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It's not that it's been a while. It has, but Quinn's used to that, to finding rest and recreation between jobs or not at all, to going months without touching another human except to hurt them or slip something from their pocket. It's not that.
It's a little bit that the hitter's warning shot grazed his ear and nothing more - Quinn cursed under his breath and pulled back, retreating to a more defensible position to reassess the situation, until he heard another distant shot and realised the hit had already been done. There's only one person anyone would want dead in that house.
Well, that makes his job easier. Though if this guy's as good as Quinn suspects, making the shot from that kind of distance, it would probably be dangerous to claim this hit as his own. No knowing what powerful figure he might be slighting.
He only caught a glimpse of the hitter through his binoculars: a lanky, unassuming guy with long brownish hair, further from the target than even Quinn would prefer. He was out in the open for only a fraction of a second. Quinn wouldn’t have had much of a chance to take him out if he wanted to.
And he doesn’t, not really. The guy let him off with a warning shot. Quinn’s not the type to hold grudges.
He mulls it over while he cleans the graze on his ear, tensing his jaw at the sting of antiseptic and resolving to redress it once he has access to a mirror. He does what he can to clean the blood from his neck, anyway; he changes his shirt and glances over the jacket before slipping it back on. He heads back to civilisation, planning his next steps.
This kind of job incomplete, and this employer, there’s every chance they’ll be demanding back the money they gave him up front. It’s not the done thing, but hitters have few workers' rights that they don't fight for themselves, and it’s difficult to get jobs when you take out every employer who irritates you.
He’ll have to watch his step for the next month or so. Give back the money only if it becomes necessary. He collects his things from the shitty hotel he’s been staying in with every intention to get moving, nevermind that he’s paid for the room for the next two days, when something at the bar catches his eye: long wavy hair, brown streaked with an early grey.
He’s a little smaller than Quinn, deceptively quiet in his body, measured in his movements as he raises his glass to drink. He’s got a soft guitar case leaning against the bar beside him.
He has to know Quinn’s there.
No bloodshed, yet, except the scrape on Quinn’s ear that functioned as a professional heads-up. No reason for them to run into trouble, so long as Quinn knows what’s good for him.
He does. He makes it his business to. Nothing comes of chasing danger in a line of work like this - he encounters it enough already. He’s got scratches on his rib-bones from things he had no way of escaping.
Quinn doesn’t take the seat beside the stranger - he takes the next one over. “Whatever you’ve got,” he tells the bartender, sliding her the money, and she doesn’t bother meeting his eyes as she takes it.
The stranger doesn’t look up. Doesn’t take his gun out, either, which he could without anyone else seeing. Quinn takes that as a point in his favour.
“Just passing through?” he tosses sideways, taking a swig from the glass that’s set in front of him. His nose wrinkles as it hits his palate. Neither of them picked this place for its drinks.
The guy shoots him a look. Impassive eyes, dark in this light. Quinn feels a twinge of disappointment.
“Had a job in the area,” the man says, very soft. A practised English accent, something tucked away beneath. “Finished now. I hope.”
“I hope so too,” Quinn says, following his cue and looking ahead. Glass clinks as the bartender goes about her work. A faint creak from the ceiling as someone walks overhead. Quinn glances down at the bar. “Mine didn’t go to plan. I’m cutting my losses.”
No response. If he focuses, he can catch a whiff of gun oil, of disinfectant. For a moment he wonders what the guy did with the body. For a moment he wonders who hired him for this.
He doesn’t consider asking. Some caution goes too deep to be waived. He knocks back the rest of his drink, grimacing again.
“Looks like you’re moving on tonight,” says the man, gesturing with his glass to Quinn’s duffel bag. He doesn’t look up as he says it.
Quinn chooses his next words carefully. “I was planning to.”
The man looks up for a little longer this time. There’s nothing soft about him - not his expression, not his sharp, neat nose, not the several days’ growth of stubble, not his eyes. His hair, though. Quinn wouldn’t mind touching that.
He gets up and doesn’t touch him, doesn’t do more than brush close - still a few inches’ distance, but hitters value their personal space - and feel the man’s eyes still on him. He takes a moment to pretend to check his pockets for his wallet and phone. Hears the soft thump of a glass set down behind him.
He doesn’t have to look back to tell the man’s following him to his room. He does Quinn the courtesy of keeping his footsteps audible; Quinn does him the courtesy, when the man follows him in, of only watching in the corner of his eye as the man checks the bed and bedside table. No weapons there, now, but Quinn wasn’t expecting to come back.
