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The rain of Lumiose was more Philippe's friend than Corbeau's. It always greeted him first, when he stepped out of the car or exited a building with a large umbrella in hand. Whether of mellow spring or frigid winter, Philippe gladly took the water onto his own nape first, so that he could block a single drop from ever reaching Corbeau.
There were vanishingly few good memories in the young man's mind of getting drenched. The least Philippe could do was keep those fraught times at bay with a little preparation.
He held the door, always, and prepared the umbrella, always, not minding at all if his own shoulders got a little wet in the process.
Winter bit mercilessly. The air itself was full of teeth, and gnawed at Philippe's nose, his ears, his cheeks. Any part of him that wasn't bundled up as he stood in position had been neatly excised from his proprioception. He might as well not have a face at all.
By his side, Corbeau rubbed his gloved hands and shivered one big shiver, the spillover from spending the whole stakeout trying not to appear cold at all.
Snow came down in thick meanderings. They could barely see the warehouse facade they were keeping an eye on—they would be impossible to spot where they lurked in turn, aided by the dimness of night laden white.
Philippe checked around their hiding spot, and wordlessly undid the front of his coat.
"Here, boss."
Corbeau flashed him an affronted glance, temporarily insulted—it was a corny offer, sure, better suited to cutesy young couples than two grown professionals standing out in the cold—then visibly reconsidered when another violent shiver wracked his tiny body.
Corbeau swallowed any pride he had in the matter and bundled closer, let himself be wrapped in the insulated sturdiness of Philippe's winter coat.
Each shuddering throe against his front became weaker, and weaker, until they died away entirely, smothered into submission by the warmth he proudly shared.
Corbeau's weight relaxing fully against his chest warmed him further. Philippe stoked that flame in his heart by grasping it, reveling in it, hoping it could keep his boss from feeling the cold for as many more hours as they had to be out here.
No longer shivering, Corbeau blew out a deliberate sigh, the wintry cloud of his breath rising in front of Philippe's face. Philippe tilted his head so that their exhales mingled, tangled into a billowing cumulonimbus that evaporated into the crisp night.
"Stand back, boss!"
The pavement rumbled, erupted in the center of the street with a spray of shattered brick and clods of dirt. Philippe threw his body out, blocked any rubble from reaching his boss with no mind for any pain or bruising, and sent his Skarmory loose right there on the street for a battle.
As if he'd let a single scratch reach the man he'd foolishly fallen for.
The Garchomp—an alpha based on the size of the body clawing from the ruptured earth—paid no mind to the scream or scramble of civilians, too engaged with the one pokémon baring her talons against it. This was the third containment breach this week—damn Quasartico for their technological oversights putting civilians at risk.
Philippe shouted a louder command. The Garchomp whipped its head around. Scaled lips peeled back in a snarl upon spotting him, and the beast hunkered low for a charge that Philippe didn't flinch from facing. He beckoned with a smirk.
Come to daddy.
The Garchomp lunged, a blur of teeth and streamlined form. Before Skarmory could intercept as planned, a walloping glob of sludge blasted the beast off course. Its thumb claws scrabbled for purchase on the brick, skidding a few feet and dripping an ooze that smoked upon its scales. They both took in the unexpected change in the battlefield, the presence of a new opponent.
Scolipede! Pawing at the ground and raring to fight, mighty horns lowered in challenge.
A firm hand clapped onto his back from behind.
"As if I'd let you hoard all the fun to yourself." Corbeau's voice carried a tease. "Let's wrap this up nice and tidy-like, shall we? We haven't been training together for nothing."
Philippe could only grin. The most reliable way to protect the boss was to eliminate the threat as quickly as possible; who was he to say no to the help?
"Philippe..."
A muffled gasp, music to his ears. Philippe's hands roamed, flicking shirt buttons open, sneaking inside to stroke over scars and palm a waist that fit his grasp perfectly.
He hadn't intended to interrupt their walk between one meeting and the next. Something just came over him—next thing he knew, he had Corbeau boxed into a corner, riding his thigh and sighing so sweetly, whispering approval, asking for more, and how could Philippe not give more whenever asked?
Footsteps. From around the corner.
Philippe whirled around with a stony face and presented himself as a fortress. Behind him, out of view, Corbeau remained still as a sculpture. Quiet as a Litwick's flame. With Philippe blocking the view, nobody could spot him in his disheveled state.
Two grunts strode around the corner of the hallway, laughing and chatting leisurely. New hires. They spotted Philippe (and only Philippe) and opened their mouths in greeting, only to startle back shut at the tombstone of seriousness Philippe had chosen to embody.
"If you two have the time to converse so casually," he intoned, "I suggest proving to me how much you care about your jobs, before I get the impression you can stand to lose them. Get moving!"
The grunts shouted their apologies and promises to work harder, and practically sprinted the rest of the way to the elevator on this floor. He affixed his flinty gaze to them right up until the doors slid closed.
He blew out a sigh and spun back around, voice low and apologetic. "That was close, boss. I was careless. We should—"
A fist latched onto his tie and ordered him to bend. He bent with no resistance, and his lips were summarily captured. Conquered in an instant, as only Corbeau could conquer. His hands braced against the corner walls, treating their upright sturdiness as lifelines. Tight fists. Control.
"Thanks," Corbeau murmured against his rigid, breathless mouth, "for making sure you're the only one who gets to see me like that."
His head spun. He forgot to breathe. Philippe nodded, and grasped for a hand he couldn't help but hold, and brought it right to his chest, then to his lips. His eyes shut while his heart tried (failed) to slow.
He'd guard the boss's vulnerability until the day he died, for it had become his and his alone.
"He's already done for."
Philippe didn't listen to them. If Corbeau was dead, he would know.
He would know.
