expected rush to sneak a cigarette. Pete tucks himself in the alley between the coffee shop and the building next store, sliding a cig from his pack and past his lips, juggling his plastic bag against his arm as he pats his pockets down for his lighter. The familiar weight isn’t there and Pete mutters under his breath, pushing off the wall to beg one off of Porsche when a zippo flies in front of his eyes, expertly deft fingers flicking it open and lighting it up all in one swift movement.
Movements that Pete fucking recognize immediately.
Pete drops his cigarette and bag, backing himself up against the wall and throwing his hands up in front of his face, defensively.
“Hi, Pete,” Vegas says softly, not dropping the offered light until it’s clear Pete has zero intentions of backing away from the wall or dropping his guard. He sighs.
“What are you doing here, Vegas?” Pete demands, trying his damnedest to sound calm despite the fact that his heart is currently trying to beat its way out of his chest for the second time that day. And instead of answering, Vegas takes a step closer, making Pete really start to regret his decision to put himself up against a wall.
“I missed you, Pete,” Vegas says, still talking low and soft like Pete’s an animal he’s trying not to startle. It’s really fucking accurate actually, which Pete is loathed to admit, even considering the things that had been said and done between them before they’d parted ways.
And worst of all, Pete missed Vegas, too. He just doesn't get to know that. Not when he's the one that hurt Pete first.
One of Pete’s inner voices hisses at him, to either run or to fight, while another one melts that Vegas is here, came all the way here, somehow managing to find Pete after he left Bangkok . Because it meant he must have cared about Pete enough to not just let him go when he disappeared from their bed and Vegas’ life that night without a word to where he was going after promising he wouldn’t leave.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
It would have sounded shitty and emotionally manipulative as fuck if it had come from anyone else, if Pete didn’t know the skeletons and scars Vegas is carrying, and if Vegas hadn’t sounded so broken and so small, like the fragile Vegas Pete came to know after the rose-tint of their new relationship faded and reality started to worm its ugly way into their world.
Vegas’ father was a real piece of work. A homophobic, abusive, self-hating piece of shit that decided to take all of his shortcomings and insecurities out on his son, who’d only ever tried to make his father happy and proud of him. Pete learned the hard way how unhealthy Vegas’ relationship with his father was, because for how much Vegas would try to earn his approval and affection, Gun did everything in his power to squash him down and make Vegas feel like less than nothing after he was finished with him. Yet Vegas never stopped trying and Pete was usually the one left to take the brunt of the hurt and anger Gun left festering in Vegas like an infection.
They had been okay, at first, after a very real scare when one of Vegas' outbursts in the wake of his father suddenly intruding in their home to knock Vegas around because one of the business deals Vegas had been in charge of fell through. Gun didn't like it that Vegas pointed out it was because he had insisted that Vegas move out here after a dispute between Vegas and his cousin, Kinn, put Vegas on the outs with the rest of their family, and Gun’s method of teaching his son a lesson had very nearly landed Pete in the hospital.
Vegas had been scared straight after that, taking care of Pete and being the best boyfriend he could until the guilt ebbed away a bit and Pete no longer flinched at every loud noise when Vegas was nearby.
Gun also didn't like the new backbone having Pete at his side seemed to give Vegas, who grew less inclined to simply take his father's vitriol and abuse and bit back when he was barked at. The last time bringing everything to a horrible head that left Vegas and Pete both as crying, broken pieces that neither of them had the strength to pick up and place back together.
Seeing the look on Vegas' face now, looking just as wounded and vulnerable as he had that day, Pete feels a fresh swell of guilt surge up in his belly that he hadn't felt back then. Because he knew about the abuse, Pete had tried everything he could to help Vegas, short of coming to blows with Gun himself, and he also knew how it all started and how it also led to Vegas' crippling abandonment issues. And the knife. It was fucked up of him to—
"Are you going to hit me?"
Pete's shocked out of his thoughts by Vegas' words, and it’s just then that he realizes that even though Vegas hasn’t made another move towards him, Pete’s arms are still raised up high and ready to strike.
“You can, if you want to,” Vegas offers and takes another slow and careful step towards Pete, his hands up defensively. “I’d understand. I deserve it.”
Pete doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, just stares at Vegas in a mixture of confusion and hurt and fights back the urge to scream or cry or both.
“Why don’t you hit me, Pete?” Vegas asks, unfairly. He comes closer, watching Pete intently, as the cracks in his mask begin to form and it starts to crumble at the seams. “Don’t you want me to disappear? Hit me already.”
Pete can’t. And Vegas fucking knows it and he presses, hard, at Pete’s resolve.
“HIT ME!”
