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——
His eyes fluttered open and Auguste’s cragged face swam over him. So he wasn’t dead then.
“Laurent? Can you hear me?”
Eyes closed, Laurent nodded, not quite ready to speak yet. He allowed the sensations to flow through him, every nerve ending suddenly alight again. The flood of memories from Vask overwhelmed him after his dreamless sleep and he let every face of every mangled victim burn into his retinas so he would never forget. In his long and bloody career, he had never let himself forget. He couldn’t.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped back. A new and pressing thought pushing into the forefront of his consciousness.
“Damen?” He inquired lightly as Auguste sat down in the chair opposite the bed.
“He’s fine,” the spy chief groaned slightly as he took the weight off his bad leg. He had been there with Laurent on his first case when his leg had nearly gotten amputated. It hadn’t been the same since.
“He’s great. He was discharged a couple weeks ago. You’ve been in recovery after your surgery but the docs say you’ll be fine.” Slightly cavalier for an onlooker but Laurent knew: Auguste never sugarcoated anything.
His limbs out of practice, Laurent assessed the damage before he tried to sit up. Slowly, he slid his hand up to feel the heavily padded dressing right above his heart. It was slightly painful to the touch but nothing like the sharp force of the initial wound.
“How are you feeling? You’ve been basically asleep for almost three weeks, you know.”
Laurent’s synapses fired as he evaluated himself and discovered that he felt surprisingly well. A bit groggy and a bit weak but otherwise, almost the same as before. Whatever the medical staff had done, it had kept him alive and with no lasting damage…at last not physically. Satisfied with his examination, he pushed himself to sit up.
“Damen?” He asked again more directly, a simple word sufficing for the slew of questions he had.
Auguste smiled, thin-lipped. The show of understanding crept up to his eyes and there was a light sparkle beneath the scarred iris. “He’s been visiting everyday.”
Clipped and economical with his information, Laurent nevertheless processed that information with a light heart. So he hadn’t imagined it. Damen was waiting for him. With a practiced eye, Auguste added generously, “He waits for you in the garden everyday. He’s already there now, whenever you’re ready.”
Laurent’s heart quickened, the hot blood rushing hurriedly through his veins. It was a coursing cocktail of emotions, simultaneously anticipation and trepidation. Without the rush of the mission, would it be the same? Had any of it been real? He carefully stood, gripping the IV stand. Thankfully, Laurent found it manageable to bear weight and was relieved to find that his wound felt okay despite the addition of gravity. Still, he took the stand for support and shuffled slowly to the door in his hospital issued slippers.
“I’ll be right back,” he called back to Auguste.
“I won’t be waiting,” his boss replied curtly, knowing full well that this wouldn’t be a short trip. He was already focused on his phone.
The first thought as Laurent exited the double doors to the garden was that he had never noticed how beautiful it was. He had been here a couple times for extended stays before, the longest being after Chastillon. However, Laurent had barely registered his surroundings that time as he clung to the grief and guilt of that mission. It was still there —it always would be— but this time, there was something different, more hopeful that bolstered him as he walked through the verdant hedge rows to the large stone fountain in the center.
And there he was.
Skimming his hand over the water’s surface, the strong, tanned and toned Akielon had his back to Laurent. The midday sun framed his body as his dark curls seemed to absorb the light.
Laurent immediately felt a rush of heat to his cheeks that had nothing to do with the shining sun. He approached slowly, his IV stand nevertheless clattering noisily over the tiled stones. At the sound, Damen turned and looked up. Registering who it was, his expression morphed into a broad grin at the sight of him.
That glance.
A look as if nothing else existed in that space but him. It felt like the first time anyone had really looked at Laurent before and had truly seen him. The honeyed brown stare only had eyes for him and Laurent had to steady himself with the stand. His grip tightening as his knees buckled from the intense feeling. But he, too, did not look away, memorizing every detail for no one else would ever look at him like that.
“How are you?” Damen asked, simply, as Laurent staggered the last few steps over and sat down next to the Akielon on the wide stone edge that ringed the fountain. It was an uninspired question but his actions were the opposite: his eyes combed voraciously over Laurent, looking for any traces of hurt, and his hands wringing in a twisty knot.
