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I died in my dream
Reaching out for your hand
My fatal desire…
– The Rasmus, Funeral Song
Vegas is used to it. The way his father’s anger is shouted words and painful punches. It’s all too familiar to him, how knuckles connect with his cheekbone. How the sole of the shoe meets with the tender skin of his stomach.
His father does it on purpose and twists the ring around so that it hurts more. Even in his dreams, Vegas can feel the imprint of the symbol from the ring on his skin. It’s a reminder to him; it might be his father’s hand but it’s moved by the whole family.
“You– you useless son!”
Another punch and it is immediately followed by a sharp kick to his knee. It gives out under him, making Vegas kneel by his father’s feet.
The silence with which he meets every word, every attempt on causing pain only further fuels his father’s rage. He does not turn his gaze away, does not beg. Doing so would be nothing but a sign of weakness and Gun Theerapanyakul would rather have no son than a weak one.
This time Vegas can hear the way his nose breaks when it’s met with his father’s knee. The blood trickling down his chin is warm. He focuses on its metallic taste on his tongue instead of the pounding pain on his face.
After all these years growing up in the Minor Family, growing under the iron fist of his father, Vegas has managed to perfect the way to ignore all the pain. The trick is to distance yourself from your body. To pretend you are nothing more than a mere figment of imagination. If you are not real neither can be the suffering.
It’s easy, when he does not remember a single gentle touch. Vegas has since long forgotten the silhouette of his mother, how she used to gently kiss on his bruises and bandage his wounds. (Those used to be from the playground, not from his father.)
Something cracks. It’s loud enough for his father to stop for a moment. His hand hovers just over Vegas’ cheek and the already blooming bruise on his skin.
Vegas barely notices it though, his vision going black as the pain feels like it’s splitting his skull into two. His ribs are aching in a way that feels like someone is trying to stab him from the inside.
He must have made a noise, perhaps a whine of anguish involuntarily, because his father scoffs and hits him again. “Pathetic.”
It’s not funny. Nothing about what is happening is funny but Vegas can’t help himself. He starts laughing even as he coughs up blood, his lungs screaming.
Vega’s father is a violent man, cruel even at times. You do not hold power in the underworld if you aren’t fierce and brutal, ruthless to the point of madness. There is just something that Khun Gun, the head of the Minor Family, is forgetting. The same blood that runs through his vein, lives in his son too – wreaking havoc.
They people do not call Vegas the devil unnecessarily. He is more sadistic and heartless, almost inhumane, in a way his own father never could. He thrives on destruction and yearns for it. Vegas has an endless hunger for blood; whether it is his or someone else’s.
His vision doesn’t really come back to focus anymore, nor can he will the pain away anymore. All these years he has begged for death. Has it finally come to him?
Perhaps it’s his laughter that is fueling the violence. Vegas, in his father’s eyes, has always been nothing but a disappointment. To the point where even when the man is beating the life out of him, unloading all his own anger into his son, Vegas won’t bend. Won’t cry out for help, beg to be saved.
Everything is painful until it is not. Until all the hurt comes back once more, hitting him like a wave. Vegas takes in a gurgling breath, choking on his own blood. He really must be dying. It feels different than just slipping into the sweet hands of unconsciousness. A broken rib punctured his lung, he guesses.
He smiles. He wants his father to see him after his rage dies down. Wants him to see his son, kneeling on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
Vegas wants his father to look at his hands, see all the blood and even just once feel disgusted with himself. To feel quilt beyond words because from this Khun Gun cannot lie his way out. Cannot pretend it didn’t happen. Most of all, Vegas wants his father to know he was always a lesser man than his son.
A fist connects with his jaw with a disgusting crack. He can feel how his neck bends backward in a completely unnatural way. He has barely time to try to gasp for air before the darkness takes him.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his.
Pete is holding his hand, their fingers interlocked as he tugs Vegas to follow him. He stumbles slightly. If it was anyone else, he would be angry – furious at the gesture. But this is Pete, his Pete, who has an endless number of tender smiles to offer. Whose hands are somehow always soft despite the violence they have caused. Despite the guns and knives, he has held before taking Vegas’ hand into his.
It’s a sunny day and they are outside in nature. Pete had insisted on it, it would be a waste to not enjoy such a pretty day.
