Who: Louis and Evan What: A post-masquerade meeting. Where: Evan's apartment. When: A couple days after the masquerade. Warnings/Rating: Nothing worth warning for.
It was his second time meeting with Evan, and, yet again, Louis almost didn’t go. His brief conversation with Eames over the phone had left him absolutely mortified. Evan might have been the very last person Louis wanted to find out about his conduct at the party. As terrible as it all had been, until now he could try to put it behind himself and forget. This was even worse than just knowing - they’d spoken there. Evan had seen him at his worst. Of course, there was also no getting around the fact that Evan had torn into him, and having that in his back pocket did comfort him somewhat, strangely. It stood as clear evidence that they had both been things they normally weren’t at that party, and he could present that as an example of how warped everything had been. It comforted him to have a plan, to know he would have a good way to defend what had happened.
In the end, what convinced Louis to go was Eames’ sideways acknowledgement that he’d been badly hurt. Someone ought to see him, shouldn’t they? Louis could at least verify that he shouldn’t be in a hospital rather than his apartment.
Louis knew the way to Evan’s apartment, now, and didn’t have to think on the elevator to pick the right floor, nor pause in the hallway to know which room to go to. Still, standing outside the door, he hesitated. He could just walk away, after all. That, though, would mean never talking to Evan again, and all because of some idiotic masquerade. His resolve hardened again. There had to come a time when he stopped running every time someone might think badly of him. He’d explain it away, and then put it behind him. He would refuse to let it ruin everything.
Louis knocked on the door before he could change his mind again.
It was only the timing that kept Louis from having to deal with Cory.
Jack had been by just moments earlier, and Cory had relented and allowed Evan a private visit with the very respectable Republican politician after a thorough interrogation. Jack had left only seconds before Louis’ knock on the door, which meant Louis was spared a once-over that might not have gone as well for him as it had for Jack.
Evan was up and around, out of the wheelchair and working on putting back the living room Cory had destroyed, but it was slow work, and he tired easily. He was back on his meds, the numbing ones that kept him from both wanting to kill himself and feeling anything for anyone, but the DTs had hit him pretty hard the night before, and his fingers were still shaking whenever he tried to pick something up - which is what was happening when the knock at the door came.
Something crashed to the ground, and Evan cursed before letting his weight rest on a counter, clammy palm supporting his weight. He was pale, and he’d lost some weight in the past few days. A pair of track pants and a wifebeater did nothing to hide the way his heart raced beneath skin gone thin, or the way his breathing came too fast and quick. His arm and neck were covered in clean, white bandages, and his forehead was dotted with sweat.
“It’s open,” Evan finally managed, his other hand joining the one already on the counter, head bowed and dark hair sweat-tipped and clinging to the nape of his neck and his cheeks.
When the crash came, Louis tried the door without waiting for a response. He found when he stepped inside that Evan was standing, at least, and speaking, which was a relief. Other than that, he looked like death, and Louis waited only long enough to shut the door behind him before crossing the apartment toward him. All his silly, self-obsessed fretting about what Evan might think of him was swept away completely, and he came up beside him, eying the bandage on his neck. It was funny, how fear and concern could make him forget all his own idiocies in a second, regardless of how long he’d spent over them. “You should be in the hospital,” Louis said. He spotted the wheelchair, off to the side, and gestured to it. “Or, at the very least, sitting in that.”
Louis walked around the counter and picked up a towel from the kitchen, sliding it across to Evan so he could mop up the sweat practically dripping from his clammy skin. It was difficult not to be a little angry with him when he looked so very much like hell, and was so very much not getting appropriate medical attention. His words came out more clipped than usual, thick rs cut short at the edges by displeasure, curt and businesslike. “What happened?” For his part, Louis was clean and well-dressed, though casually, in a long-sleeved blue t-shirt and jeans that looked like he hardly ever wore them. He looked tired, but didn’t he always these days, and otherwise healthy. He was uninjured; there was clean, unbroken skin on his shoulder and neck where there should have been gashes to rival Evan’s.