“I should be asking how you are!” Laurent reprimanded, lightly and with no bite behind it at all. “I told you to go and you stayed. You got hurt because of me.”
He trembled slightly as he said it, the sound of his own voice unrecognizable and scaring him. So open, so vulnerable. Damen reached over to take Laurent’s hand, tucking it between his two darker ones, sandwiching them so Laurent could feel his quickening pulse. “You silly man. I was never going to leave you. I said we would finish this together, didn’t I?”
Laurent breathed deeply, his exhale containing more than just air. “By the end, it had started to feel like Chastillon again. It was only the two of us and Ancel had me by the throat.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know if you would actually come for me. Your part of the mission was done and I didn’t really know where we actually stood. Was it all in my head?”
Lifting their entwined hands, Damen brushed his lips across Laurent’s colorless knuckles. He laughed lightly, a rare tinkling laugh that Laurent endeavored to commit to memory.
“Laurent, sweetheart, it wasn’t in your head. And it wasn’t imagined. It was also there in front of me the whole time. I just didn’t see it until that moment. Or rather, I tried my very best to fight it. It wasn’t until the knife was pressed against you —until the stakes were too high— that I finally accepted what had been so glaringly obvious.”
It was now Damen’s turn to take a deep breath. His words came out uneven, a lot shakier than he usually sounded — and a lot more vulnerable. “After Jokaste, I had vowed not to let myself feel again, to go unguarded. I had survived so long by myself both in the field and out that I thought I could keep going like that. Then, you came in and saved me those times and I started to admit to myself that I might need a partner. I was ready to accept that and I was going to leave it at that. But despite my best efforts, you refused to let up. You kept pushing and you saw me anyway. The real me. And that’s when I knew. Jokaste might have pushed me to be a better spy but you pushed me to be a better person.”
Damen paused, his whole neck quivering as he swallowed thickly. Here was this man pouring out his soul when really it should have been the other way around. Laurent had been barely afloat before he had met Damen. The weight of this job, Chastillon —everything— had been pulling him under. The cavalier facade had been his only reprieve.
“You make me better,” Laurent countered. “I was drowning until you came along. A shell of a person flying by the seat of pants rather than acknowledge that I was damaged. That Chastillon had set the tone for my entire career, my life even. Even those first few days when you hated me, you were like a buoy that I clung to for dear life. I thought that even if you hated me, at least that was something. Not just me alone. And as we got to know each other…”
Laurent trailed off, the hesitation catching in his throat. How could he even put to words the most basic relief was just Damen surviving and making it to the next day. And that his biting annoyed exterior and own blemished past chipped away at Laurent until he could come to terms with himself and his own past. How could he express that within one singular mission, this man from a rival agency came to mean so much to him?
As always, Laurent didn’t need to finish his sentence. With one knowing gaze, Damen seemed to comprehend it all. He didn’t have to say anything else.
“I know,” Damen completed Laurent’s unfinished sentence. So much unspoken hinging on those two simple words. “Me too.”
——
Damen met Laurent outside his apartment, leaning against the entryway of the tall black iron-wrought fence of his building. Dressed in a suit with the mauve tie he had given him, the Akielon made a striking figure. Laurent’s heart skipped a beat like a giddy schoolgirl, like he was going on a first date. Suddenly, the wall was down and the mix of business and pleasure made it hard for Laurent to stay calm.
Despite this, Laurent had his usual type of quip ready. He didn’t need it as a shield anymore but somehow, with Damen, it felt comfortable. It felt like it could possibly be a real version of himself, and not just a facade. “You know I am capable of making it to the office without you, right? Grown adult here, hello?”
The Akielon rolled his eyes but his telltale dimple gave away his amusement. He leaned over and planted a soft kiss on the bend of his jaw before lending an arm toward Laurent, who didn’t accept it but instead slipped his hand through Damen’s. Callus on callus, both palms had seen enough action for a lifetime.
“So they finally have Ancel talking?” Laurent hadn’t thought about him much since that night. It wasn’t until they had gotten the call that he had recalled him. His regular hauntings were his victims; he never lost sleep over the terrible men.
“Yep,” Damen replied, grimly. He ran his free hand through his hair, which he often did as he pondered something serious. “Auguste is going to interview him but Nik has asked us to watch from the observation room.”