And who is Vegas to say no to him? Pete has seen every ugly part within him and instead of running away like a sane person would, he took a step closer. Pete is wonderful and good and kind in ways that Vegas will never be able to and the other still stays.
Love was always something foreign to him, something that he didn’t deserve. His father had made sure that Vegas learned it from a young age. He doesn’t remember the man ever having hugged him, being gentle with him.
In the world they live in, you cannot afford to have a heart. Not when the world is such a merciless place to be in. If you want to survive, you will rip your own heart out of your chest and destroy it – that’s what his father had told him. And Vegas had believed him. He had always followed every order without a second thought because perhaps this time, he could be enough for his father. (He never was, he sees that now.)
He feels like he is floating now, being so close to Pete. Vegas never thought that love is something that he could have. To everyone’s, but mostly to his own surprise – Vegas Theerapanyakul, the devil as they call him, has fallen in love with the sun itself.
“I can hear you thinking,” Pete says, laughing softly.
I love you; he thinks suddenly, barely stopping himself in time from saying the words aloud. Vegas hadn’t thought about it before and to his horror and excitement finds it to be completely true.
Pete loves him. The other has said it to him on many occasions, despite everything Vegas had done to him in the past. He didn’t only come back to him, Pete had begged to stay too.
Vegas on the other hand has never said it back to him. Perhaps it is an act of self-preservation. If it stays unsaid, he can try to keep pretending it’s not real. Because when Pete leaves, he will eventually do so despite what he says – Pete is far too good to stay with someone like him, and Vegas knows it will ruin him.
“Hey?” Pete asks, caressing the curve of his cheekbone so unbelievably gently.
There is a bruise blooming in shades of blue and purple on his cheek. It’s from his father. Who else would ever dare to raise their hand against the heir of the Minor Family? Their men are always too scared of him, other families are always too useless to end him. Vegas does not beg. He never has and never will, but that doesn’t mean he is beyond praying. (None of his prayers have ever been answered.)
Pete places one soft kiss on his lips, lets it linger there and it makes Vegas want to weep. He is so unfamiliar with kindness.
The man smiles at him as they part and Vegas turns to hide from the sight of it. Pete’s hand is there and he presses another kiss into his palm. He nibbles carefully at the tender skin with his teeth.
“I would burn down the whole world for you if you wanted me to,” Vegas sighs. Pete gently nudges him to turn his gaze back to him. Aways so gently.
“I know,” Pete smiles at him and asks, “what do you want?”
To die.
Vegas wants nothing more in this world than die by Pete’s hand. That would be quite poetic; for the devil to die in the hands of the only person he has ever loved. Though after everything he has done in this life, Vegas isn’t sure does he deserve that kind of mercy. It would only be right for his death to be slow, for him to suffer until the end.
“I know,” Pete repeats. Vegas doesn’t really know what it means, is the other just assuring him that he does know, or is he reading Vegas’ thoughts?
The situation – how they are standing close to each other and Pete is kind and soft and beautiful – is making him feel dizzy. A little vulnerable and lost because the other knows him in ways no one else ever has.
Vegas turns his back to continue walking ahead when it happens.
A gunshot. A sound that is too loud and out of place in the calm heart of nature. The birds in nearby trees shoot to the sky, startled by the sound.
For a moment, he just stands there; listening to the unnatural silence that follows after. The pain doesn’t really get to him, not like the realization of what happened does. Vegas’ vision starts going black as he sways on his feet for a moment before he starts falling.
It happens in slow motion as it does in the movies. What doesn’t happen is his life flashing before his eyes. No, all he can see is Pete. Pete who is still holding the gun in his hand and looks back at him with all the adoration that the world can offer in his eyes.
Pete, who shot Vegas in the back.
Once, so that it happens quickly. From the behind so that he never had to see it coming and he can drift into unconsciousness without suffering. Mercifully, like hunters sometimes do to their dogs when they grow old and weak. They let them out of their misery.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his. He can hear the heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby.
It’s the Italians. Vegas knows it a long before they pull the hood off his face and reveal the dark room, which they have dragged him into.
How could he not? Even when they stay silent Vegas can hear the Italian in them; how their leather shoes hit the gravel as they walk and the scent of perfume that surrounds them like a cloud. It’s what he was taught to do since he was a kid. To recognize the enemy without seeing it; so that’s what he does.