Evan was not expecting Louis. He knew Eames had invited the other man, but it was a peripheral knowledge. Evan knew Eames existed, but he didn’t pay him a lot of attention, and he assumed the same thing happened in reverse. So Louis’ visit wasn’t actually expected, and it was more likely that Stella was going to be the one to walk through the unlocked door. But no, not Stella, and Evan knew he looked like shit. It was a good thing he wasn’t vain, or he might have minded, but he didn’t. He wanted a drink, but he didn’t mind, and he watched the blond cross the room. A chuckle, a grin. “There’s all that feeling, right there on your sleeve,” he said, letting go of the counter long enough to pluck clammy fingers along said sleeve, fabric slipping between his fingertips as the towel slid across to him.
The wheelchair would require a few long steps, so Evan just swiveled his hips and leaned back against the counter. He dragged the towel over his brow, and he gave Louis a lazy smile that did a fairly good job of hiding the pain he was in. “You saw it when you were at that party,” he said of the wound on his neck, because Louis had. “Just bigger when you’re a man and not a wolf. Lost a lot of blood, needed a lot of stitches, and apparently now is the right time to get the alcoholic to quit drinking, man.” He said it with the ease of a man that had left denial behind a long time ago. Evan knew he drank too much, and he knew exactly why he drank too much. He hadn’t gone into jail a drunk, despite his reason for being there, but all the A.A. meetings afterward had definitely helped get him there, to the point where the day started and ended with a drink. The signs, now that he was facing Louis, were all very obviously the DTs (if the man had ever seen anyone going through them) and not a result of the stitches beneath the bandage on his neck.
“No injuries,” Evan added with a pointed finger at Louis’ body in general. It was a question.
Somewhere along the way, Louis’ skill at hiding his emotions had gotten rusty - poor, even, and Evan pointing it out only highlighted it. “Yes, well. You’ll pardon me for being concerned,” he said, a little stiff to cover for it. He remembered the wounds on Evan, yes, but everything he remembered from the party was through a filter of insane, dusty haze, all emotional blur and tactile sensation. “You decided to quit now?” he asked, not bothering to mask his surprise. He hadn’t quite marked Evan for an alcoholic, but he hadn’t known him for very long, and, in retrospect, it fit. If he was one, deciding to quit while healing from a life-threatening wound was not the best recovery plan Louis had ever heard in his life. “You’re sure that’s a good idea?” He recognized the symptoms of the DTs from when he’d still been working for the London Metropolitan Police. Some of the men and women dragged out of bars would stay in the holding cells for some time without anyone to post bail, long enough that they began to shake so hard it seemed as if their bodies might rattle apart. “You should sit down, at least,” he said, reproachful, and reached to drag a chair closer.
“No injuries,” Louis repeated, after getting a chair near enough that Evan could collapse into it without walking too far from the counter. His jaw set a little tighter as he remembered. “I went through the door,” he said, his measured expression all too blatantly defensive. “I wasn’t going to last long in that state, and through the door I was able to get it fixed.” Of course, he hadn’t wanted to face anyone, either. The injuries had been a very real thing, but really, he would have found another excuse even if they weren’t there. It had been cowardly, and there was no getting around it.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Evan admitted, because it was, and because it wasn’t his. He tapped the side of his head, indicating who the idea belonged to, and he motioned Louis closer with a hand, wanting to use him as support to get to the bed (he was sick and tired of the wheelchair and a chair was more of the same). “He decided, and he roped in someone who hates me to help, and I’m being held prisoner, man,” he said, his voice mellow, even with that declaration. “They wanted me off all my I’m a psycho drugs at once too,” he added, too gone with the DTs and painkillers to moderate what he was admitting to. “I told Cory I’d probably throw myself off the balcony, and he relented on the antiDs.” It sounded like Evan wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, and he closed dark blue eyes scored through with red lines, as if that would clear his mind.
A few seconds later, Evan looked at the chair again, and he just reached a hand out for Louis’ shoulder. “Bed, near the window. Could use some fresh air, man,” he said. “Then you can tell me what mister control-freak in your head did,” because there wasn’t any point in pretending Louis didn’t have someone dangerous upstairs, not as far as Evan was concerned. Eames, for his part, didn’t say anything. He was quiet, as he normally was, and Evan was grateful for the reprieve from him and Cory. “I should warn you. He’ll throw you out if you’re here when he comes back, Cory.” And maybe it was all disjointed, but it was that kind of a day. He touched his fingers to Louis’ blond curls. “Still pretty.”