It was a brisk day with the beginnings of autumn starting to assert itself on the late summer weather. Laurent tucked his thin jacket tighter and leaned into Damen’s hulking warmth as they approached the Akielon agency headquarters.
Fifteen minutes later, they were standing in the dimly lit observation room. The small room looked out into a larger brighter room. Laurent’s stomach turned unpleasantly as he looked at the pale figure sitting in the stark interrogation room on the stiff metal chair. His hands were unbound yet he kept them clasped together on the matching metal table. He looked so different to how Laurent had remembered him. In the dreary taupe prisoner garb, he seemed to have lost his normal energy; it was like he had feeded off of his silks.
Auguste sighed, his hands in pockets as he surveyed the room. Nik stood next to him reviewing the report that the field pair had put together. Damen and Laurent stood at the farthest end of the tiny room, waiting patiently for their superiors to speak first.
“He was the one actually in contact with the TVP. So, he should be able to tell us if there are any remnant contingents left.” Nik muttered into the files, his nose barely lifting off the page.
Damen stepped forward slightly, his hands in his pockets, still with one eye on Ancel. Laurent didn’t have much to add as he was asleep for a lot of the initial debriefing and assumed Damen had covered most of the details.
“Sir, Donny has already mapped the other TVP cells and there are a handful at best. Really, we should focus on following the money trail. From the documents I found at the Berenger estate, most of the money was actually not through investors but from his own accounts. His business was afloat but not as liquid as this.”
The Veretian boss exhaled softly. “So there is still money somewhere. What we found after raiding his place does not nearly cover what was reported in the documents. Makedon is making a start with that. Some of the other bills found on Berenger’s body were sequential as well. Let’s see how this goes.”
Auguste, who had been silent until now, buttoned his suit jacket and adjusted his tie before a quick nod to the others. “If he knows something, we’ll get it out of him.”
He left the room quietly as the other three turned and stood in front of the one way mirror to watch the interview unfold.
The door opened and closed briskly. “Hi Ancel, I am Auguste, head of the Veretian bureau. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”
Ancel flashed a half smile toward the chief. “I’m fine unless you have something stronger, thank you.”
“Yes, of course, let me see what I can do,” he said with a subtle gesture to the cameras. “Are your quarters ok?”
Laurent could practically feel Damen bristle next to him. He was surely itching to go in there after witnessing even mere minutes of this good cop routine. Yet, there was actually more than kindness to the Veretian way. Poor Damen had himself fallen for the ruse. And surely by now, he knew how it worked after seeing Laurent in action. Laurent brushed a covert hand across Damen’s wrist, pressing gently. A subtle but reassuring gesture. He could immediately feel the Akielon’s fist loosen slightly within the confines of his pocket.
“Oh, you know. It’s practically the Arles Grand Hotel,” Ancel parried loftily, a hand gesturing airly at the chilly surroundings.
Auguste made no motion to reply to that. “So, you’re here because we want to know more about the TVP and your plans with them.”
“Where are the dynamic duo?”
“I’m sorry?” Auguste looked at him intently, the icy stare revealing nothing.
“Delfeur and Laurent. Where are they? Shouldn’t they be in here?”
Like the seasoned professional that he was, Auguste diverted brilliantly. “You’re speaking with me now and I was very interested to meet you.”
Right on cue, which Laurent wouldn’t have put an orchestrated move past Auguste, the knock came and one of the assistants brought in two plastic cups of red wine.
“Sorry, I hope this will do. It’s not the Grand Hotel, as you say.”
Ancel chuckled, clearly slightly impressed and doing his best to hide it. “I’m surprised this even came through, to be honest.” He raised it toward his interviewer before taking a long sip. “I’m guessing you’re in charge here then?”
Laurent’s boss responded easily to the question, answering with a classic non answer before steering Ancel back toward general conversation. He tried all the angles that a seasoned spy would be trained to do and with someone like Ancel and it more or less worked. As Ancel’s tongue loosened with the wine and the pliant compliments from Auguste, Laurent couldn’t help but send a smug look to Damen. If he wasn’t convinced of their methods before, he should be now. Whoever said kindness couldn’t kill?