Vegas pays attention to the leather seats of the car he is pushed into. They smell new and he can’t stop thinking how it would be such a pity to spill blood on them.
The cigars they smoke through the journey smell earthy. He knows that smell from all the meetings he has attended with his father. The smoke makes his eyes sting.
Now, tied up in a chair, Vegas wants to ask his father: what then? He recognized his captors blind, what does he do now? The rope is biting into his skin, turning his hands numb from the lack of blood circulation. He is alone and weaponless, against who knows how many men.
Of course, he will try to get away. (And then die trying.) Vegas will bring as many of the Italians with him as he possibly can but he won’t make it out of here alive. That is a simple truth about the situation and it doesn’t really affect him as much as it probably should. He has always known he will die young, that’s how it goes in the underworld. It’s been a long time since he already made his peace with that.
Vegas doesn’t plead for mercy, he doesn’t beg. There is no deal the Italians could offer to him that he would take in order to stay alive.
Even if he did somehow miraculously manage to survive, his father would be furious. Khun Gun would be so ashamed of his son for getting caught that he probably would kill Vegas himself.
It’s better, safer, to return to the Minor Family home in a body bag. Perhaps then, his father wouldn’t see him as an endless disappointment. Perhaps he would finally see Vegas as worthy of something.
“Who do we have here?” A man asks somewhere behind him, laughing humorlessly.
He stares straight ahead without moving. If the man wants to talk to him, wants Vegas to look at him – he must come to him. On top of not begging, he also has a principle of not squirming in hostage situations. Even tied up, he likes to be the one in control.
“Vegas Theerapanyakul…”
The words are a quiet murmur next to his ear and they are followed by a sharp kick to the side of his shin. It stings momentarily but Vegas barely pays attention to it. His own father has done a lot worse.
Instead, he focuses on the guards positioned around the room, hiding in the shadows. There are seven of them in his line of vision. They all carry guns; holstered on their thighs, back, or both.
It amuses Vegas. The number of men and firearms when he is all by himself, with nothing on his hands. He is glad they have heard of him, that they know to fear him.
Though he does see why; he has made the Italians the laughingstock one time too many. This is just them making him pay for it. Vegas can’t imagine a bigger homage than dying for his father. Like this, with no way out seems like quite a fitting end for him. He knows his death will be dragged out, it will come slow and painfully to him. It will be bloody and gruesome as they want to hear him begging for mercy.
Surely father must be proud of him now?
Perhaps he will even mourn him, the heir to the Minor Family. Grieve, feel a bit of guilt. For all the things he put Vegas through, for never thinking he was enough.
That’s unlikely but Vegas hopes that at least his death will bring something good. Maybe father will then look at Macau and finally see a son. He hopes the man will realize he has a second chance with the younger boy. Khun Gun could still be a good father, to one of them, if he wants to.
“Not talking today?” The man asks.
To Vegas’ surprise he tastes blood. He had been so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed the continuous kicks to his ribs or how his lower lip started to bleed. This man isn’t wearing rings, it doesn’t hurt like his father’s beatings do.
The man considers him, his eyes dragging up and down his body. Vegas’ shirt has been torn somewhere along the way – a pity, he quite liked this one – and it reveals most of his chest.
He forces himself to stay still, not to shiver under the gaze. Vegas knows that gaze and what it means. And if the man notices his reaction, his disgust, nothing good will follow. It’s not the first time someone twice his age looks at him like that. He wills away the memory of hands on his body. Hands that belong to his father’s friends and business partners.
All men are the same, he himself included. They are hungry for things and don’t ask for permission because it is easier to beg for forgiveness. Not that these men care, they don’t see their wrongs.
The man seems a little disappointed by his reaction, unmoving – uncaring. So instead, the man pulls out a gun and Vegas wants to sigh out of relief. That is the kind of pain he knows. The kind of pain that he can handle.
“We will surely get you talking,” the other smiles at Vegas and shoots him in the knee. By a miracle, he manages to bite back the scream.
They truly take their time with him. Shoot him in places that hurt enough to feel like it might kill you but don’t. Then they run a blade across his skin and watch him bleed. They poke their fingers into the wounds and burn him with their cigars. Make him drink until he chokes.
When Vegas, later on, welcomes death with open arms, he is missing one limb and his face is barely recognizable. There is a pool of blood underneath him and a smile on his lips.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his. He can hear the heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby.