Louis moved up beside Evan when he gestured for him, sliding an arm around his waist to keep him upright. “Who the hell is holding you prisoner?” he asked, glancing toward the door. The implications of that were worrying. It might be for Evan’s own good, but he certainly wouldn’t want Loki conspiring with someone else to hold him prisoner, for instance, no matter what the motives were. If nothing else, Evan should have healed before trying to kick the alcohol and the anti-depressants.
The mention of them didn’t surprise him, since Evan had implied they existed before. The threat to throw himself off the balcony did, as did his reticence to take them. “If you have to take them, you should,” Louis said. “But if you aren’t any better with them, it might be worth thinking about getting off them as well. Not now, of course. Once you’ve healed. You could go somewhere - surely you can afford it.” He couldn’t help the instinct to plan. It took his mind off the present, and reassured him that there would be a future. There was a semblance of control in it.
Louis led Evan to the edge of the bed. “Not much,” he said, intending that to be the end of the conversation about Loki. It took him a second to track who was going to throw him out of where, and he glanced back in the direction of the door again. “Well, he’s free to try. I don’t intend to leave until you’ve been settled, however.” He didn’t like the sound of any of this - Eames dictating a possibly harmful regimen of cleaning up while healing from a serious injury, his mysterious henchman going along with it and keeping Evan prisoner. It didn’t seem ethical, or like a good environment to heal in. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to the hospital?” he offered. “Get away from all of this?”
The fingers in his curls made Louis pale a little rather than flush. “You’re disoriented,” he said, as wry as he could manage, and helped him onto the bed.
“The guy in my head, he has a friend in someone else’s head, and they decided together. But it’s Cory helping me. I killed Cory’s girlfriend. He kind of has issues with me,” he said, all as if he was telling Louis about the weather. So maybe the DTs made it hard to think, but they also made it hard for him not to just say whatever he was thinking, no safety filter. Evan wasn’t made up of obfuscation, but he was generally less of an open book, that’s for sure. “He’s trying to help; he’s just driving me nuts, man.”
Evan settled on the bed, and somehow it was alright to let Louis help him there. It wasn’t like Cory, who was waiting to kick him when he was down, not with Louis. Evan let his fingers drag through those blond corkscrews as he rested back against the pillows, a hiss at the still lingering pain in his throat coming with the movement. The caress, the petting, the dragging of long-boned fingers through strands of blond, it was rhythmic, and Evan closed his eyes a few seconds in. “I have visual hallucinations. No shrink worth his salt is going to take me off the antipsychotics,” he said truthfully.
The offer of a hospital wasn’t particularly reassuring, not for Evan, and he shook his head. “No way. Hospitals lead to mental wards. One look at my cocktail, and I’m in a padded room with someone drooling beside me. No way, man.” His hand slid down to rest on Louis’ shoulder, and it stayed there, clammy and pale. “Not disoriented. Tell me about him,” he coaxed about Loki, voice a sandpaper reminder of the masquerade.
Louis sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn't really have much other choice, with Evan's fingers dragging continually through his hair. It seemed to soothe him, and what right did Louis have to deny him that? Admittedly, after a few strokes of Evan’s hand over him, he’d lost some of his tension. It was almost disgusting, how easy he was. All it took as a touch and his resolve to keep his distance disappeared. "You killed his girlfriend?" he asked. His friend, Cory, undoubtedly wouldn't be helping Evan if Evan had murdered her in cold blood, so it had to be something else, something that would bind the two together in a net of mutual obligation. He'd seen that sort of relationship more than once while working in London. "What happened?"
Louis stood still and straight, but the smooth drag of fingers through fine, tight curls kept him from tensing too much. "I've seen you watching something in the room," he said. It was in his nature to be observant. He wouldn't have made a very good officer if it hadn’t been. "I didn't assume you were seeing something I wasn't. I thought you were just thinking." The question of what Evan saw when he stared at some fine, invisible point in the middle distance went unsaid.