Damen’s affectionate eye roll was enough to send Laurent spinning.
“And Berenger?”
Laurent’s eyes darted rapidly as they focused to meet Ancel’s reaction, whose confident mask slipped for a moment, the assured smile dropping for the briefest of seconds.
“What about him?” The ginger took another long sip of his wine, drawing out his pause and giving himself time to reset. “Delfeur killed him. You took everything from me.” The pretty face darkened as he spat out each bitter word and he looked toward the two way mirror, his eyes unwittingly meeting Laurent’s and sending a chill up his spine.
Auguste adjusted his cup, taking his time to carefully align it with the pen and pad on the table. An abundance of right angles and a move that Laurent found calming from the previous chaos. Satisfied, the grizzled chief leaned back and steepled his hands. Now Auguste was the one lengthening the time with his dramatic pause.
“What if I told you differently?”
A pair of emerald irises flashed dangerously and a trace of the old, confident Ancel that Laurent had first met came rushing back.
The spymaster didn’t hold for him to reply but continued on, pressing his advantage. “Your Mr, Berenger is currently in a coma in one of our best facilities. He hasn’t woken, yet, but it looks like he could imminently.”
There. The coup de grace. The grand finale.
There was only one outcome from here. Auguste sat back, knowing there was nothing more to say. His hand perfectly played, he had won. Laurent couldn’t help but marvel at the skill of his boss, pure admiration across his face as he watched the scene like a film.
“So that’s it then, is it?” Ancel asked, defiantly. “I tell you what I know and then you’ll let me see him?”
Wordless, Auguste stood, brushing down the imaginary dust from his immaculate suit to waste further time. The Veretian slid the pad and pen across the table to land neatly in front of Ancel. The white paper gleamed like a mirror in the vivid overhead light, illuminating the paleness of the ginger’s face.
Softly, Auguste planted the final nail in the coffin, “Write down everything you know about the TVP and I’ll see what I can do.”
Ancel lifted his shaking blanched hand to grasp the pen. His face wan, he was a man who knew he had been beaten. He stared at the blank page, his recourse placed so clearly in front of him. He nodded imperceptibly but it was enough. They all saw it. A satisfied Auguste exited the room without another glance.
——
After a couple more hours of debriefing sessions for Laurent and Damen with Makedon and their agency heads, they were allowed to leave. Damen tried hard again to help Laurent down the front steps. Laurent couldn’t help but smile thinking about the last time they were here. Damen, in his solemn dark suit storming down the steps. Even then, Laurent had sensed something different about his reluctant partner.
“So, if you won’t let me help you, are you at least going to take me to that bar of yours?”
Astonished, Laurent could hardly reply. “The one around the corner? You remembered that?”
Damen laughed a big, easy chuckle. “I may not have wanted anything to do with you but I’m still a spy, you know.”
Laurent slipped his hand into the crook of Damen’s arm and squeezed tightly as they turned down the sidewalk. “Nothing gets past you, Theo Delfeur.”
His favorite bar was a dim old haunt filled with dark wood and hushed tones. It was what some would call an old man bar. True, Laurent also liked the modern clean lines of his beloved art-deco hotel bars that he frequented but this was his real element. It just wasn’t somewhere he would ever go on a job or with a regular coworker. And as soon as they stepped in, he could feel Damen realizing it. What it meant for Laurent to take him here.
“Come.” Laurent led him the familiar path into the deeper recesses where a wooden arch revealed a rounded nook with just enough room for two.
An ancient barman approached just as they squeezed into the worn, barely padded seats. “Mr. Laurent, long time.”
“Hi Norman. Are you well? The grandson doing ok?”
“Yes, Mr. Laurent. Thank you.”
Laurent ignored Damen’s puzzled face who he knew was just teeming with questions. “My friend here will have your best sazerac and I’ll have my usual.”
Not a second after he was out of earshot, Damen blurted out his question. “What did you do for his grandson?” His eyes full of mirth, they searched Laurent’s face for the answer.
“Ok, just relax over there. He was getting into a spot of trouble —not dissimilar to us in our youth— so I set him up at one of the agency training camps. If he’s good enough, he’ll start his training to be like us, and if not, they’ll set him up with some sort of desk job. Either way, he’ll have something.”