“My name’s,” he starts, but the man cuts in with a whip-fast “I'm not interested.” Okay, not a dealbreaker. Quinn expects he knows anyway - or will do, in due course - but maybe he wants that plausible deniability for just a bit longer. Hitters hook up with each other all the time. It’s only unprofessional to let it interfere with the job.
He leaves his jacket folded on the sagging armchair, takes off his necktie so it can’t be used against him. The man’s leaning back against the bed when Quinn turns to him, his arms folded, his eyes attentive, and he straightens up when Quinn draws closer.
He kisses well. Precise and firm, leading, and Quinn’s happy to follow. One hand is on Quinn’s hip and he wouldn’t be surprised if he’s holding a weapon in the other (Quinn has a knife strapped to his leg, a gun further down, isn't expecting to strip that far tonight.) His hair is soft, but at the first touch the man draws back, thumb digging hard into the front of Quinn’s hip, and says “No pulling.”
“Gotcha,” Quinn says, and folds to his knees.
It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy it. It’s not that it isn’t good to slide his hands over the man’s thighs and grip just a little through the fabric, to hear the first intakes of breath as Quinn really gets going. He closes his eyes and focuses on the closeness, the communication, the simplicity of it.
He’s glad the man put on a condom without asking, glad for the “I’m going to touch your face” he gets out, a little tense, after a minute of this. Quinn hums his acknowledgement and feels a thumb across his cheekbone, around his mouth, a callused palm cupping his jaw.
Quinn wishes he’d gotten to touch his hair more. It’s nice hair, would fly everywhere during a fight, if this guy favoured hand-to-hand, would escape a ponytail within seconds, would be a liability on anyone else, except that he’s good enough—
He doesn’t realise the man is finishing until his hand drops down from Quinn’s face to his shoulder - not pulling him in, just making sure he knows where Quinn is in that moment of vulnerability. Quinn waits until the man takes his hand away again, brushing his fingers briefly across Quinn’s cheek, then doesn’t protest as the man pushes him back so he can deal with the condom.
He doesn’t protest when the man puts a hand on the front of his chest to nudge him back to sit on the bed, either.
It’s a good view. The man’s not as muscular as Quinn - a sniper first and foremost, if he had to guess - so it’s his slim shoulders and his hand propped on the bed and his hair that he only pushed back out of the way, so it’s already spilling forward. Quinn reaches without thinking, checks himself, waits until the man’s dark eyes meet his before slowly tucking the hair behind his ear.
There’s a scar there, he realises, thick and curved, like someone was stopped halfway through cutting off his ear. Quinn doesn’t touch it, keeping his hand in the man’s hair, and a brief scrape of teeth serves as a reminder that Quinn shouldn’t go any further. “It's alright, I’m not an idiot,” he murmurs, and realises as he’s saying it he’s convincing himself.
If this guy meant him harm though, Quinn’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be returning the favour so nicely.
Quinn shuts his eyes and lets himself enjoy it, lets himself make small noises of encouragement, lets his hand rest in the man’s hair and brush it back behind his ears, reminding himself to be gentle. They’re so used to the work of violence, day to day, it’s a miracle people like them even manage this.
They do, though. With the man’s hand on Quinn’s hip to press a little at the bruise when he moves too much, with the man’s mouth, with his hair thick and soft and exactly how Quinn had hoped. Exactly how he thought it might be, left loose around his shoulders like this. And shit, the fact that he gets to touch it, the fact that they’re here, trusting each other even this much, bringing each other pleasure instead of pain this time—
He finishes with a shudder, the man's hand on his hip encouraging him still, and Quinn opens his eyes a little blearily to see his sharp nose, his serious face, his dark eyes.
His dark eyes.
Quinn follows the thread of confusion in him even as the man draws back. He schools his own face, sure already that he doesn’t want to show any more vulnerability than he has, and sorts himself out and zips himself up as the man collects his own jacket and luggage.
For a second he thinks the guy might be about to kiss him again. Maybe he misread the intention; maybe something in Quinn's expression gives him pause. He moves on by.
The man doesn’t speak as he leaves, just gives a tiny nod from the doorway - Quinn’s back in his suit jacket and tie by then, and he returns the gesture, guessing what it means. That they’re professionals, that it’s nothing, that they don’t need to talk about it, that no-one else needs to know about this. In the worst hitter circles, just being known as a man who likes men can be enough to lose you jobs.
Quinn takes a moment to collect himself before moving on, bagging up the condom to dispose of elsewhere, checking his ammo and checking his things for bugs. He doesn’t wish for something softer than what he had. He doesn’t begrudge either of them for taking human contact where they can find it.
He doesn’t ask himself why, when he looked back down at the man, he expected his eyes to be blue.