Pete makes an ugly sound in the back of his throat, something that sounds as broken as Vegas had just a second ago, and tears start to fill his eyes. He hated seeing Vegas like this—the hurt, self-hating Vegas that truly believes that he deserves every single bit of abuse and hate that’s hurled at him. And Pete wants to hate him, too, it would make everything easier, but he can’t .
“I don’t think you can,” Vegas says, and then adds, a hopeful tone sneaking into his voice, “And you know why.”
Pete does know.
He still fucking loves him, because of and in spite of everything.
Pete’s body crumples forward, the tears that he fought so hard against come pouring out and Pete’s powerless to stop them. He slides down the wall, his back protesting the drag down the concrete, but Pete isn’t present enough to really feel it. The only thing he’s aware of is Vegas, who’s sunken down to his knees after Pete, and gathers him into his arms.
“I’m sorry.”
Vegas’ cheeks are wet, too. That’s the first thing Pete notices when he reaches up to gently cup Vegas’ face, as if, if he applied any more pressure at all, Vegas would crumble and disappear right in front of him. But Vegas is real , he’s right here, in front of Pete, apologizing to him for everything in two simple words, and while it shouldn’t be enough for Pete to forgive him, it’s everything .
“I’m sorry, Pete,” he says again, muffled this time from where he has his face buried in Pete’s hair.
Vegas is so close to him now. Pete can smell his cologne and his shampoo coming off of his unstyled hair. Pete lets his nose brush against Vegas’ neck where he’s being held until Vegas loosens his grip on Pete enough now that he’s sure Pete isn’t actually going to peel off or beat him bloody in the alley. Pete tips his head up and he and Vegas are looking at each other, really looking at each other after months of just not knowing how the other was even doing, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough.
Their lips slot together, and it’s like coming home.
—
And everything devolved from there. Or rather escalated.
One tentative meeting of lips turned into two, then three, and then their mouths were opening, aiming to swallow up each other’s sobs as the kiss deepened. Their hands scrabbled desperately for purchase, seeking out any part of each other that they could latch onto–Vegas choosing the hair at Pete’s nape, and Pete clung to Vegas’ face and jacket as if his life depended on it.
They end up in Vegas’ car next somehow, and then stumbling over each other’s feet as they tumble into Pete’s apartment because it’s closer. They haven't been able to separate from each other long enough to question if this is the healthiest next step, but neither of them seem to care. Vegas is pawing at Pete's clothes the second the front door is closed behind them, pushing Pete confidently towards the bedroom. Pete doesn't question how Vegas knows which door it is, instead he just groans and lifts his arms up obediently when Vegas starts pulling his shirt up and then over his head.
They fall onto Pete's bed and Pete's eyes already fogged over and heavy by the time his back hits the mattress and Vegas is hovering over him, staring down at him like a man starved and Pete's body is what's on offer. And it is.
"God, Pete," Vegas breathes, drinking in the sight of Pete beneath him that he so sorely missed, and then leans down to pepper Pete’s face and mouth in tender-sweet kisses. Pete leans up into them, drinking up and savouring every drop of affectionate attention that Vegas lavishes on him. Pete missed this. He missed them and what they were when the outside didn’t worm its way in and under their skin.
“Vegas,” Pete sighs back and runs his fingers through Vegas’ hair and down to caress his cheek, his pulse kicking up in excitement when Vegas turns his head and presses a tiny kiss to Pete’s open palm.
“Are you going to let me take care of you, Pete?” Vegas asks, trailing his hands and eyes down Pete’s chest and to his belly, where Vegas stops to play with the waistband of his jeans before his eyes flick back up to Pete. “Are you going to be good for me?”
Pete nods, desperately, fresh tears pricking at his eyes now. He doesn’t know why on earth he’s crying now, maybe they’re happy tears, but they’re gone just as soon as they spring up, Vegas kissing them away gently.
Vegas makes quick work on his own clothes, but takes his time with Pete, peeling away the rest of his layers as if he’s unwrapping a gift. Every new expanse of skin Vegas reveals, he has to have his mouth on it, kissing and sucking marks into his chest, belly and thighs, pushing them up so he can nose at the dark tuft of curls between them.
“You smell so sweet, Pete,” Vegas murmurs between nips at Pete’s inner thigh. Then dips lower, fingers gently spreading Pete open so he can kiss at his entrance.
Pete wails, tipping his head back and thrashing it side to side as he’s quickly overwhelmed. It’s been so long, no one has touched him there since Vegas, and oh, it feels just as amazing as Pete remembers, just as intoxicating. Vegas works his mouth into Pete, fucking into him gently with his tongue, kissing and wetting the tight ring of muscle until it unfurls and opens around him.