Instead of words, Damen looked at him in awe, as he always seemed to at Laurent. No one else ever looked at him like he was remarkable or irreplaceable. Not until he met the Akielon.
“And what did you mean by ‘friend’?”
Lost in his own thoughts, Laurent nearly missed Damen’s insecure whisper but he heard it all the same.
Laurent reached over to take Damen’s hand, laying the back flat on the smooth worn wood of the table. He traced the lines on the tanned palm with his own fingers. He had a feeling this question would come; he knew it as soon as he had said the words. Norman certainly didn’t care about who Laurent was bringing into the place but for some reason he had phrased it like that.
“It just came out. I don’t know what I meant by it. Now tell me this isn’t the best sazerac you have ever tasted.” Laurent changed the subject as cavalierly as he could be and surprisingly, Damen allowed him.
His partner dutifully took a sip of the bittersweet amber drink and set it down, licking his lips slightly. Laurent swallowed hard, pushing down the subtly building heat as he watched the bob of Damen’s Adam’s apple.
“Well, shit.”
“Right? You’re welcome,” Laurent finished, breathing a slight sigh of relief as he regulated his own heart rate. He had hoped he hadn’t fucked up with his slip of the tongue. He sipped his own drink, a vermouth-less martini. It was stark and with a tinge of burn that was pleasant to him. It made him feel alive and in this moment, he hoped it would burn away his mistake.
“I don’t want to be just friends,” Damen said, at last, breaking the silence of the heavy unsaid thoughts hanging above them like dark clouds.
“I meant everything that I said in the garden. I want to be with you…if you’ll have me.”
The dark cloud cleared to sun and all Laurent could do was reply with a kiss. Because of course he felt the same, he simply hadn’t known how to say it. Laurent leaned over, their breaths mingling that he felt drunk off of it. It was a drawn out and slow kiss —deliberate and meaningful— and as their lips parted, the skin caught, like it was reluctant to separate.
“Shall we go to my place?”
The next twenty minutes were a frenetic flurry as they abandoned their drinks and hailed a cab. To their best ability, they tried to hold back but their hands were all over each other. Laurent, normally a picture of control, tried to refrain, but like magnets, his hands were attached to Damen’s neck and chest and waist.
At long last, they arrived at Laurent's residence and in a moment of clarity, he paused outside. Since Laurent had been well enough to leave the hospital, Damen had not yet come to his place. They had agreed to take it slow, to give themselves room after the harrowing mission.
“What is it?” Damen asked, already slightly breathless, cheeks pinking.
“Just that, this isn’t really my house. It’s my Akielon residence and well, it’s not quite what you would expect…it’s not quite what I would have wanted for the first time.”
Damen pulled Laurent close and kissed the top of his head, into his hair and breathing him in. “I don’t care if we are in the middle of the Vaskian woodlands. Take me upstairs.”
They entered the stark and somber building that didn’t look dissimilar to the Akielon agency. The elevator played gentle music as they took the eternity up to his 12th floor apartment. Damen wasted no time though, pressing his mouth to the side of Laurent’s neck, pushing him up against the smooth metal of the lift.
Finally, mercifully, the loud ding signaled that they had arrived. Another quick stumble and they were in front of his door. 12E. The metallic gold letters standing guard in front of the black door. Fumbling in his pocket for the keys, Damen’s hands were already at his waist, ready to breach his shirt.
Laurent twisted the key into the locks and pushed open the door. Laurent grabbed Damen’s arm to pull him toward the bedroom but the Akielon had stopped in his tracks, laughing.
Damen’s eyes were whizzing around the main room, attempting to take it all in. The room was sparse in the most generous of terms. The most cluttered part was the left wall of the living room that was neatly covered in images and schematics from the TVP case. A sad folding table sat in the middle with one lonely matching chair.
“You weren’t kidding,” Damen said, amused.
“I’m sorry about the mess.”
“Mess? Are you joking? You're the first person I’ve ever seen have an organized case board. Are those images on a grid or did you use a ruler?” Damen stepped closer to survey the messy wall incredulously.
Laurent didn’t reply and pulled him away and into the bedroom where the mattress lay on a simple wooden frame, exactly centered in the room. There was no other furnishings or touches.