"Alright," Louis said, acquiescing reluctantly. He did have a point. "But if you worsen, you shouldn't let anyone keep you here just because of that. I'll come break you out if need be." The suggestion wasn't all that joking. He was starting to think that Evan was going to need a jailbreak from his own apartment someday soon.
Louis looked down at Evan on the bed. He hadn't forgotten that voice, despite the thick fog of despair that coated most of his masquerade memories. He would have recognized it at the time, perhaps, had he been in his right mind. Now it made him think of sharp teeth, blood, and the flush of desperate lust. He looked away again. "His brother is here," he said, his voice low, as if Loki wouldn't hear him if he was quieter. He smoothed his hand over the comforter. "He isn't happy about that. They have a...difficult relationship. I think he plans to do something through his door to make a point to him, but I don't know what." He shrugged his shoulders. Useless. “I feel as if I should know more, be able to do more to stop it, but I don’t, and I can’t.”
“Really want to know?” Evan asked, fingers not stilling, and the question every bit rhetorical. “I was drunk, driving, getting a blowjob from a college student with blond curls, and I ran a light.” He shrugged, like he’d come to terms with it all years ago, though he hadn’t. “Did time, but not enough, came out mostly nuts, though no one really knows why. I see the dead chick everywhere, Becky, even though I never knew what she looked like. She changes, but it’s always her.” A pause, and despite everything his smile was enigmatic, blue eyes sparkling with something that made all kinds of promises in his pale face. “Ready to run yet?” His lips quirked into a smirk, because if Louis was anyone else he would stand up, and he would flee, but Evan thought he had Louis’ number pretty well; Louis wouldn’t go, not that easily.
Evan watched Louis stand, watched him go still and straight, and he didn’t add anything more about the hallucination that was currently in the corner of the room. She was his, apparently, and not for anyone else. Just his, and he deserved her, with her deep, disapproving eyes. “I’ll call you if I need saving,” he agreed. And a second later. “How about if I want dinner, can I call you then too?” And, oh, there was that charm, it quirked the corner of his mouth, and it put dimples in his cheeks, and his eyes smiled in a way that said yes, you, without Evan even being conscious of it. It was just Evan being Evan, that’s all.
When the hand smoothed over the comforter, Evan closed his fingers around the pale wrist there. “Prioritize. Staying alive first. Containing his chaos to the door second. What can we do about the first?” And the question was rusty, because Evan hadn’t given enough of a shit to want to help anyone in years. Since before the accident, when he’d been assigned to hell in an office.
The blond curls were an odd coincidence, but nothing more than that. The story, however, was one of reckless tragedy, and of a worsening picture of Evan's mental health. Evan was right, of course, it would take more than a story like that to make Louis run, though it sparked off a few thousand questions he expected wouldn't get answered. "I'm not going anywhere, and you know it," he said with a touch of scoff, as naked an admission as Evan would likely get of how hard it was to drive him away once he'd been pulled in. He sat down again - just for a moment, until Evan seemed settled. "I don't think it's so hard to understand. The girl, I mean," he said. He hadn't flinched away from Evan, or turned his gaze from him in horror - only his frown had deepened as he listened. "You're guilty for what happened to her, so you imagine that she follows you and passes judgement on you. It doesn't take a trained psychiatrist to work that out. When you find a way to let go of it, someday, I bet you that she will go with it." He refocused his attentions on what he really wanted to know. "Why were you drinking with a boy's head in your lap? Difficult day? You must have been young." If he'd been in prison and come out already, it had to have been some time ago.
"I'll keep my ringer on," Louis said, that dry humor making a brief reappearance. He blinked at the proposal of dinner. A date? Was he asking him out on a date? "I might be free," he said. "If you call me a day or two in advance, of course." It was very, very difficult for Louis to play hard to get when he knew Evan had seen just how desperate he could really be. Maybe it was just a play, pretending he had his dignity still, but it was a play he had to cling to or he would fall apart, the emperor's clothes, all he had to make him feel as if he had some control in his life. He could at least feign reluctance, even if they both knew he was lying.
Louis' gaze shot up to Evan's face when he took hold of his wrist. "I'm flattered that you care," he said, "But I can take care of myself, in that regard at least." He sighed. "And I'm not any good to him dead. He won't let me be killed. My life is bound to his, and he has quite a few tricks up his sleeve." He quieted. "It's everyone else's lives I'm concerned about."