His body aches as if it is yearning to go back into the dream.
They are in the kitchen, he and Pete. Vegas sits on the countertop, a glass of red wine in his hand as he watches the other move around the room. How he opens and closes the cabinets as he goes, at times stopping just long enough to stir one of the pots on the stove.
Vegas used to think Pete was calm – like a tree rooted in its place. Unwavering, unchangeable. Something tamed and trained, loyal, like a dog.
He is more than delighted to find that not true. Oh, Pete is a force of nature. Like a wild animal, with something quite mad in his eyes. It’s just that Pete hides well, and slips easily behind the mask of a friendly smile.
The wine glass clinks gently as he sets it down on the counter. They are quite the same in the end. Vegas doesn’t really understand it, how did he get so lucky? He has never been lucky before. He has never been worthy of a thing.
Vegas can’t help but worry, which to him is strange. He isn’t used to caring about people other than Macau. He hasn’t really cared about anything in a very long time, so long, that he has almost forgotten how it feels like. How much it hurts to yearn for someone, even when they are right next to you.
How it pains him to worry; when will Pete get tired of him and finally walk away? The other might have seen all the rotted parts inside him and stayed but there is no other possible outcome. No matter how willing, how submissive – how much Pete begs to be touched – one cannot simply tame a wild animal. Eventually, they always yearn back to freedom.
And perhaps Vegas really is foolish like his father has always told him because he would allow that. If Pete one day got up from their shared bed and decided he wanted to leave, Vegas would let him go. He would let Pete go, even if it killed him to do so.
So, Vegas intends on being the first one to go.
That way, Pete can’t heave. That way Vegas won’t have to face his own useless heart; won’t have to try to nurse it back into health afterward. You useless son, he can almost hear his father saying to him. It’s stupid, it’s completely insane and Vegas knows that. What else is anyone expecting from him?
In this line of business, in a world like theirs you do not die of old age surrounded by your friends and family. Especially if your last name is Theerapanyakul, you are not going to get a happy ending. Instead, you will die in a gruesome way in some back alley and your family will get your head delivered to them in a box. If they are being generous, they might add a little bow on top as a decoration.
He might be selfish because he knows he sure as hell doesn’t deserve it but it doesn’t stop him from wishing. It would be such a waste for someone else than Pete to kill him.
Vegas hints about it to the other. Brings the subject up nonchalantly, and mentions it in passing. He all but begs Pete to be his executioner.
“Dinner is ready,” Pete says, reaching for a plate. Vegas stops him though, pulling him close by his belt loops. It makes the other laugh as he leans down and kisses him.
It’s not a soft kiss, not like this kind of evening deserves; a quiet and candle-lit dinner. But Vegas doesn’t know how to be anything but hungry and greedy. Even when Pete succumbs to him so completely, he can’t help but want more. He wants Pete, all of him. Inside and out, all the dark and unholy parts included.
Pete bites into his bottom lip and drinks the groan Vegas lets out straight from his lips. Sometimes he feels like both of them are just drowning men who are still hoping for one last drink.
“The food will get cold,” the other breathes into his mouth.
Vegas doesn’t really care for dinner; everything seems to always taste like ash on his tongue. (All but Pete, he wants to devour Pete whole.) But because it’s Pete who cooked, he lets himself be pulled down from the counter and then pushed against it – in order to be kissed once more. His elbow knocks against the wine glass and it falls with a crash, splashing its red contents all over Vegas’ shirt.
It looks like blood. He hopes it was. At this point he doesn’t care if it would be his or someone else’s, he just craves for it. Pete stares at the stain with furrowed brows before he rips the shirt off Vegas' shoulders.
Somehow, they eventually make it to the table. They are on the same chair, Pete on Vegas’ lap with no space between their bodies.
Pete insists on feeding him. At first, Vegas thinks it’s just one of those typical Pete things. Of the other wanting to be gentle, offering him the kind of softness he doesn’t deserve. Vegas realizes how wrong he is from the first bite.
They do say the forbidden fruit is sweet. The poison is bitter but all Vegas can taste is relief.
He eats everything willingly, even licks the utensils clean afterward as Pete holds them out for him. See, he thinks, I can be good. I can do something else than hurt you.