“V-Vegas, please,” Pete begs and whines when he’s immediately shushed and then bitten, the little kiss Vegas’ places into his thigh doing fuck all to soothe him and just serves to wind him up further.
Vegas glances up at Pete, not bothering to move away from the feast he’s served himself between his legs and shoots Pete a knowing grin.
"Didn't you promise you would be good for me, Pete? You don't think I can take care of you?" Vegas asks, his voice pitching up as he piles on the offensive, knowing his lover well enough that when his eyes grew dark like they were, that he's sunken deep into his sweet submissive and eager to please headspace. Pete shakes his head wildly, denying it, and Vegas smiles, knowing that they both have each other now precisely where they're wanted.
"Mmm…or are you rushing me because you don't need me to get you ready to take my cock anymore?" Vegas asks then sits up, bringing Pete's legs up with him before he pushes them forward and Pete is forced to hold them open and against his own chest, gasping when Vegas reaches down and smacks the meat just below the taint. Pete's entrance flutters as his muscles contract, arousal and pleasure flooding his body in a rush. "How many, Pete? How many cocks did you stuff yourself full trying to forget about me?"
None , Pete tries to say, but he chokes on it, a loud groan punched out of him as Vegas decides to try to test it, wriggling one finger into Pete all the way down to the knuckle, dry.
" Fuck , you're still so tight," Vegas sighs, working his fingers in and out slowly as Pete squirms and moans in discomfort, to which Vegas slaps the inside of his thigh in response, a bright red mark lighting up his skin to match the dark red flush of Pete's cock that's lying hard and dripping against his belly. "Don't complain, Pete, when I can see how much you like this. You like this, don't you? Slut."
Another smack.
"My filthy little slut."
Smack.
"You didn't take another cock, did you? Only mine."
Smack, smack.
"My good boy."
Smack, smack smack—
Pete cries out, stars and shapes and sounds all exploding around him at once as he comes, his cock spurting two long ropes of warm cum onto his belly before he realizes he's that close.
" Ohhhh, Pete," Vegas breathes, staring down at Pete, wholly enraptured, the sight of him trembling and shaking from an orgasm just from this makes his heart swell.
Vegas kisses him. He can't not after witnessing that. He kisses Pete long and deep, drinking from him until they're both breathless and their lips are tingling and then he trails down, laving little kitten licks as he laps up Pete's cum left pooling on his belly.
—
Pete comes to, or it feels like it at least. He must be floating more than he realizes, because he doesn't remember Vegas finding the lube and the condoms in his bedside drawer, but he's being pumped full of what feels like at least three fingers and his cock his impossibly fucking hard again and his throat feels a little rubbed raw like either he's shouted himself hoarse through another orgasm or Vegas feed his cock down his throat and Pete is too blissed out to recall it for now.
Pete doesn't care. He feels so good.
Vegas has rolled on the condom and has himself lined up to push in when a very loud buzzing sounds from the pile of their clothes on the floor. And at first, Vegas has all intentions of ignoring it, but he happens to glance down and sees Pete's cellphone sticking out of his pocket and—
The name flashing on the screen has Vegas see red.
Without jostling Pete, Vegas leans down to retrieve the device, narrowing his eyes at the offending screen for a fraction of a second before shoving it in Pete's face, watching his no longer quite ex-boyfriend with a blank stare.
"Who is this?" Vegas asks, still holding out Pete's phone, proudly displaying ‘Dumbass’ on its screen. 'Dumbass'---with a string of no less than three hearts following behind it, which Porsche added himself once he saw his designation in Pete’s directory.
"Porsche," Pete groans, first in frustration and then mortification, because he's never in his short life ever wanted to say his best friends name while he's lying flat on his back and holding his own knees up to his chest while waiting to continue what was likely about to be the first, best, and hopefully last makeup sex of his life.
"Porsche," Vegas repeats, flatly.
"H-He's my coworker," Pete tries to explain and curses internally, realizing that he'd told Porsche he'd be quick and now who knows how much time has passed and he's here with his (wrongfully) jealous (no longer?) ex-boyfriend instead of there with Porsche, who was already suspicious of Vegas lurking around the coffee shop. "I told him I'd be right back."
Pete's phone stops ringing.
"Your coworker," Vegas parrots, again. "The good looking one that kept smiling at you?"
Oh. Oh, no.
"Vegas–"
The buzzing starts up again and without a word, Vegas answers it and places it up to Pete's ear.
Oh, fuck.