Evan’s calm expression said he wasn’t particularly disturbed one way or the other, if Louis decided to stay or go, and he smiled at Louis’ optimistic view of Becky’s constant presence in his life. “You should talk to my shrinks,” he said with a smile that reached his eyes, all confident tip of lips and a blue, blue squint. The question about why he was drinking, now that was one Evan hadn’t heard in a long time. His parents didn’t ask, and Stella didn’t want to know, and Cory was just pissed. As for lovers, there hadn’t been any of those since jail. And in jail? Nothing there was a subject for polite conversation. “If you’re looking for a sorry that justifies it, I don’t have one,” Evan said honestly. He wasn’t the kind of man to try to excuse his fuck ups, and Becky was definitely a fuck up. “I wanted to work in my field of study, my parents wanted me to take over the business. I was unhappy, and I did what every rich, unhappy kid does. I drank a lot, and I got into trouble a lot. I had too much one night, and I didn’t think.” Sometimes, it was as simple as that. No abusive parents, no horrible orphanage. Just a kid acting out.
“No calling at the last minute? You run a hard bargain, man,” was Evan’s reply to the quip about calling a day or two in advance. That came with a tug to the blond curls, lazy, lazy, even with the pallor and the clammy feel skin as he used the grip to coax Louis closer. Coax. urge, and then Evan’s mouth was slanting over the other man’s, and there was a hint of desperation there. It wasn’t born of desire, and it wasn’t born of any deep hunger for this, but there was hunger in it. Hunger for a drink, for the pain in his throat to disappear, for the shaking hands twined in the blond curls to go steady again. This close, the accelerated heartbeat was impossible to miss, the shallow breathing made the kiss something that started and stopped and started again, breath coming between the spaces. Evan tasted of dark coffee, of cigarettes, of orange juice beneath all that, and he didn’t let go of his mess of blond tangle when he pulled back. “If he causes trouble,” he said, without segue, “then you’re in danger out here. People are freaking out, man. They’re tilting at windmills.”
Louis had a tendency to want the world to be orderly, to make sense and have reasons even when he knew that all was chaos. Hearing a reason for the chain of events that had led to Evan being where he was today comforted him in a strange way. It meant that the problem had roots that could be found and pulled out. "What was your field of study?" he asked. He didn't ask what the business had been - that was irrelevant, if he hadn't cared for it, as long as it hadn't been traumatizing somehow, and it didn't sound like it.
A moment later, Louis wondered, what had they been discussing? He'd lost track, somewhere between the warmth of Evan's lips and the gentle tug of hands. He knew what Evan was doing, and it was fine. Louis could be a coping mechanism. As long as that kiss continued, soft but insistent, the masculine taste of coffee and cigarettes, the scent of musk, he could live with it. He fell into it without hesitation, leaning down against his chest when he was pulled, and when it stopped he felt like he was coming up for air, disoriented and at sea. "What?" he said. Windmills? What was he talking about? Then he remembered. "Oh. I know that, I do. But I can handle them. Only my brother and sister know. And you." And Dorian Gray, but that was another thing entirely.
Louis liked Evan's hand in his hair, and he rested against him, careful not to stress the wound at his neck. "You've kissed me before the date actually happens, you know. I don't think that's how it works." It was a moment of uncharacteristic boldness, nothing to do with anyone in his head, solely tied to the sort of cheek it took even a scrap of confidence to show. He had it, just that second, after being kissed.
Evan liked the distraction that came with this kiss - Louis’ distraction, not his own. He liked that the other man had to think to find words, and he’d always liked having that effect on another person. It was like honey, and Evan had always liked honey. It was a hint of who he’d been before everything went to shit, the smile that warmed his features then. “I like making it so you can’t think,” he said, smug, smug and all masculinity, even looking and feeling as shitty as he did. The hand in Louis’ hair slipped to the other man’s temple, where Evan’s thumb brushed back and forth against the thin skin there. “Thanatology. Death. I wanted to go into hospice work.” A grin. “Romantic, I know.” Again, that smile that said he didn’t take himself seriously, and he slipped into a heavy sigh at the windmills - Loki. “Think you can resist him?” he asked, because that was the only thing that mattered about Loki, wasn’t it? Whether or not Louis could resist him. But the serious expression only lasted a few seconds before a warm, promising smile replaced it. “Is that how it works? You’ll have to give me pointers. I might do everything out of order.”