Pete rests his head on Vegas’ shoulder, hugs him – touches him. He wants to melt into the touch, the gentle fingers in his hair but he can’t tear his eyes away. Vegas remembers their first time in the safehouse, how he had since then dreamed of this very moment.
His head starts getting a little dizzy, his thoughts drowsy but everything around him is soft. Pete keeps whispering sweet nothings to his ear, it’s okay, it will all be good. At least one of them is crying, perhaps both but he can’t say for certain. He can taste the salt on his lips as Pete leans in and kisses him so very tenderly.
Vegas drifts into sleep, endless and painless, in the embrace of the only man he has ever loved.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his. He can hear the heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby.
His body aches as if it is yearning to go back into the dream. Like always before, it seems that he yearns for the only thing he deserves but also cannot have – death.
Vegas wants to ask his father a lot of things. Like, why could you never be kind? Or what was all that pain you caused for? But first and foremost, he wants to know what his cousin has that he doesn’t. Why after everything he did for his father, it was never enough.
To him Kinn Theerapanyakul is nothing special, nothing that he isn’t. Vegas’ plans are always more well thought out, more efficient. In this business time is money. What of the blood stains? Isn’t it better to acquire needed information faster and go for a drink afterward? You can always wash the blood away later, and burn the clothes they are decorating to ashes.
Kinn isn’t patient. People call Vegas reckless, which he probably is, but he knows when to wait. His cousin is explosive in his rage and never stops to think about what consequences his actions will have.
It’s always Vegas who is forced into cleaning up his messes. Everyone in the Minor and Main Family knows that people either respect or fear him enough to do whatever he wishes of them. If they don’t, they also know that Vegas will personally rip them apart limb by limb and make sure their bodies are never found. So, naturally, people prefer to stay in his good books.
Of course, it’s never free. Respect and fear aren’t enough to order around the rest of the underworld. The Main Family has no idea what Vegas has done for them, and how much it has cost him.
Countless times he has made his way into a bed with people to get information out of them. To appease someone Kinn has managed to anger and no one ever stops to stay thank you, Vegas.
He has ruined and annihilated families and killed people whose only crime has been turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has cheated more people than he can possibly count anymore and stabbed even more into the back. He has spilled blood and bled himself; all for the Main Family.
He might share the same last name as his cousins but people see him and then they see the minor attached to him which he never seems to be able to get rid of. No matter what he does, he will always be the minor Theerapanyakul.
So, after all that what does it matter, he thinks to himself as he stares into the barrel of the gun. Vegas has already bled for the Main Family, has bled for Kinn, they might as well have the rest of it too.
Kinn is furious and Vegas truly has no idea why because he, for once, truly has done nothing. Perhaps that’s the problem, maybe he forgot something?
That’s the thing though, Vegas never forgets anything. He might pretend otherwise and carefully store information away for later but he never forgets something he has been told to do. Not after growing up in the Minor Family and his father’s iron fist. You will bleed if you forget, so you learn to not forget anything ever again. That he learned before Kinn really even knew how to tie his own shoelaces.
They are not the same. They never have been and they will never be. Kinn’s hand is shaking against Vegas’ temple, though he can’t be sure it isn’t because of his anger. He is on his knees on the floor, unmoving – uncaring.
He doesn’t mind kneeling, not when he is still the one holding all the power. It infuriates Kinn even further, he knows that.
So maybe, it is about Porsche. Surely Kinn must know that he doesn’t care for the man anymore? Never really cared for it in the first place. He was Kinn’s and Vegas wanted what Kinn had.
How could Vegas even look at Porsche anymore when he has now found Pete? Pete is beautiful and unhinged in the best possible ways. Who doesn’t run from Vegas’ darkness but instead comes and steps closer.
The hit comes so suddenly that Vegas winces involuntarily. Instead of blowing his brains out and letting Vegas out of his misery, the other had hit him with the barrel of the gun. Does his cousin not know how to shoot, he jokes and it earns him another blow to the head.
This time it’s harsh enough to break skin and spill blood. It runs down the side of Vegas’ face warm and thick, he licks at the corner of his mouth to taste.
“You just can’t stop, can you?” Kinn spits at him.
“No, I don’t think so,” he smiles.
Kinn loads the gun, swearing loudly as he does so. Vegas thinks it’s quite a fitting ending for him. After all, he has done and given to the Main Family, he is killed at the hands of its heir. And after all, he has done, he dies for something he didn’t even do.