Hunched and dripping blood like a ragged beast, Philippe spat to the side and rubbed across his face. His heavy knuckle dusters were slicked with blood, silver glossed red. Some of it was his own.
Behind him, the boss was a crumpled, barely wheezing heap. Not dead. Dying, maybe, on the cusp of succumbing, but not dead.
There were no more pokémon. That resource had been burned on all sides. It was only men left standing now, piloted by raw willpower to see their respective jobs finally done.
On one side was a haunting of grudges, repayable only by the death of a single man.
In the other corner, Philippe. Still kicking.
His eye had gone blind, betrayed by the blood dripping down from a cut in his forehead. His body, heavy. So enormously heavy. Rage was what kept him upright; taut strings of steel, not yet to be cut while the show wasn't over. He still had his part to play.
Every aching muscle was one light impulse away from exploding with intent to kill. If any one of those contemptuous bastards took a single suicidal step closer, his fists would kiss them goodnight as swiftly as they had the bodies strewn about the warehouse floor.
Boss only had to hang on for a little while longer.
"Stand aside already, Syndicate filth. It's meaningless to protect someone who's already finished. Meaningless! You waste yourself!"
His lips peeled back in a wide, bloody grimace. These men knew nothing. Nothing of what it meant to be the one who stood between the man he loved and all that would do him harm.
He raised his trembling fists anew. Spat blood straight down his front.
"My job... is to protect the boss," he shuddered out. "Whether that's meaningless to you doesn't mean shit to me—I'm not letting a single one of you touch him while I'm still breathing!"
His roar sent a few upright bodies skittering back. He grinned like he was mad (and he was, had gone mad years ago the moment he'd admitted it was love), and sank into a stance that promised pain and only pain to anyone wishing to try their luck against insanity.
"You want him?" He glared them all down, one by one, so they could read loud and clear his ironclad resolve. "You'll have to pry him from my cold, dead hands."
Corbeau wasn't moving, and what a comfort that was.
The young man had always been an exceptionally light sleeper. Twitchier than a wild Espurr, with the same uncanny ability to sense someone's approach and be on full guard in an instant. Even when Corbeau 'napped,' it was little more than a resting of his eyes, some part of his brain eternally reserved to monitor his surroundings at all times. All to protect himself from any threat that might approach while he was asleep.
It made sense, then, that the longer they'd worked together, the more Philippe had proven himself, the deeper Corbeau would allow himself to drift off in his presence.
He'd forgotten the boring details of the first time Corbeau had truly passed out around him. They were on a ratty couch. Pressure against his shoulder. He'd looked down, and... there he was. Glasses displaced in the opposite direction his cheek had pressed, mouth slack, pen loose in his hand. Philippe had frozen—he'd never seen anything like it before—and wisely chose to remain as still and silent as possible.
It still, to this day, filled his chest with a pride lighter than air whenever the boss fell asleep in his presence. He wasn't so oblivious as to not recognize what it meant—and not be rocked to his core at each renewed implication: that Corbeau still felt this safe around him.
Whenever he was this at ease, boss looked as young as he was the first time Philippe had seen that sleeping face.
So much time had passed alongside them. Moments like this—suspended, temporary, fragile, beautiful—sent him back to those early days in an instant.
Carefully, Philippe leaned down and pressed a stealthily fond kiss to the crown of Corbeau's head. A spot he only kissed when his partner was fast asleep.
Sure enough: no reaction.
He was the only man on earth who could get this close without waking him. He was the only man on earth who got away with a lot of things, where the Rust Syndicate's boss was concerned.
He was in damn deep, and there'd be no crawling out of it for him.
"Let's switch it up tonight. I'm tired."
Philippe knew exactly what that meant. It had been a long, grueling week, after all.
They swapped positions with ease. Corbeau sprawled flat on his back, legs spread in welcome, eyes low slits, smile curved lazy.
If Corbeau didn't want to lift a finger anymore, Philippe would ensure not a single trouble in the world could reach him. Everybody needed rest from any little thing that took effort—including, especially, taking the lead, whether outside the bedroom or in it.
Philippe would use the freedom of his dropped leash (metaphorical; his closet held the literal, and was not meant for tonight) to give Corbeau all that he could.
He grasped those dainty ankles, guided Corbeau's legs higher and flexibly higher until the smaller man was practically folded in half underneath him. The perfect angle to make him scream. To make him forget every responsibility while split open on his loyal subordinate's heavy, unrelenting cock.
The world couldn't touch Corbeau while he was like this: hidden under Philippe's shadow, where no prying eyes nor passing glance of Fate herself could find him.
No work. No stress. No enemies in this little apartment of Philippe's. There hardly remained any hierarchy, either—if not for that innate drive of Philippe's to devote his everything to the ones he loved, there would be none left at all.
He sank in deep, just the way Corbeau liked it. Pressed the small man into the bed's creaking mattress, and proceeded to erase every memory of how hard life could be from his little lover's burdened mind.
Contained within those hazy yellow eyes was a view of Philippe. Him, and him alone.
This was fulfillment. This was true purpose.
Scrawny fledgling no longer, Corbeau had spread his wings to cover nearly all of Lumiose beneath his shadow. This left Philippe, flightless but trying, to be the wind beneath his boss's wings instead. The nest to return to at night. The body blocking the barrels aimed at that chest, the roost upon which to rest for but a moment.
Whatever Corbeau needed, he would become. Gladly and without reservation.
Plenty would call it demeaning to be so relentlessly subservient, and Philippe would laugh in all their faces.
They could never understand what it meant. The pride, the joy, the love at play—love that transcended and reinforced their positions as leader and loyal follower. That tied them together as partners, in every definition that could be found.
No, he thought, no and never. It wasn't demeaning at all.
It had only ever been an honor.