"You're good at it," Louis said. There was no use denying that. He liked seeing Evan smile that way, and wondered what it would take to make sure he saw it on a regular basis. "It is romantic, in a morbid way," he said. "I wouldn't have guessed," he admitted. "You don't come across as the sort of man to be obsessed with death, or who would enjoy working around the dying."
It seemed to be the question everyone had for him lately, whether Louis would begin to sympathize too heavily with Loki, whether he would be too weak to keep himself from being taken in. His smile disappeared. "I know what he is," he said. "I understand what has happened to him to make him what he is, but I also know what he's done. I know the difference between right and wrong. I can't side with him, not after those things." He studied Evan's face. "Do you believe me? I don't think anyone does."
The warm smile did warm Louis a bit again, despite the heavy topic. "I might not mind that," he said, with a small smile, and a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He ducked his head a little closer, so that blonde lashes brushed over his cheekbone. "We do have to get you off the drugs," he mused. At last, he flushed a little, at even implying what he was thinking about.
“It’s beautiful,” was Evan’s reply about the entire process of death. It was one of the few things in life he felt passionately about, that he felt really mattered. His thumb strayed from Louis’ temple to his cheek, where he traced a long line against the other man’s cheekbone with the edge of his nail. “We’re born, and we die, and being around people when they’re like that, it’s pure feeling,” he said, and he sounded somehow more just then. He sounded like a man with a medical degree, someone suited to something more than a shipping office.
Evan thought for a moment before answering the question about Loki, his fingers straying to Louis’ jaw and chin, which he traced with the back of his fingers. “I think you see what he’s trying to do, and I think you don’t want to let him do it. I think we can all be overpowered though, under the right circumstances. It doesn’t hurt to have back-up, man,” he finished, thumb brushing against Louis’ lower lip as he said the final word. A grin. “Maybe not the best back-up,” he admitted, looking down at his own sorry state.
The comment about getting him off the drugs, though, that made Evan grin, and it was a smug grin, warm around the edges and accompanied by a thumb and forefinger against Louis’ chin. “And why’s that?” he asked, though he knew, of course he knew. But he wanted to hear Louis say it, and it was nice, actually wanting to hear something for a change. The blond lashes against cheekbones earned Louis a brush of a thumb, and that grin stayed in place as Evan waited for the answer to his question.
"I suppose I never thought about it that way," Louis said. He watched Evan's finger from the corner of his eye, relished that light touch and felt it long after it was gone, a line of warmth. "In my line of work, death is rather final, ugly, and often comes from the worst impulses of man. It's charged emotionally, but not in the pure way you mean, and it leaves misery behind. It's a different kind of death."
"You don't need to be the best. You're good back-up just as you are." Louis canted his head into the fingers at his chin, smiling a little despite himself. "I trust you to be harsh enough with me to snap me out of it if I find myself overpowered. That's all that's required, in this case. I think you can manage it."
Louis chose not to lift his head away and make his embarrassment visible. "Because, there are several things I'd like to do to you that I think are...unfortunately impossible, at the moment." He flushed a little deeper. Oh, god, he really was a teenager. When he was with someone he paid, it was easy enough to feign confidence. After all, in those situations, everything was pre-planned, organized, and there was no rejection to fear. Now, suddenly, he felt about sixteen again, expecting every remark to be the one that made Evan laugh and reveal it had all been a joke.
“Death always leaves misery behind, no matter how it happens,” Evan said, easily slipping into a subject that was as comfortable to him as worn, soft shoes. “Even when it’s welcome, like with illness or old age, it leaves things behind. But I’m more interested in the process leading up to it. Helping people get through it, letting them know it’s alright. Morbid, man, that’s my middle name,” he explained, but he didn’t sound apologetic about it. He tipped his head, the Las Vegas sunlight drawing a line across his stubbled jaw. “You’re a cop,” he said knowingly.