His cousin kicks him in the stomach. Perhaps Kinn didn’t expect him to bend down from the pain as the bullet that follows doesn’t hit its mark. Instead, it goes through his chest and then out between his shoulder blades.
Vegas lets out a hollow laugh at the sight of Kinn’s horrified expression before the other turns around and flees.
He hopes the other will tell Khun Gun all about it. How Vegas wouldn’t waver, wouldn’t beg or try to reason. Hopes that Kinn will descript the blood on his face and how dark and red it was. Hopes, the other will tell how he shot his own cousin and then ran away like a scared kid.
It takes Vegas a long time until he finally bleeds out and death comes to claim him.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his. He can hear the heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby.
His body aches as if it is yearning to go back into the dream. Like always before, it seems that he yearns for the only thing he deserves but also cannot have – death. Each breath feels like inhaling glass and his throat is too dry to form words.
Pete lies on the bed, completely naked and with his hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. His mouth is red and thoroughly kissed around the cigarette he is nursing. There is a blissful post-sex glow on him as he stares at Vegas through his eyelashes.
That is a scene worth painting, Vegas thinks to himself as he wishes he had his phone to take a picture. He could yell at the guards in the hallway but he doesn’t want anyone else to see Pete like this. Completely wrecked, with blooming bruises around his wrists where he was bound to the bedframe.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” Vegas murmurs to him in English. He wishes nothing but the other to be able to see himself.
The other smiles at him, around his cigarette. Vegas lets his fingers trace along the soft curves of Pete’s body, carefully pressing into each bruise – new and old alike – as he goes. He cherishes every little sound that comes out of Pete’s mouth as he does so. It’s incredible how the other response so easily to everything he does, how willingly he lets Vegas do it all to him.
His fingers reach Pete’s neck and he lets them rest against his pulse point, just feeling the steady rhythm. It grounds him, to know something as perfect as Pete is real. Something he can touch with his own blood-stained hands.
Pete looks at his now burnt-out cigarette, looking displeased as he throws the stub in the general direction of the ashtray that is on Vegas’ nightstand.
They have had to extinguish a small fire in the room not only once or twice but a total of three times because of that habit. To Vegas, the burnt mark on his floor doesn’t really matter. It's a memory. More important is that; how could he say no to Pete? To ask him to get up from the bed where he is laying down so very comfortably.
Besides, each time they have managed to snuff out the hungry flames. After that, they had fallen back into the bed as a laughing pile of limbs. (And gone for round two, if anyone is keeping score.)
“Vegas?” Pete asks, lacing his fingers with the ones resting against his throat.
God, Vegas groans. He loves when Pete does that. There are no words for how stunning the other looks with a hand on his throat. It just makes it even more intense, more astonishing when Pete adds his own hand into the picture.
“Are you in your head or with me?” Pete asks again.
Vegas focuses back into the present moment and leans in to kiss Pete. The other tastes like ash and sex and he wishes he could bottle it for him to drink later. He wishes he could bottle up the scent of Pete too so that he could wear it as a perfume at times.
No matter how much Vegas says that he is going to devour Pete, it seems to be the opposite. Every single part of his being is just endless Pete, Pete, Pete.
Pete is all he can see. Inside their bedroom as well as when they leave it. He no longer sees anyone else on the dancefloor in the dimly lit bars they visit. All he can ever think about and how he wants to bend him against the closest surface and take him apart right there and then, for all the world to see.
The other gasps into the kiss and Vegas inhales the sound like it’s the air he needs to breathe in order to stay alive. Though that is not too far from the truth.
If it wasn’t for Pete, he most likely would have tried to blow his own brain out at least once. No. He would anger every single person on the same continent until they were all hunting him down. Perhaps one of them would manage to do what he cannot.
No matter how much Vegas yearns for death, he is too much of a coward to do it himself. Not because he is afraid, no. Because of what it would do to Macau. It would ruin his brother, knowing how much Vegas has truly hated living. The other would, rightfully so, blame it all on their useless father. He would do something and get himself killed in the process of seeking revenge.
Even though they share the same blood and Vegas sees the same insanity in his brother’s eyes, Macau is still only a child. He has tried his best, knowing it is not nearly enough, to shield the younger from the world. From their father.