" Pete!?" Comes Porsche's shrieking voice on the other end of the phone. " Pete, I swear to God if you don't say something and you're not okay–"
Vegas stares at Pete expectantly, furrowing his brow at him in warning. Pete closes his eyes, swallowing down the lump in his throat before he opens them again, looming Vegas in the eye as he slowly starts feeding his cock into him as he speaks.
"H-Hey," Pete greets, immediately cursing how horribly shaky and wrecked his voice sounds.
"Oh, thank fuck," Porsche says dramatically and heaves a huge sigh of relief, then starts up again, pissed. “What the hell, Pete! ‘Real quick’, my ass! I thought that weirdo got you or something!”
Porsche might be shouting loud enough for Vegas to hear—no, he’s definitely loud enough, because the second Vegas puts two-and-two together that he’s the ‘weirdo’ Porsche is concerned about, he thrusts forward into Pete, meanly, and bottoms out.
“Nnnnngh!”
“Pete?”
Pete tries to glare at Vegas, but he’s too fucking turned on because why the fuck is it so hot to try to keep quiet and not making it obvious that Pete’s being split in half by said ‘weirdo’s’ dick while he’s supposed to be talking and apologizing to his friend over the phone. It doesn’t help that Vegas doesn’t seem to buy Pete’s irritation at all and rewards Pete’s display of annoyance with a stupidly well placed thrust that punches out a moan that Pete can’t quite bite back in time.
“Pete…?”
“I’m f-fine,” Pete grinds out, taking a deep breath before he speaks again, trying to remain as calm and unaffected as he can while Vegas wastes no time picking up the pace, fucking into him now in a steady rhythm.
“So, again, let’s pretend you’re not a horrible liar, and I believe you for a second—”
“I’m r-really— ah! —okay, Porsche.” Yeah, that sounds real convincing, Pete, he scolds himself. “I g-got some khua kling—nnnngh— when I went out and I-I don’t think it’s agreeing with m-me.”
“You mean the bag of khua kling I found behind the shop next to your pack of cigarettes?”
Shit.
“P-Porsche—”
Ah, apparently that’s all it takes for Vegas to end this particular game. His face scrunches up in a frown at Porsche’s name again and he snatches the phone away from Pete’s ear, jabbing at the disconnect button with his thumb before angrily tossing it to the side to land beside Pete’s head.
Vegas hoists Pete’s legs up himself, drawing up so that he’s sitting on his knees, and pistons into Pete wilding, the new position granting him the perfect leverage and angle to plow into Pete’s core over and over again until Pete can’t form a word or thought that isn’t Vegas’ name or a moan spilling from his lips until he’s coming, crashing over the edge like a tidal wave beating against an already storm-battered shore.
And Vegas keeps fucking into him, working Pete past the point over pleasure into the threshold of the overstimulated pleasure-pain that burns and aches more than it feels good, but it has Pete whimpering and clinging to Vegas, unable to get enough of it. Pete wants more, more, more, more, but Vegas is wearing that stupid condom, and—
“C-Cum on me,” Pete begs, his voice raw and fucked out, but still demanding and clear in what he wants.
Vegas groans, pained almost in his want for Pete, his own thighs growing hot and tight and he chases his own end. “F-Fuck, Pete,” he says, then pulls out, ripping the condom off and throwing it to land somewhere in the room and leans forward, jerking himself over Pete. “Beg for it.”
“Please, Vegas,” Pete starts, but it’s not enough, Vegas going as far as to squeeze the base of his own cock to stave off his orgasm until he’s satisfied. “Please, Vegas. Please, please. I need it.”
“Need what Pete?”
Pete swallows, fighting back a cry of frustration and pulling at Vegas arms, begs. “Please, Vegas, I need your cum. Cum on me, please, please, please—”
“Ahhh, fuck!” Vegas shouts, his fist stroking over himself once more before he spills, angling up just so that the warm fluid splashes across Pete’s chest and face, his pink tongue darting out to catch some of it and licking his lips with a tired sigh of contentment.
Vegas rearranges them on the bed, gingerly wiping his spend off of Pete’s face with his discarded silk shirt with a fond smile, cooing sweet words and praises to him as they both come down off of their high. After the perfunctory cleaning, Vegas lies them on their sides, gathering Pete up into his arms and holding him close, still whispering and murmuring into his hair as they lay there together.
“I missed you, too,” Pete finally says, smiling sleepily when he feels Vegas’ lips twitch where they’re peppering little kisses in his hair.
They were far from having fixed everything that had gone wrong between them, but the foundation is there. The way forward would be a conversation they would have to come later and soon, but for now, they know what’s in each other’s hearts never changed, and just like all wounds, they just need a little tender care and time.