Damen sat down on the bed and pulled Laurent toward him. “Now, where were we?”
Dipping his head, Laurent leaned in to kiss Damen, a hungry, needy kiss. His arms wrapped around his rugged neck as his hair fell over them, concealing both their heads in shadow. Leaning his weight down, he pushed Damen down onto the bed. He stood between Damen’s taut thighs and reached to unclip his belt.
With shaking hands, Damen leaned forward to unbutton Laurent’s shirt. They both fiddled, both clearly out of practice but the urgency took over: as pressing as a need for oxygen. Clothes finally flung off, Laurent bent to bring his mouth to Damen’s.
It wasn’t cold but Damen’s skin had raised goosebumps beneath Laurent’s hands.
“Are you ok?” Laurent asked, suddenly self-conscious that something was going wrong.
Damen’s strong hand gripped the back of Laurent’s neck, commanding his attention. “I’m fantastic,” he assented playfully, his voice like frosted glass as he flipped Laurent over, putting the Akielon on top.
Grinning into his skin, Damen leaned down and pressed a kiss onto Laurent’s collarbone, eliciting a faint moan from him. Damen forged on, his dark head stamping a trail of kisses down his bare chest arousing trembling shivers from Laurent as the gasping pleasure rose from him like a dormant volcano coming alive.
Damen’s head moved lower and lower down to the base of his stomach, pausing to brush his tongue lightly over the curve where Laurent’s pelvis started to narrow. That faint touch brought his hair on end, sending a spark to his core. His body braced for it, the muscle memory of what came next eliciting a blissful spasm. Finally, Damen’s head dipped and when his mouth met the tip of Laurent’s dick, all he could do was close his eyes and let the pleasure wash over him.
——
They probably could have stayed like that forever but in the end it was a couple days. It had been glorious and Laurent savored the heady memory of entwined limbs and smooth skin. But it had been more than that. Though it was their bodies unclothed and naked, it had been more than that laid bare. In the milky filtered light from the gauze curtains and murmured tones, they had talked as openly as ever. The snippets of vulnerability during the mission was just a preview, the full picture was now completely clear and overt. It had done more wonders for Laurent’s healing than the hospital stay.
However, after that glorious period of respite, Auguste had ultimately recalled them back. A spy’s job was never done and these borrowed days were a priceless gift from the agency.
Back in Nik’s gentleman’s club style office, they sat in the matching chairs. Auguste leaned on the edge of the table, holding out the crisp packets.
“We have wind of a smuggling group gaining control and operating off the Ellosean. Figure out what they’re doing and where the money is coming from. But before we get into the details, Nik and I have an announcement.”
The agencies were merging. Despite the casualties and wreckage, the work on the Vask case was deemed a success. The world of espionage was changing and single agencies did not have enough resource for all the evil in the world. Moving forward, Nik and Auguste would lead the joined agency together.
Laurent snuck a glance over to Damen who looked up to meet him from his own notes. They weren’t asked their thoughts or if they had questions but it wasn’t a suggestion and nor did Laurent have anything to add. Damen seemed wholly unsurprised by the news and expected Nik might have given him a head’s up.
“Head down to Kesus and figure out what’s going on. That’s it.” Nik dismissed them.
Damen went home to prepare for the trip but the pair had agreed to meet in front of the airport the next afternoon. They strolled into the lounge together where Marcel came over to greet them.
“Mr. Delfeur will have a bourbon,” Laurent ordered, decidedly.
“...And Mr. DeVere will have a wet martini with a twist.”
Their eyes met and they both laughed, unable to help themselves at the rare comedy that they found themselves in.
“Some things never change, I guess?” Laurent queried.
“Some do, though,” Damen replied with a small smile, discreetly grasping Laurent’s hand and brushing a thumb over the back of it before quickly letting go.
Laurent smiled back, the shadow of Damen’s touch still lingering like a phantom on his skin. He was right. Some things would never change; they would still live and die by their missions and the cause. But some things would. Laurent wouldn’t be alone. Neither of them would and that made all the difference.
Draining his drink, Laurent gazed at the man in front of him, his present and his future. “Let’s go over the case.”