“Me? Harsh? Did I misrepresent?” Evan asked with a grin that went lazy-wide. “I don’t get what I want by pushing, Louis,” he admitted, because he never had. He’d been the kind of kid that smiled, dimples and bright blue eyes, and everyone ruffled his hair and gave him whatever he wanted. It had carried on into adulthood, that ability to make people like him. Evan, you see, had never tried very hard at all, not for anything.
A finger lifted Louis’ chin, firm and sure. “Is that right?” He wasn’t laughing, but he was certainly pushing.
“There isn’t anything wrong with morbidity,” Louis said. “It’s just a surprise, in you, imagining you as a psychopomp, taking pleasure in the job. You surprise me,” he added, which was perhaps the truest thing he could have said. “I was,” he said, agreeing and correcting. “I left my position as a police detective in London to come to the States about a year ago. Now I’m simply a private detective.”
“No,” Louis said, watching that grin, matching it with a smile of his own, lips pressed tight in amusement, “I suppose you don’t.” It said a lot that the statement didn’t spark even the faintest amount of bitterness in him, as it would have with anyone else. Louis felt a profound jealousy for people who saw things come to them so easily. With Evan, however, that ease of charm seemed to be working on him more than he would like to admit.
Louis attempted to regain a little of his dignity when tilted his chin up again, and he was looking him in the eye. “It is,” he said, standing by what he’d said, despite how embarrassed he felt of what he wanted. Stating his desires was a mountain to climb. He tended to defer. For the same reason that walking over to Evan across a crowded bar and seating himself next to him had been a completely unprecedented act, he had no idea how to drop inhibitions completely and spell out the thousand different things he would like to see Evan do, or let Evan do to him. Those were the sort of things the changeling at the masquerade could have discussed with ease, but Louis hadn’t the faintest idea how.
“A psychopomp,” Evan repeated, a chuckle, a grin. “That sounds romantic, man. I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he said, voice slow and smooth, that smile right where it had been since he’d settled comfortably on the bed. As for Louis being police - retired or not - wasn’t surprising at all. Louis was the kind of man who felt powerless, Evan knew, and those men liked positions of power. It didn’t bother him, though maybe it should, but he knew everyone had hang-ups, and if Louis had more than most, well, it didn’t bother Evan. He tugged fingers through those blond curls again, the touch lazy propriety, and then he leaned back against the wall and the pillows at his back.
“We’ll see what I can do,” Evan said about the drugs, and he meant it. He hadn’t really cared very much, the effect of the antiDs - not when it came to this anyway - but he was starting to think it would be a real shame to never bend this particular blond over a flat surface. “Next Friday. I’ll break away from my babysitter, and I’ll text you a location.” He rubbed Louis’ chin between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me you’ll see me later. Tell me in a way I’ll remember.”
“You should feel good about it,” Louis said, with an edge of humor. “It suits you, the romantic. I think it’s fitting.” He let Evan lean back, not pursuing, staying comfortably where he was, leaning against his chest.
Louis bit the inside of his lip, trying not to think about all the good, all the things he wanted that might be on the horizon if Evan could keep to his word. He didn’t like hope, didn’t like admitting to it or succumbing to it, the same way becoming invested in someone made him feel helpless and open to attack. He would try not to think about it overmuch.
Louis blinked, and debated, for a moment. How to be remembered? He wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. On impulse, he slid forward, closing the gap between them, and pushed himself up enough that he could really kiss him. For a moment, he banished everything else - his nervousness, his fear of things not working out, his surprise that he’d managed to get away with barely discussing the masquerade. He just kissed him, pressing his tongue into his mouth. He grasped at boldness he didn’t often have in situations like these, tasting, taking, some of the hunger from the changeling in that long, searching roll of lips and tongue.
Louis pulled back from him reluctantly. “Now,” he said, sliding a hand over the fingers that had been tangled in his hair, “You ought to rest.” He looked rumpled by now, his shirt collar askew and his curls going in all directions, but there was no mistaking that being happy, even in his quiet way, made him look younger, lighter. He slid off the bed. “Don’t forget,” he advised him, before slipping through the door.