“If I could only die like this, laying my eyes on…”
The words escape Vegas before he has time to think about what he is actually saying. Before he can stop them from coming out of his mouth.
Pete pulls back, his eyes wide and full of pity. Vegas hates it when he is being seen by someone. When they discover all the broken pieces inside him. Usually, he hides it and does it well, but somehow the other always manages to see straight through his walls. His pretense of no care for the world attitude and flirtatious words he throws around.
Then Pete surprises him by asking, “is that what you truly want?”
All he can do is nod, as he closes his eyes for a short moment and tries to stop the tears from falling to his cheeks. He fails at doing so and Pete’s hands are soft as he wipes them away. His fingers carefully caressing his cheeks.
“Look at me, Vegas…”
Vegas obeys because Pete has him wrapped around his little finger. No matter how much he wants to die, if Pete begged him to not, he would stay.
But it must be some kind of wicked way of loving, what else could Vegas be capable of? As the other is willing to let him go. To free him from the world. To offer him a way out of the dead-end where he has been all of his life. A wall between his father and brother.
“Look at me,” Pete says again, as his fingers fall from Vegas’ cheeks to his throat.
It feels new, foreign to him, and yet, so familiar. Vegas has only ever had hands around his throat because of someone wanting him to die. Not like Pete has had around his during sex. Now he feels like he understands why the other begs for it.
Pete’s hands slowly add pressure as the other smiles at him. Vegas sees the forming tears in the other’s eyes and he wants to do anything for them to go away. He wants to close his eyes. Except he doesn’t because if he did, he would never dare to ask again. And Vegas never close his eyes because Pete asked him to keep them open.
It’s comforting, the finality of it. Knowing that he truly is never going to close his eyes again. That Pete will be the last thing he ever lays his eyes upon; all that beauty. Pete will also be the only memory he wants to hold onto and carry into the afterlife, into the next life. Into the nothingness, whatever comes after this miserable life of his.
He is also selfish enough to take the kindness offered to him. Even though he knows full well he does not deserve any of it. Outside this room, there is no way he could die so peacefully.
Vegas starts feeling a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Pete leans in and kisses him, whispers words into his mouth – half of which he no longer understands. Macau will be fine; I will be too. The kiss tastes like salt and Vegas is grateful for it somehow. At least someone besides his brother will mourn him.
Vegas, you too will be fine, Pete whispers but to him, it sounds like a declaration of love. How twisted and fitting end for Vegas Theerapanyakul.
Death feels like an absolution.
Vegas wakes up from the dream with a prayer for death on his lips. There is a hand holding tightly onto his. He can hear the heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby.
His body aches as if it is yearning to go back into the dream. Like always before, it seems that he yearns for the only thing he deserves but also cannot have – death. Each breath feels like inhaling glass and his throat is too dry to form words. He can hear the way wheezes as the struggles to fill his lung with air.
That’s when there is a movement on his right and the grip on his hand tightens. He knows those hands, Vegas realizes then. So many times, he has dreamed of them on his skin after Pete left the safe house.
“Vegas,” Pete whispers so very softly that for a moment Vegas thinks he only imagined it.
He wants to speak, wants to ask so many questions. What happened? Why am I here, why am I still alive? Still, breathing? God, Pete, why couldn’t you just let me die there? But most of all: why are you here?
All he manages to croak out though is just a weak, “Pete.”
It makes the other’s face light up like the sun, even though there are tears glittering in his eyes that fall freely to his cheeks. Although Vegas hates seeing Pete cry, the other still somehow manages to look beautiful while doing so.
The other leans down, placing the softest of kisses on Vegas' cheek. It leaves a teary imprint on his skin and he wants nothing but hold Pete. If his body just wasn’t feeling so weak and fragile, if just existing didn’t hurt.
Instead, Vegas squeezes the other’s hand with all his strength. Which to say isn’t a lot but it makes the other smile even wider through his tears.
“I am still hungry,” Pete whispers.
What he means is: I’m here. Please don’t think you have nothing left when you have me. When I am right here. Please don’t turn your back on me because there is no one else in the world who can take me out to eat. Because there is no one else in the world who understands my hunger.
And maybe, it wouldn’t be too bad after all. To stay, just a moment longer, Vegas thinks.
The ground might break so I’ll close my eyes
‘Cause I know I’ll wake up in your arms
– Slot Machine, Free Fall